A theory tuba versus trumpet

[gocsick]

Sorry for the provocative title... but I couldn't find a more accurate one that is shorter.

I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while...

A while back I was talking with the couple who run my favorite local brass repair business. Great people.. but they are both trumpet players. She is a DMA and is a respected trumpey teacher and plays in a good local orchestra... he is a good player without a degree but does s lot of legit and jazz work around. They were both commenting about how trumpet players often really struggle with switching to a C trumpet in college and sometimes it even breaks students and they fail/drop out. They observed that tuba players seem to be mich more comfortable on instruments in multiple keys.

My two penny theory, because academics love to have theories about everything (even topics we know nothing about), is that tuba players have to learn, from fairly early in playing, that we make the music not the tuba. We have really wide slots and have to actively steer our pitch and sound to a greater degree.. (also we have wretchedly out of tube instruments sometimes and we have to compensate). Also tuba has to deal with functional intonation or adjusting for the role our part pays on the Harmony... plus we have to deal with stretch tuning in the low register when playing with piano etc. Trumpets on the other hand have the benefit (or curse) of really deep narrow slots. Pitch is much more set and forget... I don't mean to trivialize the difficulties of playing high brass... but I don't think many, even very talented, high school trumpet players really get the idea that they make the sound not the trumpet. Then when they pick up a horn in a new key they suddenly have to start actively making adjustments that were dirty if automatic on the Bb. They are now surely in a world where the sound coming out of the bell doesn't match what's in their brain and it is a real struggle.

My friends generally agreed with the idea... but defaulted to the idea that trumpet is just harder than tuba (possibly true... I am about as good as a decent high school freshman on trumpet.. and I'd like to think I am at least marginally better at tuba).

Ok we have lots of edu-macated honkers here... including some fine teachers... not to mention quite a few multi-instrumentalist ...shoot my idea full of holes. I'd love to learn something new.

[bloke]

Trumpet is harder than tuba, due to demands on and expectations of the players.
As a very very general statement, C trumpets tend to be more squirrelly than B flat trumpets just as with tubas built in those two lengths, because trumpets built in those two lengths are the same as tubas built in those two lengths: They are the same size, but just chopped down shorter when C length.

[thattubaguy]

I don’t disagree with the premise, but I have these thoughts to add;

Tuba, regardless of pitch, READS in concert pitch. We learn to hear the pitch that is on the page - we don’t associate the written note with any ONE fingering; Trumpets, regardless of pitch, play transposed music. Written C is ALWAYS in the same spot with the same fingering - not at all the case with Tubas.

[Snake Charmer]

Not always. In symphonic use there often enough parts for trumpet in E or F# or whatever and at least in my orchestra they are always playing Bb or C trumpets for this. Trumpet is more demanding for the chops using a smaller part of the lips for producing a much higher frequency compared to tuba.
A trumpet pro friend of mine uses a 3-valve euphonium for working on new pieces. She says she can practice longer with the bigger mouthpiece and so it's a great way to put fingerings, speed and everything right before getting it on the "hard horn" (her words!)

[1 Ton Tommy]

I play both tuba and trumpet. Much orchestral literature is written for C trumpet and, as mentioned, some for other keys. I presume that's a holdover from the days before valves. Anyhow trumpeters past a certain point HAVE to learn to transpose. One can't rely on a C horn to play charts written in concert pitch. There are too many of them, particularly in jazz combos. I gave my C trumpet to the new section leader when I switched to tuba. They are used because they have inherently better internal intonation. No flat high D and they are more stable above the staff were the partials are so close.

I have been handed charts written for clarinet in A; I have to play with guitarists who love E. Both those situations require me to pull the main slide far enough to put the horn in A and put my fingers ahead of the 1st and 3rd saddles to get the valves in tune. I can improvise in B when the vocalist calls tunes in A but for F# forget it; I have to put the horn into A then F# becomes F, which is easy.

That said, I have difficulty improvising on C trumpet. My brain just doesn't make the transition. I also have difficulty improvising on Eb tuba. It's much easier on Bb tuba. I believe that's because so much of my improvising has been on Bb instruments over the years.

I showed Tine Helseth (International trumpet soloist extrordenaire, who almost always plays a C horn) a picture of me on stage playing Bb trumpet with the tuba sitting next to me. I said, "If you need a double, it can be done." She took my phone and studied the picture looking at me quizzically and I said, "The trumpet embrachure fits entirely inside the Tuba embrachure." Her face lit up and she said, "So you get a massage with the tuba." Even her lip gets tired, I gather.

[Mary Ann]

I'm no trumpet player, but the amateur trumpeters I know, and some of the pros, appear to read by fingering, not pitch ( a la British brass band.) So if someone gets pretty advanced on a Bb and then is presented with a C, they have to learn a whole new set of fingerings (because that's how they read) for the same notes on the page.
Some won't be able to do that.
Clarinetists do it all the time, but they don't have to form the pitches with their chops; reading by fingering works for them because the instrument just plays the note that you have your fingers down for.
With oboe and cor anglais, I had the trumpeter problem -- same notes on page, different sounds come out, and since I read by pitch, not fingering, it took quite a while to separate the two instruments in my head. I'd be reading along on one and get mixed up and would start using the fingerings for the other and hear wrong notes come out. I would guess that some trumpet players have the same problem, but worse because they have to buzz the pitch on top of the different fingering. For brass - I really do think it is easier to read by pitch and not read by fingering. I don't know how most tuba players do it, actually. I do know that your body learns to buzz a pitch by rote, and with the different lengths of bugle the correct buttons have to be mashed.

[bloke]

I don't currently I own a C instrument... and E flat tuba is admittedly my weakest reading tuba, but I can pick up any of the four and read bass clef, treble clef, and B flat treble clef. I'm getting old, so I might find that I'm a little rusty at one or another of them from time to time - particularly since I'm spending so much time playing B flat compared to everything else, these days.

My two different F instruments, my E flat instrument, and my two different B flat instruments all feature different valve setups. Not two of them are the same as far as "this one is just like that one except shorter/longer".

The fact that they are all different helps remind me which instrument I'm playing and triggers my brain to match the right buttons with the correct instrument.

[windshieldbug]

My opinion is that the difficulty lies in the bore profile, not the key or range.
Most tubas are largely conical bore horns.
Most trumpets are largely cylindrical bore horns.

Changing keys changes bore profiles.

One might be more accurate comparing flugelhorns and tubas.

[bloke]

I'm not sure the point is worth arguing, but I just think it's a simple matter of familiarity. The more one transposes - and the more one plays instruments - whereby they have to change fingering patterns but continue to read concert pitch music, the better they get at it.

Also, the better someone is at playing what's in their head, the easier it is to transpose, because they have multiple scale patterns for every chromatic step at their fingertips and can look at a passage, hear what it sounds like in their mind's ear, and their fingers do 90% or more of the thinking.

[Schlitzz]

I saw a lot of discipline problems with tuba and trumpet players in the military. Trumpet players with filing their teeth down, sobriety, and sexual misconduct issues. Tuba players that were lazy about gear moves. Saw an E6 tuba player send an E4 to NJP, for dragging the E6’s tuba case. The E4 was a trumpet player.

Should’ve been a viola player.