Posted by Eric Howard on June 16, 2003 at 16:53:05:
In Reply to: Re: Is the Tuba a 'good' instrument? posted by Rick Denney on June 16, 2003 at 10:56:44:
I think what Rick said has also been my experience. I started off on Baritone Horn (sorry, that's what they were called in 1968, euphonium implied a horn with two bells, thanks to Meredith Wilson.)
My band director told me that if I wanted to be in Jr. High ("intermediate school" had not yet been invented) Concert Band that I should switch to tuba. Add to that, when you told someone in 1968, "I play the Baritone," and the reply is, "ummm....Baritone WHAT?" It's the horn with an identity crisis. Even now, if you tell someone, "I play TUBA," that person usually has an inkling of what you're talking about.
Anyway, I switched to tuba because that was the route to being in the Jr. High "Stage Band," or Jazz Band.
Unfortunately, my High School Director, Larry Fogelberg, had plenty of tuba players, and wanted me to switch back to euph. I don't regret that either. Now I switch around from euph, to trombone, and back to tuba, and yes, even to my Fender electric Jazz "tuba," and get enough gigs to keep me musically busy and happy. Not bad for a chemical engineer.......
Also, now that I'm involved in a "double A" municipal band, I've found that really good directors would rather have a strong bass section (which includes tuba, bass drum, string bass and its electric counterparts) than a good euph player or bone player. The only times that "C" has really talked to me were when the basses (or the bass drum) was not strong enough, and he wanted me to drop back from euph or bone to bass.