2023 Iowa All-State Tuba/Euphonium Audition Practice Materials
Fundamental Routines
This is a collection of exercises designed to help tuba/euphonium players develop their sound, increase their range/flexibility, and improve their technique. The routine contains exercises from the Remington Warm-Up, Concone Studies, Chris Olka exercises, and others.
Both the Basic Warm-Up and Beautiful Sounds exercise has a backing track that includes a rhythmically engaging drum beat and drone that the player can use to help train their ear to play with better intonation and sense of time.
BASIC WARM-UP [aka The Remington Warm-Up]
This is an excellent chromatic long tone warm-up that gives the player plenty of time to find their best sound on each note and work their way into the low register. This exercise can easily be modified by changing the rhythm from whole notes to quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, etc.
BEAUTIFUL SOUNDS [aka The Arnold Jacobs Study]
This flow study is an EXCELLENT way for players to work on their evenness of sound throughout their instrument, melodic playing/phrasing, intonation, and scales. I highly recommend using this exercise as a part of your daily warm-up and fundamentals routine.
Etude Scale Studies
These scale studies were designed to help students practice the scales, arpeggios, and rhythms found in the 2023-24 Iowa All State Tuba and Euphonium audition materials.
The studies are meant to help you practice the difficult aspects of the etude outside of the etude so you can fully commit to making music and expressing ideas when performing, not thinking about notes and rhythms.
Mouthpiece Buzzing [The Buzzing Book by James Thompson]
For more thoughts and explanations of the benefits of mouthpiece buzzing and a buzzing warm-up visit: Mouthpiece Buzzing
Ideas for how much and what to practice for All State audition prep
I recommend to my students that are preparing for auditions or big performances to plan on practicing 90 minutes - 2 hours a day.
That time can be broken up throughout the day. I recommend 2 practice sessions in the day.
Practice Session 1 [early morning / before rehearsals]
Dedicate your first practice session [45 - 60 minutes] to playing through a fundamentals routine and ALL of your required scales.
I recommend you play through both the Warm-Up's and Fundamentals packet AND the scale studies packet for this session. If you play through both of them entirely it takes about 45 minutes including little breaks between exercises.
Practice Session 2 [end of the day / after rehearsals]
This practice session would focus on learning the required etudes and your solo. Use the Divide and Conquer Technique to practice each etude and your solo in 20-30 minute chunks to maximize your practice efficiency.
RECORD YOURSELF AT THE END OF EACH PRACTICE SESSION
I recommend using the TE Tuner App during your practice sessions for the metronome, drone, AND recording features. Use the app to record yourself "performing" the material that you practiced at the end of your practice session. This includes your scales, solo, and your etudes...basically anything that is required for the audition.
Listen to that recording critically. You are training yourself to be a better player, listener, and [eventually] teacher by objectively listening to your recordings and identifying what areas of your playing you like and what areas you need to continue to improve on. Use these findings to adapt your fundamentals routine and include exercises that you [or your teacher] think would help you improve the things you need to improve. I like to start my practice sessions by listening to the recordings I made the day before and altering my fundamentals practice based on what I'm hearing in my recordings.
This is how you get better faster. Most people will not do this.
To quote the great Jerry Rice, "Today, I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can do what others can't."
Recordings
Use these recordings as a reference but strive to develop your own unique interpretation of the etudes
"inspiration through imitation"
Tuba Etude #1 [Blazevich #8]
Professor Dave Zerkel [University of Michigan]
Tuba Etude #2 [Blazevich #26]
Yukitada Onitsuka
Dr. Zach Marley [Low Brass U - University of Minnesota Duluth]
Euphonium Etude #1 [Voxman pg. 19]
David Lang
Euphonium Etude #1 [Voxman pg. 45]
David Lang
Upcoming Tuba/Euphonium Studio Events
OcTUBAfest
October 24th - 6 p.m. - Davis Hall
a rootin' tootin' good time with solo, quartet, and full ensemble performances featuring POLKAS
UNITUBA Concert
November 9th - 8 p.m. - Davis Hall
a recital of works for the full tuba and euphonium ensemble featuring arrangements of music by Beethoven, Thomas Tallis, Frankie Valli, The Chordettes, and more!