Posted by Kenneth Sloan on September 02, 2002 at 17:41:54:
In Reply to: Re: Re: tips on wearing a sousaphone posted by Steve Marcus on September 02, 2002 at 11:31:05:
Oh my...I never even considered that anyone would think of setting down a sousaphone with the bell FLUSH on the floor!
The problem is that these kids currently assemble the horns something like some of the ads you see in catalogs, so that if the sousaphone is placed flat on its "back", the front of the bell is facing UP, and the rim of the bell is far, far from touching the floor. Look in any catalog and you'll see what I mean.
What I meant was...when the horn is flat on it's back, how close should the bell rim come to touching the floor. I tend to think in terms of the bell rim TOUCHING the floor - but then backing off just a bit to avoid damage to the bell. It seems to me that this is the sort of "objective measurement" that the kids will understand.
Actually, taking care of the instruments is not a real concern in this band. The gung ho band parents have flipped enough burgers so that the sousaphones live in plush, deluxe travelling cases that appear large enough to hold a piano. Huge boxes on wheels, filled with foam rubber. The instruments themselves went to Badger State a year ago for smoothing out and shining up - and the players seem to be motivated by the bright shiny metal. They even play fairly decently. My only complaint is that they have the body twisted to their left (so that the tubing touches the right shoulder) and the bell twisted to their right (so that the bell rim touches their forehead!)