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I have stopped being surprised at how many people don't know what a tuba looks or sounds like.

I have on two occasions, separated by a period of years and several thousand miles, had my tuba playing confused with oboe playing. One was "Was that an oboe you were playing?" The other was a, "Well I heard an oboe this morning..."

I guess I should also be surprised at how many people don't know what an oboe looks or sounds like.

Has anyone else been accused of being an oboe player?

timayer wrote:I have stopped being surprised at how many people don't know what a tuba looks or sounds like.

I have on two occasions, separated by a period of years and several thousand miles, had my tuba playing confused with oboe playing. One was "Was that an oboe you were playing?" The other was a, "Well I heard an oboe this morning..."

I guess I should also be surprised at how many people don't know what an oboe looks or sounds like.

Has anyone else been accused of being an oboe player?

Idk about a oboe, but my tuba has been confused with a lot of things
One of my favorites was when a adult asked me why I was holding a big piece of metal.......
I mean, he's not wrong

French horn

When: Commuting to work onto an Air Force Base. Taking my Tuba in the Cronkhite bag through the gate in my back seat. Additionally, lugging it on my back into the building (to avoid sitting in my car all day in the FL daytime heat).

Confused with what: I was always concerned someone would unknowingly think it was some kind of suicide backpack or IED. No one ever even blinked an eye.

French horn, baritone. Tent, when it was in its home made bag.

In spanish, the word "trombon" sounds like something very big as the accent is on the last "o"), so when they see something very big they just call It trombone lol

15 - 20 years ago, after playing a concert with the Atlantic Wind symphony, a gentleman approached me backstage as I was packing up. He went on about how great I was and how he could hear me and how I was manipulating the slides and playing in tune . I let him go on and thanked him several times. Then, he wrapped it up by saying, boy, you're some french horn player.

bloke wrote: and that a special permit - a license, if you will - is required to operate a sousaphone, and that a safety test must be passed - demonstrating mastery at the "journeyman" level - prior to operation or ownership.

The flute player in front of me in marching band in sixth grade would have been a lot happier had I had to pass a safety test before marching with a sousaphone. Had I been tested, it would have been apparent that I couldn't stay upright in a stiff breeze. Long story short - marching, tailwind, she stopped, and I couldn't.

“Big trumpet” is my favourite.

Oboe seems to be the catch-all term for instruments that people don’t know. I’ve heard it applied to bass sax, tuba and double bass.

When I played regularly with a ukulele group (on double bass) the standard joke was ‘that’s a big ukulele!’ To which I replied, ‘no i’m just a small guy’.

Most commonly: big trumpet.
Once: banjo

Someone once asked me if my tuba was a French horn. When I told them no, it was a tuba, they assured me that they knew what a tuba looked like and my instrument was not a tuba. As everyone knows, the tuba wraps around your body.

Too many jugs of beer one night when working at Your Father's Moustache in Chicago back in the 60s. Or was it me?

Worth wrote:When: Commuting to work onto an Air Force Base. Taking my Tuba in the Cronkhite bag through the gate in my back seat. Additionally, lugging it on my back into the building (to avoid sitting in my car all day in the FL daytime heat).

Confused with what: I was always concerned someone would unknowingly think it was some kind of suicide backpack or IED. No one ever even blinked an eye.

For the tuba, yes "big trumpet", okay I buy that. "French horn", mmm okay, but bigger and right handed valves, no complaint. "Close, it's a tuba." And yes, many times explained sousaphone-tuba family tree.

Just a few years out of the military, I was traveling with my tenor trombone, in a very slender case with shoulder strap. Passing a window in the airport, I could help notice that I had held the strap just like my M-16 rifle. This is just weeks after 9-11. I felt "obvious".

Out and about with my euphonium is a different story....
Fred Mertz (or a reasonable facsimile): "What's that instrument"
Me: "A euphonium."
Fred Mertz: "Not it's not. I played that in high school."
Me: "Oh, yes, a baritone horn."
Fred Mertz: "Yes, right. Now what's the difference between a baritone horn and a euphonium"?
Me: "Two thousand dollars". (Accurate at the time. Of course, now it could be either much more than that, or much much less?)

timayer wrote:... Has anyone else been accused of being an oboe player?

Yes. The only time it upsets me is when I've been playing English horn.

Causality is difficult to ascribe but perhaps due to the fact that our audience is fairly enlightened or the fact that one of my go to horns is the diminutive c1890 Schuster Army, my tuba is often confused with a baritone horn.

Mike C855B wrote:

timayer wrote:... Has anyone else been accused of being an oboe player?

Yes. The only time it upsets me is when I've been playing English horn.

Maybe ten years go someone asked me what an English horn was, and as I was describing it a young woman basically shouted over me that I was wrong, and her "correct" description was of some brass instrument. She was quite emphatic.

One time my tuba was mistaken for a musical instrument...

I put a stop to that malarkey right away!

My group California Repercussions was at a Sacramento rock recording studio for our most recent CD. The recording engineer was blanking on what to call the bass section, said “Superphones!” over the studio talk-back speakers. Sure worked for us, busted up the rest of the band.

Last Sat., during one of the worse gigs of my life, mainly because it was raining hard at times, and we were under a tent that was too small and set up in the mud, a guy came over to me and said, "I never saw a french horn that big."

And, Tom, I'm glad you got my message. It sat in my Outbox for a couple of days. I don't know why it takes so long for it to send. Nice looking tuba of yours in the picture !!

Bill Troiano wrote:... a guy came over to me and said, "I never saw a french horn that big." ...

My wife said it must be really awkward putting your hand in the bell.