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Hey guys, I've looked around the forums... and I'm pretty sure I got the right section. Forgive me if I'm wrong.
(Also, apologies in advanced for the long thread)

As the title says, I'm a new tuba player, and yes there are some catches. I'm a sophomore in high school and I just joined band. Before January I have never had any experience in reading music. Until February I had no experience in playing a wind instrument (I played guitar for a few months, but financial troubles got the best of me).

Luckily my high schools band director (Mr. E) is really cool, and he didn't mind. He decided our section leader would help me learn, but first I had to learn to read music. This went relatively well, basically taught myself with some help from Mr. E. It only took around 2 weeks of mild work to complete 2 books (the master theory series).

It is now March 29th, and I have progressed... ok I would think, but I still have a lot of questions and concerns on my mind.

College
My biggest concern, involves college. I know this may sound silly to a lot of people, but I do not plan on majoring in music. I don't really want to pursue teaching music, or performing it, as a career. I intend to puruse it as a hobby. I would actually like to join a ska band with some friends later in life, and maybe pick up more instruments as I grow older. I may even want to pursue teaching music later in life, but right now it is not realistic for my goals (to own my own business one day).

Despite this, I still hope to become good enough to hopefully acquire some scholar ships with music. How many schools offer music scholar ships, to people who do not plan on majoring in music in college. Mr. E told me Troy (his university he went to) would do that, but how many other colleges offer this? Is it a realistic idea? As far as skill goes, I'm not soooo worried seeing as how a trombone player Matt just got $4000 in scholar ships, and he started as a sophomore (then again he plans to major in music... so I don't know).

Second, how much time goes into being in a school marching and concert band. Will it leave me a comfortable amount of time to excel in my required classes? From what I heard from someone who currently goes to Troy, during marching season they have practice every day. This doesn't sound too bad, I'm just curious on how much work load I should expect with band and other classes.

Well, this basically concludes my thread so far... if anyone has any questions for me, just ask. Thanks in advanced for the answers.

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Look for a smaller liberal arts college or university that has a good reputation for the major you are considering that also has a music or music ed department. Sometimes, they will offer nominal scholarships in the few hundred dollar range just to fill up a section and have a full band for all the music ed majors to practice conducting. I got such a small scholarship in addition to some other academic scholarships at my undergrad.

And don't worry about a tuba. If they want you bad enough to give you a small scholarship or stipend, they will have tubas to check out to you. Most standard concert band ensembles that are not music major based will probably have rehearsals @ 3 times a week, with the expectation that you practice some every day.

Most schools state or private have money to give to non-majors. When choosing your school, choose what is best for your potential major, and other considerations. I wouldn't place a whole lot of worry on the scholarship issue, as you normally still have to cover the classes you participate in musically with that music scholarship money.

Marching band scholarships are tricky. When I was dealing with marching band scholarship money, I did the math:

-16 weeks
-10-20 hours per week, 15 average (2hrs/day 10 hours on game day)
-$600 "stipend" (in 1993)
-$600/240 hours = $2.50 an hour. (Less than half minimum wage)
-Plus I had to pay for the 1 hour credit (cheap at the time, around $60)

Figuring the amount of constructive musicality going on, I decided to bail out after 3 (should have been 2) seasons. Hopefully things have changed a bit, but I doubt it. In regards to a tuba, any school of decent size should have one. If you are going to a state school, you probably shouldn't worry at all.

Matthew Gilchrest wrote: 'snip'

Marching band scholarships are tricky. When I was dealing with marching band scholarship money, I did the math:

-16 weeks
-10-20 hours per week, 15 average (2hrs/day 10 hours on game day)
-$600 "stipend" (in 1993)
-$600/240 hours = $2.50 an hour. (Less than half minimum wage)
-Plus I had to pay for the 1 hour credit (cheap at the time, around $60)

'snip'

wow. I must be in some alternate universe. I would never have imagined actual money for doing marching band.....when people have posted here about scholarships and band, I assumed it was music majors, and one of the requirements was some amount of marching band participation. At Cal, there is no music performance major and the band used to be part of 'student services' (which oversee's the Frat system, cheerleaders, and some other studenty things), and now is part of the 'Cal Performances' dept. which is mostly an outreach kind of thing (brings acts to the large campus performance hall, etc). no units, no money, one director, one admin assist for the director. If it's gonna happen, the members are gonna do it.

A bit off your subject, but, consider learning to play bass as well. Bass and tuba perform compatible functions. That is a very good double to have, both for college and beyond.

And IMO the earlier you start with that, the better the cross-fertilization. At least, I know in my case, in retrospect I waited too long; I was too far along with my tuba studies. I knew very well what I wanted to do on the bass, but the equipment kept screwing up my head.

Or maybe I just suck.