I just picked it up today, playing a double horn (with thumb valve) and I'm wondering if anyone here has played, and if they have tips? Other than the usual, "keep your mouth tight" sort of stuff. I already play tuba, trombone and euphonium (and could play trumpet if pressed) So I think I might have heard most of the tips...
Anyone else play brass/strings/woodwings/percussion/reed instruments?
SAXES DON'T COUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
Once upon a time I used to have a lot of time racked up behind the clarinet, and eventualy was one of only two bass clarinet players at my high school for the 4-years I was there. Last couple years I played I was getting bored with it, no new challenge was in it for me unless I talked my family into forking out the $ for private lessons/tutoring/schooling... and I think at the time I was more concerned in coercing $ outa them for a 3rd-hand car. I used to know a few keys on the sax too. Been so long now, I can only maybe remember enough keys on a clarinet to play one or two scales.
But yeah, I loved it, and the gift of being able to read, compose (or at least, simpley write down) and apreciate music so early on was a blessing to me I feel. To this day I can hear a piece of music playing in my head while reading it right off the sheet, before actually hearing it played or any sound made, and that is a wonder to me, as it's almost being litterate in a language that so many others in this world are illiterate in... yet it is not a language, just sounds, and every language has sounds.
Edit: Oh jeez, I can't believe I forgot, it's been a long time - the other Bass Clarinetist in school was mostly blind... like further-than-8-inches-forget-about-even-seeing-a-silohet-blind blind, cane and all (he even had a dog that our fascist administrators would be kind enough to let him bring to school and use for rare and special events like a field trip or concert at a different school). If you practice enough before performing a piece you don't need the sheet music, but with him we (most the clarinets, and especially me being the other bass) had no choice but to practice enough to of learned most every piece by heart with him (and lord knows he probabley practiced at home twice as much and hard as the next kid). He wa such a nice person and god-gifted player too, especialy on the regular clarinet and in comparison to anything I could do, always loved helping him out and even picking up something new from him on occasion.
