I need a new tuba!


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Posted by Brad on April 01, 2003 at 21:09:48:

This is basically going to sound like a hard luck story, but, bare with me.

My high school is a Catholic high school, and, as such, we don't get all that wonderful taxpayer money to help pay our bills.

I'm a sophomore in high school, and I'm the only tubaist in the Wind Ensemble class, the most experienced and best players. I have been playing for a year now, as my band director got me into it without ever playing any kind of musical instrument before.

The 7 total tuba players play on a fleet (or should I say junkyard) of old Dynasty 845 3/4 size convertible tubas. There are currently four Dynasty tubas left in playing order, of a one time section of 8 of them, as one was rudely stolen by a player many years ago. We had to send three of them to the shop, two because the valves were broken, and one because the third valve tubing from the solder joints that hold it together at the third valve, fell off. I chose the tuba in the best condition of all, which is not very good, riddled with dents, sticky valves no matter how you try to fix them, and gnarled tubing all over. I don't even think the bell is straight anymore, with all of the dents and things. I have tried to fix it up as good as possible, and my band director knows, so he allows me to claim that tuba as my own, so the other tuba players, who think it's funny they are so shot, that they throw them around even more, don't get their hands on "mine." We can't get the other three tubas back for a very long time, because of one simple fact... the band is out of money for the year, and the principal won't give us any, he needs it all to buy new carpeting for the classrooms, and new computers after we got brand new ones the summer before I started there and just this past summer.

My band director has begged and pleaded for the past umpteen years to get new tubas, but the principal basically doesn't care. May I also add that the conversion pipes for these tubas don't exactly work right anymore, they flop all over because the adjustible braces are shot, they "backwash" into your mouth and on your clothes, and also, as a personal note to Dynasty, having a set up where you play and support with the same arm is not very smart, it's not comfortable, and definately not balanced well. Also, thank God only two tuba players could be in marching band, three didn't start on tuba yet, and two were on the football team. So, my band director kept hinting there were two 30 year old Sousaphones in the storage room, so we cleaned those up and marched with them. They don't work well either, basically because of age, they have fallen apart.


My band director is going insane trying to get new tubas. We need them horribly bad, because those that play are literally held together with duct tape. We don't have the money to buy new ones, used ones, or cheap discount ones, and we need something like Kanstul's 202C, the convertible tuba that looks a hell-of-a-lot easier to play, much like the GG contras, that also is very good for concert. We can't use 3/4 size anymore, he told me "We ain't an elementary school, we need bigger tubas."

We have talked about maybe trying to get Dynasty or Kanstul to sponsor us to defray the cost of instruments, because not only are our tubas falling apart, but so are the drums, the drums are at least 20 years old, they've outlived their useful life. Half of them are thrown underneath the gymnasium's stage in a cage like storage area because they just don't work.

If you know of any way possible we could get just four Kanstul 202C or equivalent, NO Dyansty 845's, they are painful and poorly constructed, I would really love the help. I'm tired of playing an instrument that plays like crap, looks like crap, and has such noisy valves, at our spring concert, my parents asked me, "Do you know what that loud clicking was? We could hear it over the music being played!" I told them the truth, I told them, it's my valves, they just won't work without banging and clicking.



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