With the early Leicestershire half term (most of the UK will be having half-term in the week to come), we didn’t have Training Band last week. With quite a busy period and plenty of electric and string bass music to attend to, I’ve neglected the tuba for a few days – probably a week or more.

Fortunately, today’s practise session showed that I haven’t entirely forgotten how to turn blowing down a metal tube into some semblance of music. It felt like it took longer to re-establish than it would do if I took a similar break from the bass. That might be something to do with the nature of the ‘interface’ or maybe it is just that my fingers have got so many playing hours behind them that it would take much longer for them to lose their edge than my lips?