Re: double buzz


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Posted by safety biker on February 15, 2003 at 01:25:10:

In Reply to: double buzz posted by frusterated on February 06, 2003 at 00:54:57:

Move the mouthpiece higher on your lip. In my opinion, the top lip does most of the buzzing, and the bottom lip does most of the pitch changing. If there is too much botton lip in the mouthpiece, it tries to buzz too much, and clashes with the top lip. Moving the mouthpiece higher will put more top lip in, which is good.

I also agree with another response you received that your bottom lip is probably too loose. Keep the lip corners firm, especially the outsides of the bottom lip.

Many times doing these two things will improve your sound in general, not just on the double buzzing problem notes.

I have had students with this problem. One way to work through it is to hold the note in question for a long time at a very soft dynamic level. You will probably not get the double buzz when playing softly. Let's say for one minute, breathing when necessary. Rest a little, then try it a slight bit louder. Keep increasing the dynmic level, stepping it up one minute at a time, resting in between, until the buzz comes back. You will then know at what dynamic level the problem starts. Avoid playing the problem note(s) at that level or higher whenever possible, as the music allows, for a long time, like a month. During that month, practice holding the note, daily, using the procedure above. You are trying to retrain you lip to work correctly on that note.

Also, I've noticed, when helping students buy instruments, that some notes on some tubas are particularly prone to this. If the problem is too bad, we return the instrument for a replacement during the trial period. Many times tubas that are excellent in other ways have these irritating notes. I believe that certain ranges on the instruments are less stable than others for some reason. The range I have noticed as being most unstable is the 5th and 6th partial on the overtone series, or D and F on a BBb tuba, E and G on a CC tuba. I don't really want to name brands here, but one tuba I played at a local music store, very expensive, and beautiful to look at, in CC, had such a TERRIBLE E that it was unusable. Not just flat, as that partial usually is, but almost non-existant. A player would have NEEDED to play that note 1-2. I just couldn't believe it got out of the testing stage that way, and would never have considered buying it for even half the price. Another brand of BBb that I recommend my students buy sometimes has the double buzz problems you are talking about in the same range. Especially if trying to attack the note loudly, the attack would be unstable and the pitch would shoot up one harmonic. This would happen for me, too, when trying the student's horn. When holding the pitch for longer periods, the double buzz would occur. So, it may not be all your fault, but you can learn to control it. Many times I would have no problem on a student's horn when they did. Using the procedure above fixed the problem over time.


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