Never assume

[BrassSection]

I guess one should never assume people know their instruments. Talking to the drummer in church one day, also a high school band director and a tuba guy. Mentioned about cleaning my horns and greasing up the tuning slides, and verifying tuning of all the valves. He said I’m rare. He had to teach all his band brass valved instrument players the main tuning slide isn’t the only one you tune your horn with. He then went on to say he has seen a few pros with all their valve tuning slides the whole way in! Asked when and how I learned about it. Told him I was never taught it, it’s just common sense. (I never had any in person instruction past senior high). Can people not tell when they are out of tune??

[robcat2075]

It's hard to know you're out of tune when everyone else is out of tune and you've never been in a situation where everyone else was in tune.

That will be a very common situation in school ensembles.