Sousaphone Stories - What's Your Favorite Memory?

[Dave Detwiler]

Hi all,

Knowing that many of us have history with the Sousaphone, I thought it might be fun to share our favorite memories of playing that often-maligned monster. Feel free to post a photo, and/or share the story!

I have quite a few from which to choose, but the easy winner is my time in the tuba section of the 1984 Olympic All American Band. Here's the visual history, and the story of that amazing summer: http://tubapastor.blogspot.com/2021/02/ ... -band.html

Practice in the Coliseum.jpg (143.56 KiB) Viewed 811 times

What's a favorite Sousaphone memory of yours?

[Three Valves]

In HS we competed in both Concert and Marching band. Marching was the best.

I still think of my band trips whenever I smell bus/diesel fumes.

My fiends were busted smoking dope in our hotel room. I was outside on the porch with some chick so I was spared!!

At Delaware I was not a music major so I only marched. No competitions but we did do an occasional away game. We decided to drink Planters Punch on the way to Princeton. Nearly passed out by halftime definately slept on the way home.

Nothing says “party” like a sousaphone!!

[bloke]

Our high school (mostly) owned Conn 36K fiberglass sousaphones...I believe there were three of them. As we received one more...and one more, the old dusty/brown/smelly/not-dented King, Conn, and Holton brass sousaphones mysteriously disappeared. The last one which remained was a King, which I was handed to use when in junior high. It was VERY heavy...obviously: H. N. White.

...I believe - around the time I was in the tenth or eleventh grade - two used Holton fiberglass sousaphones suddenly appeared, but none of us chose to use them...The tuning - with those Holton fiberglass sousaphones - was wonky.

(We had a VERY worn-valves King 1240, and - when I was in the 12th grade - we got two cheap/small tubas: a Miraphone 1270, and a Reynolds TB-10.)

I used the 1270 to play a silly little tuba solo with the band - "A Touch of Tuba" (Art Dedrick...??), but we knew that the budget-grade Conn 4/4 fiberglass sousaphones sounded best with the (yes: "concert" band), so (sure, though we would pull out the tubas, for variety) we used the fiberglass sousaphone via default.

When each of us reached the 12th grade (as the band director typically just added one tuba player to the beginner band each year, and - back then - you did not "quit" endeavors...and the very-very few who did quit were labeled "band-quitters") , we knew it was our individual turn/OBLIGATION to (with our Conn 36K fiberglass/plastic sousaphones, up against Miraphone/Marzan/Meinl-Weston tubas) step up to the plate and earn the principal chair in the Tennessee All-State Band...and each of us took care of that chore...and without any private coaching, just fwiw.

[Three Valves]

I have quite a few from which to choose, but the easy winner is my time in the tuba section of the 1984 Olympic All American Band. Here's the visual history, and the story of that amazing summer: http://tubapastor.blogspot.com/2021/02/ ... -band.html

Once Sing Sing Sing get’s started, it’s hard to stop!!

[Dan Tuba]

So many great memories performing on the sousaphone... whether performing for Presidents, Troops returning home from overseas, etc... I have discovered over the years, that with a little practice, you can play these much maligned "monsters" at a fairly high level.

[graybach]

Getting to college marching band after I was one of a section of two or three in high school and hearing 21 very good tuba players almost blow the walls off the stadium on (pretty heavy, and brand-new) Mirafone sousaphones our first rehearsal. I was 17. College marching band in general was a good experience for me. Most of our band was music majors, and the ones who weren’t were still good and wanted to be there, some more than the music majors. We did a different show every ballgame. That sousaphone section was tight. We rehearsed together, partied together (sometimes during the games. ) and for the most part, were all friends who had a lot of fun at the games. I haven’t really been part of a group that tight since then. Quite a number of us still keep in touch.

[bloke]

When I would go on recruiting tours with the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) brass quintet in high school band rooms, one of the first things I would do would be to look at the sousaphones hanging on the wall, find one with a neck and two tuning bits that worked, and pull it down. I would only play a handful of quiet pitches on it (just to make certain that it worked) and then set it down by my chair.

We most often opened with a quintet transcription/reduction of Percy Grainger's Shepherds Hey, a band composition, at a pretty good clip.

I would play that on the school's sousaphone. i just wanted to demonstrate (right off the bat) that "It's not the tuba".

[Mark E. Chachich]

I never understood why some people bash Sousaphones. I have played some very nice Sousaphones (good sound, good intonation, etc.) As Joe said, it is not the tuba, it is the player. I played too many parades (for pay) with my Alexander and wished that I owned a Sousaphone!

I do own an E Flat Sousaphone that I like but that would not have worked on those jobs because it has a very small bore, a very bright sound and a smiley face on the bell. I also had concerts (different band) those evenings and its sound would not have worked for the reasons given (okay, I probably could have taken the smiley face off the bell but I liked it).

Mark

[bort2.0]

College...

Not a music major, but Sousaphone-wise, I was in the marching band and always made the auditon cut for the "traveling band" for pep band (usually just the top 2 get to go). The football team was good my last few years of school, so there were a lot of weekend bus trips, and then bowl games. Lots of traveling. I've probably been to Atlanta a dozen times just for college band stuff (and another 8-10 times for work).

Bowl games... The best one was the Orange Bowl. Free trip to Miami for college kids in the winter... It was epic. Not sure I want to say a whole lot more about that one.

Pep band was the VIP treatment for athletic bands. Best seats to all the home games. Trips to the conference and national tournaments. Played in two final fours and a national championship: chartered flights, free stuff, and traveled all the country. I got interviewed by MTV once, I think I said "it's awesome, because I got to skip class and go on a free trip to play my tuba at a basketball game." I met Dick Vitale once, too.

[iiipopes]

In the fall of 1976, I was a freshman in high school. The director asked for volunteers to march with a souzy. As a 3rd trumpet nobody, I saw that souzy and thought, they'll see me, and immediately volunteered. Practice, practice, practice. March, march, march. Then the big day came for the first half-time show. I dutifully went to my spot. Then as we ran onto the field, from all sides, my mouthpiece and bits slipped, as I had not realized what it took to keep them secure for the high-step run-on. I had to march the entire show without playing a note. Then at the end, after we marched back off, I went to the yard line where I started. For a moment I couldn't see the mouthpiece. Then it glinted. I picked it up and ran off the nearest sideline out of the way of the team. What makes this great? I had worked so hard at marching that when the mouthpiece fell down through the horn in front of me, it landed exactly on the yard line, exactly aligned with the yard line. Of all the mistakes you can make marching a half-time show, I never made that mistake again!

[RenoDoc]

I grew up in suburban Detroit In junior high, our band director would let us take home one of the beat up fiberglass sousaphones to practice at home since investing in a tuba was pretty expensive for families. I remember one day I rode by bike to school and was told I could bring the sousaphone home. I was pretty windy that day but fortunately I the wind was at my back. Using the sousaphone as a sail, I barely had to pedal for the mile and a half home.

[tofu]

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[Ace]

Tofu, that's a great story. Very entertaining.

Ace

[Name_Plate]

I have a few that come to mind, a year ago I went to a jazz festival with my high school band. We were doing a NOLA-style piece, no sheet music just feel. I got to play on the sousa instead of my bass trombone for this one. It was the raunchiest, most fun piece I ever played during my time there. I clearly did something right because the judges in the back were visibly rocking out to the features I got to play in it. That was probably my best performance in its entirety that I have done. I sadly don't have any video of this performance because video cameras and photography were not allowed which was an oddity among the festivals we had done up to that point. This was also the last real performance I would do in high school due to the pandemic. At least I ended with a bang. The coolest one is the time I marched down main street at the magic kingdom. We got a whole tour of the inner workings of the park and then got to be center stage for about 20 minutes. The performance was nothing of note, just typical American marches, the value was in the whole experience of doing something you would probably never do again. In a more idiotic story, me and one of the other sousa players suspected that one of the other players was not actually playing his horn in marching band. So we put an empty water bottle down his horn, any person who was actually playing would notice an obstruction like that in their horn. So months later at the memorial day parade, we looked and turned his horn to see if he ever found it. Low and behold no, it was still there. The other players and I laughed for a while about this, he still didn't know about the bottle when I graduated and likely still doesn't. These are the stories that stick out among many.

[Ace]

"Hi all,

Knowing that many of us have history with the Sousaphone, I thought it might be fun to share our favorite memories of playing that often-maligned monster. Feel free to post a photo, and/or share the story!"

Dave, my memory was not about playing Sousaphone. Rather, it is about the bloody good University of Southern California Sousaphone section and band that blew my group off the streets in a parade. In November 1951, I was drum major of my high school band. We had been invited along with 90 or so other California high school bands to the annual All-Western Band Review and Competition in Long Beach CA. For some perverse reason, the USC Marching Band was also invited. Guess where the judges placed the 250 piece USC group----------50 yards behind my little 60 piece HS band. We were literally blown off the street. Earlier that month we participated in Band Day at the Los Angeles Colosseum. Prior to the football game we practiced our half time routines on the field. We had opportunity to chat with USC band members and look at their vast number of Sousaphones. They looked really big----possibly 48K size? You would know because in later years you were the section leader for that crazy-large-loud USC marching band.

Ace