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After I thought about it, I was honored that my band director asked me to play the tuba. I knew I was the MVP. I didn't want to suck, ever.

I posted here many times that that are overcrowded junior/senior High of 3600 (demographic: lower-lower class working class whites), there was not a single "bass horn" player in either of the two 75 student beginner band classes. At the beginning of the second semester, the band director said that "I need somebody in this class to play the bass horn."
I was the best trumpet player and this little smartass next to me named Mark Ross - who was about as good as I was - said (has a ridiculous joke, as we both thought of those things back there as nasty things covered with dirt) "bloke will do it!"
I thought about the prospect of that for about ten seconds, realized I was going to have to ask my barrel chested father to buy me a trumpet (and I was only in band because I thought the music class and art class were for sissies) - so I really didn't even really want a trumpet. I agreed to it, realizing that I wouldn't have to ask my dad to buy me an instrument. ... and so it continued...

I played some piano, and only knew the bass clef well enough to wig out the notes due to context clues (I could play stuff like FUr Elise - yeah the whole thing, but nothing much more difficult.)

After a senior mediocre baritone horn player (you know, bell front. LOL) took me back in a practice room and - with great difficulty - got me to play an F and then - after much more difficulty - a low B flat, I was sent out there to go through the entire book 1 of "Belwin Band Builder" in the last 30 minutes of the class with the rest of the band reviewing it. I wasn't reading bass clef worth a crap, but was sort of scuffling by ear and it was all in that range where I couldn't get my lips to vibrate very well. (Additionally, it was with a DEG Astro nylon cut mouthpiece that leaked badly where the nylon cup and the shank were screwed together and it had about 6,000 wrappings of tape.) He stopped after about 15 minutes halfway through the book, look back at me and said, "WE'RE DOING THIS FOR YOU, SON !!!" ... as if I didn't get it.

That was my introduction to sousaphone.


The first time I ever took a mouthpiece home (some really dinged up thing that said "Made in Austria") to clean and polish it, my father said "That looks like a funnel for a urinal".

The next year - due to the severe overcrowding - for the first time ever the school was assigned a junior high band director. This was on the front end of integration prior to busing, so they made a point of sending a black man. He was a very animated person and decided that we were going to march (which was a new thing for the junior high band). They also paraded us around to a bunch of black schools to show a black person in charge of white students. (Whatever on that. I'm remembering and I'm not saying that I think it was a bad thing. I do not think it was bad. I'm only explaining why we were suddenly a junior high band that was marching, and why this junior high band took a whole bunch of bus trips, that year.)
They had gotten rid of all of the brass sousaphones the summer between my beginner year and my first year in junior band, and replaced them all with either new CONN 36k fiberglass sousaphones or some old funky Holton fiberglass sousaphones... EXCEPT for one 1950s (full 30 lbs... and I have carefully weighed them since) King brass sousaphone. Guess what little eighth grade kid got to carry around the King brass sousaphone, and messed up his neck for life...

bloke wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2026 1:09 pm Guess what little eighth grade kid got to carry around the [...] sousaphone, and messed up his neck for life...

Same here. Nobody ever taught me to carry the thing properly, either, so I was marching with the circle of the sousa body parallel to my body instead of perpendicular, which put a ton of weight on the back of my neck. Screwed up my neck and shoulders, tried chiropractor and all that jazz too but just sort of dealt with chronic pain until I was no longer a regular sousaphone user.

arpthark wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2026 1:45 pm

bloke wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2026 1:09 pm Guess what little eighth grade kid got to carry around the [...] sousaphone, and messed up his neck for life...

Same here. Nobody ever taught me to carry the thing properly, either, so I was marching with the circle of the sousa body parallel to my body instead of perpendicular, which put a ton of weight on the back of my neck. Screwed up my neck and shoulders, tried chiropractor and all that jazz too but just sort of dealt with chronic pain until I was no longer a regular sousaphone user.

Geez, buddy, now you got me started!

Does anyone even want to hold a sousaphone the correct way now? I try to fix kids' position mod the Souzys and they look at me like I'm a three headed monster, as they complain about neck pain.

Around the neck is just so uncomfortable! Just get some bits to line up, then Locktite blue them into a sculpture of plumbing and go, with the loop of the body FACING FORWARD(ish)!

prodigal wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2026 7:03 pm

arpthark wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2026 1:45 pm

bloke wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2026 1:09 pm Guess what little eighth grade kid got to carry around the [...] sousaphone, and messed up his neck for life...

Same here. Nobody ever taught me to carry the thing properly, either, so I was marching with the circle of the sousa body parallel to my body instead of perpendicular, which put a ton of weight on the back of my neck. Screwed up my neck and shoulders, tried chiropractor and all that jazz too but just sort of dealt with chronic pain until I was no longer a regular sousaphone user.

Geez, buddy, now you got me started!

Does anyone even want to hold a sousaphone the correct way now? I try to fix kids' position mod the Souzys and they look at me like I'm a three headed monster, as they complain about neck pain.

Around the neck is just so uncomfortable! Just get some bits to line up, then Locktite blue them into a sculpture of plumbing and go, with the loop of the body FACING FORWARD(ish)!

They are complaining about shoulder muscle pain, the trapezius muscle on top of the shoulder that would support the sousaphone. They don't understand that withstanding two or three days of pain (developing that muscle's strength) would save a lifetime of screwed up neck vertebrae.
Young people can't see into the future, and are skeptical of old people who try to tell their fortunes.