What are some euphonium sound problems?

Answer 1

I'm not even sure what this question means. However, I can tell you how to improve your sound a bit.

Sometimes I find my fingers have slipped over and I am playing the wrong valves, which does not help!

Next, I found I put a slide back the wrong way around and it would not go in completely. That does not help either.

Once I cleaned my valves and forgot what order they'd come out: it took me ages to look at them really carefully judging against where the holes were and put them in a row accordingly and then put them back in the right places.

Next, it takes a long time to develop the right muscles to play each note. So you play a note one day, and can't, and then you go to bed and the next day you try again, and like magic, you can! (very exciting!) Until you get to high G which I have been stuck on for about six weeks and am only getting the hang of now.

Next, you need to learn to breath properly. You need to use the good part of your lungs and not the dregs, so you need to fill up a lot and often, and breath with your mouth open - hard to remember.

Then you need to breath with your diagphram. I am only just learning to feel with these muscles; it feels a bit like throwing up but it is very exciting when you suddenly realise you can feel how to do it a bit. Lungs alone aren't really enough, you need the extra oomph.

Then there is the attack: you need to start with a good 'T' sound, and when it gets really fast you need to learn to double tongue, which apparently involves saying "tee Kee Tee Kee" or some such but I have not got that far yet really.

Some bits you don't attack: they involve lip slurring. You can tell a lip slur because the notes are joined by a bracket. But I've not yet learned to distinguish between a phrase and a lip slur since I am a complete novice and slightly dyslexic.

Then you need to relax a bit. If you listen to the euphonium in a band piece, it often sounds quite quiet and causal, like it's no big deal, like you can just reel this fantastic stuff out in the background with no effort at all. The euphoniumist is on some other planet from everybody else just doing his or her own thing, but not in a flashy way. If you relax you can manage the breathing better.

Basically, when you start you sound like a pharting elephant, that's normal. I am five months in now and I think I sound pretty cool by now. Only another eight years and grades to go!