Re: Re: Why tuba and not some other instrument?


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Posted by Rick Denney on August 03, 2001 at 12:04:42:

In Reply to: Re: Why tuba and not some other instrument? posted by Henry Gertcher on August 03, 2001 at 10:55:22:

My mother's main objective was not to repeat the mistake of my older sister in selecting an instrument (cello in her case) that would not fit in the car. So, how did she fail so completely?

In my first class of my first day of seventh grade (the first year out of elementary school in Houston), the announcement came over the speaker, "Anyone interested in joining the band should meet in the band room at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon."

I don't know why I felt compelled to sign up. I had taken music lessons before, on piano (which brought me to my current technical level of not being able to use both hands at the same time), on guitar (a disaster), and in various horrible school singing groups (I sang a solo in the elementary-school production of "Oliver!"). There was no indication in any of these activities that I had any real talent, and this was apparent not only to those around me, but to me as well.

Even so, if you were in band, you didn't have to take P.E. starting in the ninth grade.

So, the next afternoon, I went with my mother to the band room, and was introduced to that dynamo of middle-school band directing in Texas, Miss Bette Pruden. She took one look at me, and implemented her long-standing plan to manipulate all able-bodied boys to the tuba. Many are called, but few are able. Or is it few are stupid enough to be bushwhacked.

She first presented a trombone, installed a mouthpiece, and ask me to play a note on it--no warmup and no instruction on buzzing the lips. The buzzing part seemed obvious to me, but my frequencies were in the trumpet range. At least a few of them were. The sound approximated the bellow of an asphyxiated elephant whose lips and nose had been sewn shut. She then patiently described how to make a buzz, and present me with a plastic sousaphone.

The flailing arms of my mother were too little and too late to avoid the catastrophe.

Armed with just a bit of proper instruction, I played what sounded like an actual note on the sousaphone, and Miss Pruden pronounced me a born tuba player.

Then she put the hard sell on my mother, who by this time was whimpering in the corner of the band room. "If he plays tuba, he will always be in demand, because there aren't so many tuba players," and "if he plays tuba, the school will provide him the instrument for free," and "he can take home the sousaphone body without the bell for practice and it will fit in any car (lie!)." Finally, my mother dropped her arms and with a slump to her shoulders she muttered, "where do we sign..."

My father, on the other hand, was greatly amused. Of course, the tuba would not have to be carried in HIS car.

Miss Pruden was right, however. Halfway through seventh grade, I was promoted to the ninth-grade band to fill a void. And I played first chair in the top band all through high school. I played a plastic sousaphone all but the final year, when my band director managed to borrow a battered Miraphone from Rice University for me to play. My first year at Texas A&M, I auditioned for and barely won a seat in the A&M Symphonic Band. But I still could not afford my own tuba, and summer practice comprised two weeks of intense cramming (as in, cramming the mouthpiece into my lips) before the auditions for the next year. I misread by a week the appointment for the audition, and showed up for practice two hours after I was supposed to have auditioned. The director saw me, and allowed me to play the audition then, but I was cold, ill-rehearsed, and sight-reading the material, and didn't make it back in.

I next picked up a tuba eight years later, when I finally performed major repairs to the junker Besson that my high-school band director had allowed me to "carry to the dumpster." (The disrepair had been declared unfixable, hence the reason for not using it for summer practice.) Since then, I've played in half a dozen community bands, several German bands, an orchestra, several quintets, and the TubaMeisters. I've even taken a few lessons from pros, though I'm sure the memory of it embarasses them.

Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with the sound of the tuba. I think I can trace it to my first symphony season tickets as an adult, to the San Antonio Symphony even before I started playing again. There was something about the sound Mike Sanders produced (on his Alex at the time) that compelled me to pursue it. Talk about a siren call! But that was a turning point. While in high school, I played the tuba because it was the instrument I played. Now, I play the tuba because I love the sound of the tuba. I just wish I could produce it.

Rick "still pursuing" Denney


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