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Some good ones collected from various films (screenwriters seem to have a thing about tubas!) :

The Departed (2006)
You give me a f_____g tuba, I'll get you something out of it.

Analyze This (1999)
. . .Elmer the Fudd, Tubby the Tuba.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007)
00:18:47 It would be like the prom king fooling around with a tuba player.
00:18:51 Oh, great, I play tuba.


Don't Say a Word (2001)
You happen to notice the tuba player that rolled off your hood?

The Chumscrubber (2005)
The marching band, the melody doesn't go to the tuba.

Saved by the Bell (1989)
Poor Mrs. Wickham slipped and got her head stuck in a tuba.

From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000)
Oh, no. On the contrary, when Gabriel blows his horn, I'd be playing the tuba.

Nobel Son (2007)
She was the redheaded tuba player in the 10th grade band.

Fear of a Black Hat (1994)
What you talking about, tuba breath?

Prova d'orchestra (1978)
I didn't choose the tuba
Poor tuba... like a stray dog

Petulia (1968)
A tuba. Something large and whirly.
So you fall on a tuba and you break your rib, right?


and many more gems

"No, nothing is wrong... I have never heard anything so beautiful!"
-Arturo Toscanini to William Bell-

GPT wrote:stuff....

Damnit!

Not a famous quote but a distinguished older lady at a nice seafood restaraunt in Orange beach, Alabama said,
"I don't know what you call that big instrument you play but the sound of it makes me smile."

Our director throws a big Christmas party every year and invites friends, neighbors, and relatives in addition to the band. One older lady whom I had never met before, overheard me talking shop to one of our trombonists and his horn playing wife. She then came up to me and asked if I was a musician, to which I replied, "No madam, I am a tuba player."

tubatooter1940 wrote:Not a famous quote but a distinguished older lady at a nice seafood restaraunt in Orange beach, Alabama said,
"I don't know what you call that big instrument you play but the sound of it makes me smile."

Those knowing just the tiniest bit of Latin would call attitude Fallopian Sisterhood.

K

David Richoux wrote:Some good ones collected from various films (screenwriters seem to have a thing about tubas!) :

and many more gems

I'm surprised they missed this one from King Ralph:

Sir Cedric Willingham: How's it going, Your Majesty?

Ralph Jones: Great. We've got nothing in common and she's got a voice like a tuba. If she had her way, we'd have sex on a bed of nails on national television. But at least the party stinks.

...D

To all you sports fans out there from my marching band days:

In 2004 I was in the Oklahoma marching band. We played USC at the Orange Bowl for the National title (and got slaughtered, btw). I remember watching Sportscenter a few days before the game. They were talking to USC's director at the time (Dr. Bartner, if my memory is correct) and asked him what he thought about us (OU). He replied, "Well, they have like 30 tubas, and that's alot more than we have." Kirk Herbstriet looks straight into the camera and says, "Tuba advantage, Oklahoma." Not everyday we end up on Sportscenter.

Homerun wrote:To all you sports fans out there from my marching band days:

In 2004 I was in the Oklahoma marching band. We played USC at the Orange Bowl for the National title (and got slaughtered, btw). I remember watching Sportscenter a few days before the game. They were talking to USC's director at the time (Dr. Bartner, if my memory is correct) and asked him what he thought about us (OU). He replied, "Well, they have like 30 tubas, and that's alot more than we have." Kirk Herbstriet looks straight into the camera and says, "Tuba advantage, Oklahoma." Not everyday we end up on Sportscenter.

Hah, classic Bartner quote!

drewfredrickson wrote:"Tubas!! BIG Tubas, NOT little dummy tubas!!"-James F. Keene, director of bands at the University of Illinois after the trumpet players stood for a section bow intended for the tubas.

That was one of the best Keene quotes I heard over my 3 years in his band. I also liked: "Tubas... wait, you aren't playing here...low reeds, you're dragging and I can't even blame this on the tubas!"

From "People of Note", by Laurence McKinney:
"Pulling its tones way up from Cuba
This mass of brass is called the TUBA.
A bulky weight it seems to be
To dangle gayly on one's knee.
Though often flirting with disaster
A tuba learns to know its master
And just to show that love abounds
Emits the most outrageous sounds.
(Malignant tubas, though, for fun,
May coil about and strangle one.
So with this constantly in mind
It trains you tuba very kind.)
When Richard Wagner in a frenzy
Tried tubas in his play "Rienzi,"
Composers thought them simply grand,
A thing I'll never understand."

Not a famous quote, but I like the one that was said to me tonight be trumpet player regarding me missing band practice last week

We wondered why the band sounded no good until we realised there was no tuba

Homerun wrote:To all you sports fans out there from my marching band days:

In 2004 I was in the Oklahoma marching band. We played USC at the Orange Bowl for the National title (and got slaughtered, btw). I remember watching Sportscenter a few days before the game. They were talking to USC's director at the time (Dr. Bartner, if my memory is correct) and asked him what he thought about us (OU). He replied, "Well, they have like 30 tubas, and that's alot more than we have." Kirk Herbstriet looks straight into the camera and says, "Tuba advantage, Oklahoma." Not everyday we end up on Sportscenter.

Jeez, the most we ever had when I was at OU was 18...you guys gettin' wimpy or somethin'?

Best band director quote (marching band):

Need more tubas - make my face bleed, guys!

Band director to tuba player warming up before rehearsal:

"Do you prefer that sound to the sound of a tuba?"

Not a famous quote but it will never be forgotten by me: After a practice jury i was told, "I didn't realize how unsuited a bourree is for a tuba".

Before we leave the brasses let us dwell for a moment upon the lowly and lonely tuba player. There is only one in the entire orchestra and he enjoys a certain amount of prestige - and lonliness. Tuba players never talk. They are silent, morose and uncommunicative, but they sing to themselves, usually in a high register. They have no common interests with any of their colleagues and, as a matter of fact, most tuba players feel that they don't even belong in the orchestra. They usually strike up a strong friendship with the stage manager. How does one get to be a tuba player? Most became so by accident; someone willed a tuba to the family, the local town band needed one, etc., etc. Nevertheless, the present-day tuba player in a symphony orchestra is an artist in his craft. The young man recently engaged by the B.S.O. does the most amazing things on his unwieldy instrument, including playing all the French horn concertos, for which he has not endeared himself to his horn colleagues.

Harry Ellis Dickson in Gentlemen, More Dolce Please, An Irreverent Memoir of Thirty-five Years in the Boston Symphony Orchestra

I remember this quote being used in full or at least partially in a TV feature on the Boston Symphony sometime 35 or 40 years ago. The young player was tall with blond hair.

Already then the BS had to do funny things to get funding. At a fundraiser event their 1st bassoon gave rides through the inner city on his Harley Davidson.

A then recent audition for 2nd bassoon had had 200+ applicants.

Klaus

My Favorite is
If it's music that you crave, Play the Tuba -- Burma Shave

In an adjudication tape from high school (we were playing Holst suite 1, mvt 1 and I was on a Besson bellfront that had good projection).
"Great tuba playing. If the rest of the band could just keep up with the tuba, you'd be in wow shape"

Tuba Guy wrote:In an adjudication tape from high school (we were playing Holst suite 1, mvt 1 and I was on a Besson bellfront that had good projection).
"Great tuba playing. If the rest of the band could just keep up with the tuba, you'd be in wow shape"

Adjudication tapes reminds me of one from high school. It was a marching band contest: "Tubas, you sound like cement mixers."

We heard that on Monday. That night we went to the mall, and on Tuesday we came to school with t-shirts that said, "Tates Creek Cement Mixers" on the front and "Oompah" on the back.