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Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
The right hand and arm on a four valve tuba does two things, it stabilizes the tuba and it plays the valves. The right forearm rests against the tuba, which supports the instrument in place on the leg and it also stabilizes the right arm as the fingers press the valves. As a guitarist, to me this is the same as resting the right arm on the guitar, so that you can play anchored easily to the guitar.
There are two considerations here. You want the tuba so balanced and assisted by the left hand over the top of the instrument, that you do not have to tense and pull the right arm towards you. This would really interfere with the right hand’s and fingers’ freedom. In other words, if you’re pressing into the tuba with the right forearm, you are putting a lot of pressure on the forearms flexors, which are the muscles that send the fingers into the valves.
The left hand and arm of a four valve tuba player is placed on top of the instrument to stabilize, hold, and position the instrument for the rest of the body. I’d like you to play the tuba and place all of your attention on what is happening in the left hand and arm and shoulder. Now, as you’re playing, experiment with how little work it takes for the left arm and hand to keep the tuba against your lips and balanced on your leg, legs, or chair.
Keep doing less and less work in the arm until you are doing too little, and then do just enough for it to be just enough. Also, really feel your left hand fingers wrapping around and extending around the tuba, as if they were glued to it. This really keeps you from squeezing the instrument, which is incredibly hard on the hand and arm as you play.
Starting from too little to get the job done is a very important Alexander Technique principle that we teach our students. Almost every musician who comes to an Alexander Technique teacher is doing too much work, because he is trying too hard to be accurate and clean on his instrument. We teach you to do too little, so that you can figure out what is just enough, so you never get in trouble again.
On a three valve tuba, the right arm is free-floating to the valves, so the trick is to do just enough work in the right arm and shoulder, so that the fingers are light on the valves. But not so light, that when you press the valves your hand is pushed up off of the valves. You also don’t want to play with a rigid arm to prevent this. So, let there be just enough weight in the arm, so the arm doesn’t move when you press the valves. This way you are actually using less shoulder muscle to play the valves, and a rigid arm becomes totally unnecessary.
