![]() ![]() Clearly the time had come for me to sell my $4,000 tuba and buy a more beat-up used horn at a lower price, one with rotary valves (which look like miniature oars your fingers push on the broad paddle end) that would be more comfortable for me to play. For a writer (me) and an editor (him), a couple thousand extra dollars would be a big boon in scraping together that down payment. I’ve tried adjusting the ring where you hook your thumb to anchor your hand while four fingers manage the four valves, but that hasn’t helped.Īround the same time that I was being reminded of all this, my husband and I were preparing to buy our first house. This made me cognizant of another issue I’ve been in denial about for years: my hand has never been comfortable playing the piston valves on my tuba. If it’s over on the third valve helping its neighbor and the next note requires me to depress the fourth valve, the hiccup of moving it back and forth can make me lag behind the beat. That pinkie is supposed to be on the fourth valve. ![]() It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but earlier this year, while practicing up for a brass band competition, I discovered that this little habit holds me back while fingering through fast passages. Whenever I press down the third valve of my tuba, I use my pinkie finger to help my ring finger push. My college tuba professor first noticed it, and at his exhortation, I’ve tried to break it.
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