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There was a Post General at one of the installations where I was stationed in the Army who said he "couldn't stand the sight of tubas!" We knew what he meant. So, when he was on the scene, we never used sousaphones. We marched with our German concert tubas. He would always compliment our C.O. for "getting rid of the tubas and making the band look more professional."

bloke wrote:was asked to leave "the helicon" at home

Are we talking about your beautiful custom helicon that you recently put together???

Did I say the sousaphones were white fiberglass?

bloke wrote:He (serving as accessories percussionist on the gig as well) came up to me afterwards and said, "Would you please bring the 'concert tuba' tomorrow? It looks much more professional."

To paraphrase Saturday Night Live...
"'It's better to look good than to sound good!"

Bloke,
Take the Gronitz and blow 'em away!
Of course we all know, being the professional you are, you'd never do that. But you gotta admit; the thought is tempting!

harold wrote:So now you are taking playing advice from a guy that plays the ACCORDIAN?

Next thing you know, you will start wearing colorful bow ties and one of those hats with the propellor on the top...

http://www.postmodern.com/~mcb/pix/mini ... 21-tb.html

Bloke aims to please. I'm proud of him for that. Success is treating people well, fellow players as well as management and making an effort to please folks who may be ignorant of the finer points of tuba tootin'.

Agree with Bloke that it always make sense to make the employer/customer happy, but it does strike my funny bone when it's the accordian player that's worried about others looking "professional"!

tofu wrote: it does strike my funny bone when it's the accordian player that's worried about others looking "professional"!

Dunno. Regardless of authentic musical merit, genuine conservatory-type musicians tend to look down on folks who wear their instruments.

UncleBeer wrote:Dunno. Regardless of authentic musical merit, genuine conservatory-type musicians tend to look down on folks who wear their instruments.

Or have to use a monkey to collect tips...

Having played the last year in the Welk show with a guy who played accordion great, but looked a little goofy and was given the goofiest character songs to play, I agree totally. But musically he was on top of it and now I believe he is the music director for one of the other shows in Branson, I just don't know which one.

BTW -- he wore his accordion pretty well.

Joe, I have to compliment on your newest facelift. It is much more successful than the one preceding your avatar. Was Code D the designer?

I see some intra-ensemble aspects in this matter, so I will start with far-far ago personal experiences:

I played horn, 2nd at that time , 1st later on) in a local symphony, where the conductor, the leader (Konzertmeister), and I were just about equally well educated conductors. The conductor was very dependent on the leader on getting the strings right.

The leader and I made some agreements on how to make things work in matters, where the conductor had no experience at all.

We did a Koncertpolka for two violins by Lumbye, and the string section worked less than optimally intonationwise. I had done that piece in a quite prominent concert, but on bassbone, so I offered to bring my slide-o-phone for that piece. As soon as the bass-line was laid out perfectly in tune, the strings lined up. And the leader expressed his great satisfaction, because even the soloing became much easier.

My point is, that as much or as little we bass-line people are paid to entertain the ticket-buying public, then most of our work is to uphold intra-ensemble functions, which make the other players work well and sound good.

In that context Joe’s contractor isn’t too smart. With the given seating on the stage, Joe would do a lot for the ensemble with the helicon showering his musical genius out over the whole ensemble. With a front action 6/4 mastodontophone Joe’s genius will be reserved for the ticket payers, and the ensemble will have a hard job in catching up with him.

As for accordion players: I have been married to a such one. And I enforced the rule going for my own instruments: only buy the best one affordable. And my ears were the final judges. I cannot play the accordion, but I can repair and maintain one short of tuning it, which takes special tools.

A duo of tenor bone and accordion is very effective in dance situations. Add a drummer and things get perfect.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre