Tips for Beginning Tuba

Series Summary

The oompah sound of the tuba is probably one of the most distinctive things this low-register brass giant has going for it. Often found in orchestral settings, marching bands, and Bavarian beer festivals, the tuba is a large valve instrument that produces deep, smooth notes and tones. Whether it’s creating a pulsing bass line for accompaniment, or actually playing the lead melody in a song, the tuba’s sound is hard to miss. And it takes a special kind of person to play this beast of an instrument. Tubas are not known to impart to their owners any abilities to look cool or “rock out.” Rather the opposite—tuba players are often stigmatized for choosing something less popular than, say, the mighty, ubiquitous three or four: guitar, drums, bass, and keyboard.

If you have just entered the wonderful world of tuba players, take some time and watch this free video series. Our expert, Kevin Smith, shows you how to practice the tuba. He offers advice on increasing your tuba playing ability. Learn how to practice major and minor scales. Learn how to slur, tongue, and buzz your tuba mouthpiece. Kevin also show s you how to play octaves and intervals on the tuba. Like they say, practice makes perfect! So, start learning how to play tuba today!

Video Transcript

"Hello everyone, I'm Kevin Smith, aka TubaLove, the series that I'm about to begin is a typical practice session as I call it. And I want to let it be known first off this is really just kind of a general outline. I think there's some you know critically important aspects in here, and I'll let you know what they are as we get to them. But more, more, more so it's just a general kind of outline of things that you can do on any kind of typical practice session. And I also want to stress, especially for any of you out there that are just starting to take the instrument up now that a good teacher is indispensable for starting. Early on in one of my other series, I was saying that I did not get proper instruction in doing just certain physical things the proper way when I started playing the tuba. And what this meant was that I really had to spend a lot of time somewhere down the road unlearning all of the bad habits that I had acquired, such as not playing with a proper embouchure, not breathing properly. So you know, if you can get yourself a good teacher and get started right away on the correct way to play this instrument, it's all going to be second nature to you anyway. It's not things that you're going to have to think "Am I doing this?" or "I need to do this" because it's really going to be part and parcel of the way that you learn how to play the instrument anyway. So again, I advocate starting with a good tuba teacher as a very important part of your total regimen."