I have been around marching bands a long time, but this is the first time I have seen these. How the heck do you keep them on the sousaphone bell? Wouldn't they scratch the finish? Would they do more harm than good? Not to mention they look rediculous...
They go inside of the horn, probably about as far as you can reach down inside (my guess would be a 4-6" diamater for these things). Anything that gets thrown into the bell would then get caught before getting stuck down inside of the tuba.
I remember having one of these on my horn in middle school. It worked great at keeping things out. Too bad it also kept the shoe IN the horn that some kid had put in it probably year before. I'm not sure which is worse, that it was there, or that I didnt know the difference playing wise. Makes me wonder how many notes i actually played.
A couple of weekends ago my wife's family was over with gobs of small children. I caught one of the little rats using my King recording bass for a nerf basketball hoop!
Dan Schultz
"The Village Tinker" http://www.thevillagetinker.com" target="_blank
Current 'stable'... Rudolf Meinl 5/4, Marzan (by Willson) euph, King 2341, Alphorn, and other strange stuff.
We used them over 25 years ago when I was in the Army band in Berlin for Fasching parades in Fulda. Onlookers loved to give the tuba players gifts in the bell. The only problem was that we got some things (dolls, toy cars, loaves of bread, champagne bottles) stuck in there! These made it so they didn't get past the neck of the bell. I didn't notice anything stuffy but we only used the screens when we needed to!
________________________________________________________
You only have one chance to make a first impression. Don't blow it.