Flexibility on euph

[hyperbolica]

I've been playing trombone for ~45? years, and a decade or so of that was pretty intense. I'd like to think I've got some of the basics down.

I've dabbled with euphonium here and there, but never really took it very seriously. I bought a euphonium and started practicing euph once or twice a week now for maybe a couple of years and I'm starting to get past the valves being the biggest impediment to moving forward. Not that I'm really fast, but I make fewer mistakes than I used to. Just to say that the bar is low.

My next obstacle feels like flexibility. It feels like my chops are super stiff, even when I'm all warmed up, and on trombone they wouldn't be stiff. I get a lot of airballs when I play. I mean I go to play a note, and I just get a pfffff.... Also I feel like I don't have much dynamic range on euph. I can play the hell out of a mf, but I can't play monstrously loud, and I definitely can't play pp. I can do all that on bone. My bone chops seem fine, and the airballs don't happen on bone, but on euph, it's bad sometimes. Warming up helps, blowing through the notes seems to help. It helps if I articulate every note with the tongue, but that's the whole playing euph like a bone player thing.

I'm playing with a euph mouthpiece - Wick SM4, and also a DE EUPH 104 J8, and get similar results with both. My chops aren't tired when this happens. And as bad as my tuba playing is, this doesn't happen on tuba. I've got issues on tuba I don't expect to fix.

I haven't ruled out the horn. I have a Wessex Festivo. It did have a leak in it where compensating notes that used the 2nd valve leaked, but that leak was fixed. The only thing I have to compare it to is a Conn Connstellation 24i, which is a very different instrument. It plays more like a trombone, small shank, smaller bore, non-compensating and I don't get the weird airballs.

So how would I go about troubleshooting this problem, and what to do to fix it? Is it just a chop problem that bone players have when trying to play euph? Anybody get what's going on here?

[MrHCinDE]

One big difference between euph and trombone is that unless you have a tuning slide trigger, which I don‘t think the Festivo has, you don‘t have the luxury of built-in micro adjustments with the slide. Everything has to be done with the lips.

I noticed this recently quite acutely with a new-to-me oval tenorhorn that has different intonation quirks to my euph. I had initially been using muscle memory of where I expected the make lip corrections based on my euph but they didn‘t match what was needed and led to more split notes and airballs. If you don‘t yet know instinctively in advance of playing each note what the intonation tendency will be, maybe spend some time with tuning drones to really nail it down. If you didn’t look at it already, try out some alternate fingerings also. Using the 4th valve on F about the bass clef staff and 4+1 for the Eb might be a start, not necessary on all euphs though but works well on quite a few.

Using the lips to correct everything can result in some lack of flexibility. Just pull the tuning slide on your bone to about 20 cents flatter than your usual position and play through the partials in first position with a tuner and try to lip them up to get in tune, it probably wont‘t feel great, even harder at pp. Coming to euph from trombone I think this is mainly a question of intonation practice and building some strength/endurance to cope with more lip adjustments.

There’s more to it than tuning though. I’m not sure how to quantify it but euph often needs different airflow. It can take a bit more air to get going than say a light, resonant 88h, which makes pp especially tricky. One of the top euph players in the British brass banding movement described it to me as wanting to paint every surface in the room with a velvety sound. I suppose as a generalisation that could translate to a very stable and wide air column (more like bass trombone than tenor for me personally), not overly focussed but without losing the intensity.

I think there’s no easy answer of how to achieve a beautiful and reliable pp sound, that’s just about what differentiates the very best British brass bands from the very good ones. One exercise I do is to take something like a Rochut and play through with a metronome at a fixed, slow tempo. Try to get as far as you can with a quality sound before you run out of air then mark with a pencil where you got to. Next practice, try it again a little bit quieter and try to beat your previous mark, rinse and repeat. If you start getting airballs, go back up a tiny bit louder the next time and work your way down again.

Playing at ff is generally less difficult than pp, it could be you are playing very loud but miss that colour change you get more of on trombone and thus don’t perceive it to be ff?

A couple of lessons with a euph specialist might help? If there’s any doubt about leaks etc, maybe have them try your horn as well (in a COVID safe way).

[Burgerbob]

Sounds like you may be underfunding the horn with air. Trombone air on euphonium will work to an extent, but won't get it to play or sound the way it should (much like bass trombone, or large tenor coming from small).

[hyperbolica]

MrHCinDE,

I'm there with you on tuning. I play as many notes as possible on single valves. 3 instead of 1&2, 4 instead of 1&3. Bad intonation makes me cringe. The Festivo is pretty good, but 2&3 combos are not.

I try to separate the sound quality from the intonation. It is possible that I don't understand what a euphonium is supposed to sound like. Studying with someone would be the best option, but in this area, the euph teachers are all primarily bone players. I'm not going to go anywhere on euph, so it doesn't make sense to put a lot into it.

Your air idea, or maybe the oral cavity is probably part of my problem. I'm tempted to go the direction that works for me, which would be to just play the 24i, which by the way would also solve the intonation problem because it has a mts trigger.

[Wilktone]

Something to consider is the differences in how the euphonium and trombone are held. Ideally you want the horn angles, mouthpiece placement, and overall posture to match between instruments.

Video record or watch yourself carefully in a mirror. When you play large intervals how are you pushing/pulling the mouthpiece and lips together along the teeth on trombone? How do horn angles change when you’re playing this same large intervals? Is it working correctly for you on trombone?

Once you’re aware of those small adjustments on trombone (and are confident that they are working efficiently for you), try to transfer those changes onto euphonium. Make sure the euphonium mouthpiece is getting to your lips at the same angle.

And of course, breathing will feel different between the two instruments. Intonation adjustments happen differently too. Different mouthpiece feel too.

Dave

[hyperbolica]

Wilktone,

Part of the reason I play valves at all is because trombone ergonomic beat me up a little. After I'm done with an hour on trombone, I'm actually sweaty and a little out of breath. An hour with a euph to me is much less physically strenuous, but I also feel less successful.

I'm just putting this together, but I tend to play euph relaxed in a recliner chair, while I play trombone sitting up properly in a folding chair.

The tbone allows you to position it better, but it also requires you to position it. Horn position on euph all stems from the mouthpiece. That's a good idea to video intervals. I move a tbone in ways you can't move a euph.

[timothy42b]

The tbone allows you to position it better, but it also requires you to position it. Horn position on euph all stems from the mouthpiece. That's a good idea to video intervals. I move a tbone in ways you can't move a euph.

Following up on Dave's comment, on trombone usually your head stays fairly still and the horn moves. But on euph you often can't do that easily, so you hold the horn still and the head moves.

Watch a french horn player sometime, you'd think they'd get whiplash.

Anyway, if you hold the horn still and the head still, doesn't work.

[hyperbolica]

The tbone allows you to position it better, but it also requires you to position it. Horn position on euph all stems from the mouthpiece. That's a good idea to video intervals. I move a tbone in ways you can't move a euph.

Following up on Dave's comment, on trombone usually your head stays fairly still and the horn moves. But on euph you often can't do that easily, so you hold the horn still and the head moves.

Watch a french horn player sometime, you'd think they'd get whiplash.

Anyway, if you hold the horn still and the head still, doesn't work.

That's probably part of the problem.

[MrHCinDE]

Interesting idea around the head positions and making videos of intervals etc.

I might try that myself to better understand the impact of mid-gig changes between the yoga positions necessary to play an oval tenorhorn compared with the comfortable, familiar world of the trombone.

Yesterday I played about the first half of a Biergarten gig on tenorhorn and swapped round to trombone quite a bit in the second half. I have the feeling that once I started switching, my tenorhorn playing suffered a little bit as a result. It could be at least partly down to the difference in head/mouthpiece position.

I'm not sure I'd completely separate out sound quality from intonation. The euphoniums I've played have generally had quite wide slotting but even then, the further you go from the centre of the instrument pitch for any note (whether that's in tune, sharp or flat), the harder it is to make a rich, sonorous sound, especially at extremes of dynamics. Vibrato can help cover a multitude of sins and generally makes the sound richer, where it is musically appropriate. Unfortunately, and I count myself in this group sometimes, some euph/bari/tenorhorn players use excess vibrato to disguise some tuning issue in ensemble...this gets found out pretty quickly when you have something like a British brass band test piece with some middle-of-the-band pp parts marked senza vibrato, the real intonation and quality pp playing issues come out then and often the sound suddenly becomes muss less secure, even for very good players who have specialized in those instruments for decades and sound great in a comfortable mf section.

Hyperbolica, if you have some spare practice time and don't need to sell the Festivo for any other reason, you won't lose anything, apart from time and patience, by holding on to it for a while longer any trying out some of the ideas here.

[hyperbolica]

...

I'm not sure I'd completely separate out sound quality from intonation.

I'm working on them as separate problems. I know how to fix intonation (right now I'm using alternate fingerings and bending pitches where they are still painfully out of tune, which isn't often - the Festivo intonation is mostly good), but I'm not sure right now how to fix the sound quality problem. It might turn out that I'm working at cross purposes here and every advance I make in one area (tbone vs euph vs tuba) is something I take away from everything else.

Hyperbolica, if you have some spare practice time and don't need to sell the Festivo for any other reason, you won't lose anything, apart from time and patience, by holding on to it for a while longer any trying out some of the ideas here.

I have to hold on to some valve instruments. I get the sense that my days of playing the slide are going to come to an end just due to physical constraints. Valves are so much easier on my shoulders. 4 valves in front is the best config for me, and that's why I got the Festivo. Conn 24i is the same config, but not compensating with a smaller bore and bell throat, but the leadpipe is tweaked a little, so holding position is funky. The position ideas are interesting, and I think might yield some results. I fear that in the end, it's an oral cavity shape problem, and that is something that's more difficult to switch with instruments. Lessons with a real euph teacher are probably the best answer, but not feasible right now.

Thanks to all for input.