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I've been curious for a while how to play F tuba, but obviously my high school doesn't have one and it's not worth $XXXX-XXXXX to buy one at my age. I'm a sophomore in high school and plan on majoring in trombone, not tuba, so it doesn't make economical sense for me to invest in an F tuba. I was wondering if it's plausible that if I asked the local university (Drake University), that they would consider lending one to me (assuming they had one available for a significant amount of time)?

They can only say yes or no. Eb horns also are available (probably more than F in the US) and are bass horns.

It would be even better if you could get the HS Director to ask for you.

You will put more dollars in your pocket if you take the extra energy you have and take piano lessons. Piano is what puts the bread on the table. You can accompany contest solos, singers of all types, musical productions, wedding ceremonies, choirs, voice lessons, I could go on. On the other hand, you could mess with your chops picking up a double you can use in a handful of musicals, assuming an F tuba was the horn you wanted, to play a few notes in the musical. Singing lessons are a good plan too.

Tubas tend to be treated terribly by the non-owner user, so don't be discouraged if you can't get the loan.

You can certainly call Drake University and ask them, but...

It's pretty unlikely they even have a bass tuba. While there are many small, private colleges in Iowa with fine music programs, they tend to not be programs of the size and scope that would actually have a bass tuba on hand. Your best chance of finding a school owned bass tuba is probably at the University of Northern Iowa, University of Iowa, and then Iowa State University - probably in that order. Finding the instrument is just the first issue. Getting them to loan one to a high school student not enrolled at their institution seems equally unlikely. But again...you can certainly ask.

swillafew wrote:You will put more dollars in your pocket if you take the extra energy you have and take piano lessons. Piano is what puts the bread on the table. You can accompany contest solos, singers of all types, musical productions, wedding ceremonies, choirs, voice lessons, I could go on. On the other hand, you could mess with your chops picking up a double you can use in a handful of musicals, assuming an F tuba was the horn you wanted, to play a few notes in the musical. Singing lessons are a good plan too.

...and along with the piano, you could take up the organ. Decent paying, full-time positions for organists are going unfilled pretty much nationwide.

It's a cipher to me how music schools overlook this fact. Turning out musicians competent on organ as a second instrument could put a lot of graduates to work as actual professional musicians, not baristas at Starbuck's.

Take up electric bass. That will get you a wide range of gigs.

I would be glad to rent an F tuba to anyone for a one time rental fee of $20,000.

Thanks for the replies everyone. It sounds like it's probably not going to happen anyway, which is fine, I can wait. Maybe a cheap 3-valve E flat at some point, but not now.

In regards to piano, organ, voice etc. lessons, I already sing and play piano (not organ) to a competent degree. I taught myself piano about a year ago and can play fairly well, my only setback being not owning a piano. I also sing in one of the chamber choirs at my school. I'm also not so worried about doubling messing up my chops at this point, I already play several instruments, ranging from soprano to contrabass so my chops are used to it by now.