Posted by Kenneth Sloan on March 15, 2003 at 16:00:54:
In Reply to: Re: Different tuba fingerings -- a survey posted by Rick Denney on March 14, 2003 at 01:06:09:
In my opinion, it is *very* important to distinguish between "novice" and "expert" methods of performing any task. The concept of having something "in your fingers" is useful.
"Novice" techniques involve a lot of thinking. Look at the page, count the lines and spaces, recall the name of the note, recall the fingering for that note...OK, now we can play it.
"Expert" techniques involve no thinking at all. Look at the page, play the note.
Experts may not know that they are acting as experts. If you ask an expert how they do something ("how do you translate the blot on the page to the note coming out the bell") they may give an explanation based on how they did it when they were novices.
Novices should not try to do things the way that Experts actually do them. They can't. This is why Billy Martin had a long and distinguished career as a baseball manager, while his teammate Mickey Mantle (a much better player) never coached a day in his life.
Back to fingerings...we all learned our first set of fingerings in an instant (relatively speaking). So, it's not an inherently difficult task. The problem for most players is that they learn *new* fingerings after then have already become "experts" at one fingering, but before they become experts at playing the instrument. It's the middle-ground players (say, about at the level of a typical college freshman) who have traumatic experiences to report.
Less expert players have nothing invested in the original fingerings, and can play in new fingerings about as fast as they (not-quite) learned the firt set.
More expert players have a profound intuition (and accumulated knowledge) about music and can pick up different fingering systems very quickly.
For the middle-ground player, my advice is: do whatever is necessary (invent any story that makes sense for you) to get to the point where you can play daily exercises and well known tunes. Then...just play. The process of moving the fingerings from your brain and "into your fingers" is not something that can be faked. The only way to do it is to put in the hours, wiggling your fingers and blowing.
Very high level experts will simply not understand this - and those who refuse to learn it will never become accomplished TEACHERS.
Most middle-level players won't really understand it either - they will insist that there is something magic about the story they told themselves.
The truth is - use whatever "story" works for you. Read in soprano clef, change all the lines to spaces and vice versa, add 2 sharps and subtract 3 flats, and read from top to bottom instead of left to right. It doesn't matter.
What does matter, and what does work, is DRILL. Sorry about that. DRILL is boring - but ask any successful athletic coach about the path to victory. They will all cite "excellence through fundamentals" and "repetition, repetition, and repetition".
Everything else is sugar coating - a story that you tell the student (or the threats you make, or the bribes you offer) to get them to actually do the DRILL.
Question: how did you learn your (decimal) multiplication tables? Suppose you had to learn the multiplication tables for numbers in base 8 (4x4 = 20)?
If you really want it "in your fingers", then you DRILL, DRILL, DRILL.
Which leaves only the question of how to make the DRILL tolerable (or even enjoyable, and useful for other things as well).