How many years?

[arpthark]

Depends. Playing what? My instrument (don't even know how to define that at this point) or any instrument? Started piano lessons at 6. 73 - 6 = 67. I could put a list of all of them but that would be a bit silly.

I mean, it's a tuba forum. Go ahead and be silly.

How about the tuba, for starters?

[Mary Ann]

I don't remember "exactly" when I started tuba, but it is probably "about" 16 years ago? I had been asked to join the then-still-pretty-young brass band, and I played the bass tbone part on the euph because (a) they needed someone on the part, and (b) it was in bass clef, and I did not yet read those crazy treble clefs very well yet. The conductor, who knew I could pick up instruments fairly easily, kept saying, "Buy a tuba! Get an Eb tuba!!" So I did, but I only made pffing sounds for a while with my horn embouchure. It has come *quite* a long way since then, but she was right about the Eb part. I also played euph and baritone parts over the years, but tuba for many years once I got going.

[ParLawGod]

27

[spirtuba]

~20 (after ~20 years on trumpet and other brass)

[Teubonium]

Euphonium 74 years

Tuba 69 years

Trombone 67 years

Fantastic!

Can I ask how old you were when you started euph?

My Dad was a euph player and started me on cornet at age 8, euph at age 9.

[Rick Denney]

Started on piano, but given my hopelessness on that instrument then and since I won’t claim it.

So, 53 years playing tuba.

Rick “not thinking this thread is good for the health of this forum” Denney

[arpthark]

Rick “not thinking this thread is good for the health of this forum” Denney

Why?

[bort2.0]

Rick “not thinking this thread is good for the health of this forum” Denney

Howso? Is it because after 50+ years of playing you've come to realize "right now, this is as good as I'm ever going to be?" Because I'll tell ya, I'm a good 20 years ahead of you in making that realization.

[humBell]

14?

But i like to think of it as 5,193 days, give or take a week.

Make me feel less like the precocious youth i am.

[Yorkboy]

51 (assuming baritone horn counts, otherwise 50)

[Mary Ann]

Rick “not thinking this thread is good for the health of this forum” Denney

Howso? Is it because after 50+ years of playing you've come to realize "right now, this is as good as I'm ever going to be?" Because I'll tell ya, I'm a good 20 years ahead of you in making that realization.

You know what? Ya'll might be wrong-o!!! I put in some serious woodshedding trying to learn those impossible pieces for our last brass band concert, and to my immense surprise upped my playing a notch, something that really did surprise me at 73. I'm not dead yet!!

[Rick Denney]

Rick “not thinking this thread is good for the health of this forum” Denney

Why?

I once put in a presentation that I had 35 years of professional experience. A marketing guy pulled me aside and said, "Rick, you really need to stop quantifying your experience beyond 30 years. The clients are all younger and don't respect experience as much as hipness, and it makes you look old instead of experienced."

Hmmmm. As much as I deplore the truth of it, I think he's right.

A thread with all of us recounting our half-century-plus of experience playing the tuba will cement our reputation as old men who shake fists at the clouds.

Now, I talk about my 13 years in state and local government, my 17 years as a consultant, and my 13 years as a Fed. Anybody in the younger set who refuse to respect people with over 30 years of experience can't add anyway, even if they did earn their participation medals in high-school math class.

Rick "can shake a fist at clouds as well as any of you old farts" Denney

(despite the setup for a joke, I'm sorta not kidding about not needing to present a get-off-my-lawn image to the world any more than we already do.)

[The Big Ben]

Trumpet, french horn, baritone horn, tuba: 57 years,

[humBell]

[Tubajug]

It's funny because every once in a while I think "man, I've been playing brass since 1995 (I started on baritone because my elementary school didn't have a tuba, which is what I wanted. I switched to tuba in middle school in 1997) and I'm not nearly as good as I thought I'd be after 28 years!"

But then I have to remind myself that I'm a teacher, not a professional player. My teaching has certainly improved over the years, even if my tuba-playing doesn't match up with what I thought it would be.

So any way, I guess that puts me on the younger end of a lot of the replies here! I really do enjoy getting on here and learning from everyone! Especially the more experienced folks!

[Mary Ann]

I once put in a presentation that I had 35 years of professional experience. A marketing guy pulled me aside and said, "Rick, you really need to stop quantifying your experience beyond 30 years. The clients are all younger and don't respect experience as much as hipness, and it makes you look old instead of experienced."

I don't know why that reminded me of this, but:

Back in the playing violin for money days, I had a regular gig with a trio in an Irish bar. (Lots of those back NorthEast.) Someone came up and asked me how long I had been playing and I said, "Six months." Well, yes, I had been playing for six months but I left out the other 14 years. They were really, really impressed and I was really, really amused.