Why did Sousa's band use sousaphones??

[imperialbari]

Would it be too farfetched to assume that Conn provided the band free sousaphones as part of their marketing scheme?

Klaus

PS: The Ellington band was on Danish TV fairly often during The Duke’s last 10 years or so. I wondered during one such transmission about the whole trumpet section playing identical instruments (King as far as I could see). Anybody who knows about any sponsorships for that band?

[eupher61]

Bob, you're answering your own questions again, and it seems like you don't believe your answers either!

[Kenton]

Sousa phased in the sousaphones, but he used the raincatcher style. The big sousaphones were really too big to be used for marching, and were never intended to be used in that fashion. If you look at historical photos of the early jazz bands, they used sousaphones as well. The sousaphone for a period of time was considered the state of the art, and improvements were first introduced on the sousaphones, and were then later - if successful - applied to the tubas.

[iiipopes]

Remember that in the early days of recording, especially with acoustic horn recording to the earliest days of electronic microphone recording, before "modern" recording techniques were developed, John "Chief" Kuhn, among others, used souzys to get the orchestral double bass parts onto 78 rpm records, and were so good at emulation that unless you knew, you would have thought it was the double bass section.

[iiipopes]

Sousa phased in the sousaphones, but he used the raincatcher style. The big sousaphones were really too big to be used for marching, and were never intended to be used in that fashion.

With all due respect, the 38K I play has just exactly the right wear in the right places that can only occur from decades of use in marching, the right kind of repairs from dings and dents, and frankly some dents not repaired yet, that most often occur from marching, and a tell-tale discoloration ring on the main tuning slide in the exact place that it takes to play the horn in tune on a brisk October Saturday, as I found out when I had to play a centennial celebration of a regional court house outdoors last year.

[Ace]

Sousa phased in the sousaphones, but he used the raincatcher style. The big sousaphones were really too big to be used for marching, and were never intended to be used in that fashion.

With all due respect, the 38K I take care of has just exactly the right wear in the right places that can only occur from decades of use in marching, the right kind of repairs from dings and dents, and frankly some dents not repaired yet, that most often occur from marching, and a tell-tale discoloration ring on the main tuning slide in the exact place that it takes to play the horn in tune on a brisk October Saturday, as I found out when I had to play a centennial celebration of a regional court house outdoors last year.

Congratulations! You have posted the BBS's longest single sentence. LOL

[tubashaman2]

.

[imperialbari]

As discussed in the thread on Sousa music to be found at the LOC site, Sousa started out writing for the CW-era band style with few WW and alto horns and tenor horns in stead of French horns and trombones plus an Eb cornet on top of the brasses. He hardly could avoid first hand marching experience during his time as bandmaster with the Marines.

I haven’t read anywhere that Sousa should have played any brass instrument along with his violin. Here in my country it was very common for military brass players of that period to earn extra money as string players in the dance hall orchestras. When I look at the music to Sousa’s The Diplomat it is very obvious to me that the composer thinks like a string player. That march takes a very light approach with very fast breaths between phrases.

Earlier threads on TubeNet have told about the two largest raincatchers in the Sousa band being Conn prototypes. The largest having a 22" bell and being out of rather thin brass, which is in strong contrast to my 1927 40K and 26K (only a few hundreds apart in serial numbers), which both are made out of very heavy sheet brass. At least my 40K hardly can have been made for marching. That would have been murder on the player.

Klaus

[Kenton]

As discussed in the thread on Sousa music to be found at the LOC site, Sousa started out writing for the CW-era band style with few WW and alto horns and tenor horns in stead of French horns and trombones plus an Eb cornet on top of the brasses. He hardly could avoid first hand marching experience during his time as bandmaster with the Marines.

CW Style basses would also have been Eb's. But I doubt that he would have used OTS's as mentioned earlier, as they rapidly lost popularity after the Civil War.

I haven’t read anywhere that Sousa should have played any brass instrument along with his violin. Here in my country it was very common for military brass players of that period to earn extra money as string players in the dance hall orchestras.

That was common in the U.S. as well in the 1800's.

At least my 40K hardly can have been made for marching. That would have been murder on the player.

The distinction that probably needs to be made between what the horn was made for and how it was actually used. Having rescued a 40K and a 38K from decades old storage that had been part of the equipment of an old fireman's band, whose primary activity was marching, I know that those monsters were used for marching,

I don't know a lot of the history of that organization, but I do know that their newest horns were a set of 20ks bought in 1948. And, there was a 1947 King 1250. Lastly, I know that several of the sousaphones had been sold off in earlier years, and they were supposedly in better condition than the King, 40 and 38s. I can only presume that the 1920 40k, and the 38k had been retired in favor of more manageable instruments.

[Mike-ICR]

I'm the proud owner of a Whaley Royce sousa from 1910-1920 (it might be a Huttl) and even though it's just a 3v BBb I find it almost impossible to march with. The brass is thick, it's a 5/4 horn and it has a 25" bell. It sounds like I'm not the only one with a huge horn. I know there are smaller bore sousas out there but it seems the older ones particularly are larger (5 or 6/4). I wonder if 5-6/4 horns were even being produced at the time. Is it possible that the sousaphone was a way to manage the size? Or maybe bending branches of that size into a sousa shape was easier than a tuba shape? Maybe they were popular partly because of their bore and bell size and never meant for marching anymore than any other horn.

[lgb&dtuba]

In an interview with John Philip Sousa the Christian Science Monitor of May 30, 1922 quoted him as follows:

"...the Sousaphone received its name through a suggestion made by me to J.W. Pepper, the instrument manufacturer of Philadelphia, full 30 odd years ago. At that time, the United States Marine Band of Washington, D.C., of which I was conductor, used a BBb bass tuba of circular form known as a "Helicon". It was all right enough for street-parade work, but its tone was apt to shoot ahead too prominently and explosively to suite me for concert performances, so I spoke to Mr. Pepper relative to constructing a bass instrument in which the bell would turn upwards and be adjustable for concert purposes. He built one and, grateful to me for the suggestion, called it a Sousaphone. It was immediately taken up by other instrument makers, and is today manufactured in its greatest degree of perfection by the C.G. Conn Company..."

From the man, himself.

[JCalkin]

In an interview with John Philip Sousa the Christian Science Monitor of May 30, 1922 quoted him as follows:

"...the Sousaphone received its name through a suggestion made by me to J.W. Pepper, the instrument manufacturer of Philadelphia, full 30 odd years ago. At that time, the United States Marine Band of Washington, D.C., of which I was conductor, used a BBb bass tuba of circular form known as a "Helicon". It was all right enough for street-parade work, but its tone was apt to shoot ahead too prominently and explosively to suite me for concert performances, so I spoke to Mr. Pepper relative to constructing a bass instrument in which the bell would turn upwards and be adjustable for concert purposes. He built one and, grateful to me for the suggestion, called it a Sousaphone. It was immediately taken up by other instrument makers, and is today manufactured in its greatest degree of perfection by the C.G. Conn Company..."

From the man, himself.

This is how I remember it also. The bell-forward Sousaphone was developed later to facilitate recording, IIRC. Sousa's band was at the forefront of the recording movement, and the recording equipment used at the time employed large funnels that had to played into (think gramophone/phonograph in reverse); they were terrible at capturing ambient/omnidirectional sounds, so the bells of the tubas had to be shifted forward.

[windshieldbug]

Why did Sousa's band use sousaphones??

Because saxophones scared the horses.

[Kenton]

Sousa conducted on only 8 of the Sousa Band 1770 recordings , because he had a distaste for the sound of the early recordings. And, he didn't like radio much either, but he did do 38 of them.

But, I've never seen any indication that Sousa shifted to bell front sousas for these sessions. Has anyone seen any documentation that he did?

[windshieldbug]

In fact, an 1891 picture of the Marine band recording shows them with NO bell forward tubas, only bell upward.



Even Conn's first Sousaphones were raincatchers like this 1898 4-valver. It wasn't until later that they modified the shape for marching.



The only photographs that I am aware of including JPS and bell-front sousaphones are where he is guest-conducting someone else's band.

[tofu]

[lgb&dtuba]

Didn't Sousa's band only march like 3 times? Why did they use wrap-around tubas then instead of concert tubas?

They didn't always use sousaphones. The previous picture didn't show any sousaphones (that I could see). Follow this link, http://www.marineband.usmc.mil/imgs/sub ... ehotel.jpg and you'll see no sousaphones, either.

Take a look at that monster front row left.

[lgb&dtuba]

I couldn't resist one more picture.



I see 3 concert tubas and one rain catcher sousaphone there. The real intriguing question is how did they march with that harp.

Jim, "I know, I know." Wagner

[Kenton]

They worked, . . . sort of. It puts the bell in a rather uncomfortable position and really blocks your line of sight.

Here's King Eb example:

King-rain-display.jpg

[JCalkin]

Sousa conducted on only 8 of the Sousa Band 1770 recordings , because he had a distaste for the sound of the early recordings. And, he didn't like radio much either, but he did do 38 of them.

But, I've never seen any indication that Sousa shifted to bell front sousas for these sessions. Has anyone seen any documentation that he did?

I knew I was going to regret what I had types the moment I hit "submit".

I remember reading this SOMEWHERE once, or discussing it in a class, but can't attest to its validity or cite a source.

I'd like a new button added to TubeNet just for me, if possible:


Anywho, I retract my previous statement, but I'll leave it unedited in case someone comes along later who can verify it.

What I CAN tell you is that Sousa himself didn't participate in the recordings not only because he didn't like the quality, but also due to the fact that he had moral objections to recordings in general. He felt that the advent of recordings would result in the decline of at-home music making and a slowing down of musical development in America. I was thinking along the lines that the bell front Sousa may have come along to facilitate recordings even if not conducted, supervised (or even necessarily condoned) by the man himself.

I'm off now to do my penance (play some trombone).