Intermediate Euphonium (TBA Archives)

If you would like to improve your teaching of intermediate euphonium, this post is for you!

The TBA Archives refer to the Texas Bandmasters Association archives of clinic handouts from past conventions. Conventions are one of the best ways to learn new things, spark new ideas, ask questions and be inspired. The only problem is all of that new knowledge is thrown at us in about a 48 hour window and it’s hard to retain much of it.

The TBA archives are a great on-line resource that can be beneficial to use (when you have time) to remind you of things you learned at conventions. It can also give you some ideas you may have missed out on if you weren’t able to attend convention.

In these posts on BandDirectorsTalkShop.com we will choose a clinic handout that can give you good ideas even without the actual presentation. We’ll highlight a few great quotes we noticed and give you the link to the full handout. Clinicians spend a lot of time preparing the handouts and they can be a wonderful resource if they don’t get lost in a pile on your desk. I will try not to comment or analyze because I don’t want to misinterpret the clinician’s meaning.

Today’s Highlighted Clinic:
Intermediate Euphonium
by Joe Pruitt

Mr. Pruitt mentions SO many (hundreds) of specific points, it was hard to pick my favorites.
But here goes:

Posture: The instrument is brought to the embouchure, not the upper body moving to the instrument.
Breathing: Breathe to the bottom of the chair.
Voicing: Shaping the inside of the mouth and throat; must be cavernous
Associative learning: Associate how a note sound and feels at the same time
Tonguing: Place tongue tip (not top) to the point of articulation and hold there while inhaling on preparatory beat. Keep tongue soft and allow the air to move tongue back to resting position. Tongue movement is a result of the air movement.
Tone Quality:
Problem – Tight, closed sound
a)Lips too close together
b) Teeth closed
Solution –
a) Yawn
b) Feeling of holding wet Nerf Bell in back of throat
c) Vibrato exercise
Hints for upper range: He lists 6 including aim air stream downward in the mouthpiece and less upper lip pressure
Two enemies of the wind musician:
1) Lack of mental focus
2) Creeping tension