Sousa Advice
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2026 6:56 pm
I've got a King 2370 from (probably) the early 2000's that I've had for around 5 years now. I bought it sight unseen from Taylor Music who had just refurbished it, and last year I added a Butler carbon fiber bell to lighten the load a bit more. This horn is my daily driver for my "defiant chamber ensemble", and everything works well; it plays basically in tune with very little fiddling and does have a 1st valve pull for when it's needed. By all accounts, it's a good horn. My main complaint is that it doesn't center as well as I'd like.
Every time I play my concert horn (Eastman EBB226), I dread picking up my sousa again. My bandmates prefer the sousa for the spectacle of the thing, but I much prefer my concert horn because I feel better playing it, and ultimately I think it sounds better. I'm happy to play sousa in general, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the sousa because of how much better my Eastman feels to play.
My question is this: should I be thinking about an adjustment to my current sousa, or an entirely different horn—or is this just the deal with sousas? I understand that it's a different beast and I'm not concerned about my tone or anything else on the sousa. It really just comes down to ease of play. in a perfect world, I want a sousa that feels as good to play as my Eastman.
As we all know, sousas aren't always readily available to try out, so I have limited experience with sousas in general. I own two (the other is a Barcone "baby sousa" that is fun, but lacks the oomph I want, and has more quirks than I generally want to deal with), and I played a few school issued ones back in the 1990's in high school. That's it.
I should also mention that I'm almost 50, and am only 5'3" so light is best for my continued gigging on sousa (hence the carbon fiber bell on a fiberglass sousa!)
Any thoughts/advice/suggestions would be welcomed.
Every time I play my concert horn (Eastman EBB226), I dread picking up my sousa again. My bandmates prefer the sousa for the spectacle of the thing, but I much prefer my concert horn because I feel better playing it, and ultimately I think it sounds better. I'm happy to play sousa in general, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the sousa because of how much better my Eastman feels to play.
My question is this: should I be thinking about an adjustment to my current sousa, or an entirely different horn—or is this just the deal with sousas? I understand that it's a different beast and I'm not concerned about my tone or anything else on the sousa. It really just comes down to ease of play. in a perfect world, I want a sousa that feels as good to play as my Eastman.
As we all know, sousas aren't always readily available to try out, so I have limited experience with sousas in general. I own two (the other is a Barcone "baby sousa" that is fun, but lacks the oomph I want, and has more quirks than I generally want to deal with), and I played a few school issued ones back in the 1990's in high school. That's it.
I should also mention that I'm almost 50, and am only 5'3" so light is best for my continued gigging on sousa (hence the carbon fiber bell on a fiberglass sousa!)
Any thoughts/advice/suggestions would be welcomed.