What Makes Us Tuba Players

[jrobba]

Hello Tubenet,

Being married to a non-musician, its sometimes hard for my wife to understand the lifestyle of a tuba player. When we first met in college, she thought something was strange about how much of my life I invested in not only playing tuba, but everything involving tuba and making noises on big brass instruments. Over the last few years she's beginning to learn the basic ins and outs of what makes me a tuba player: she basically understands the difference between F, Eb, C, and Bb tubas, all kinds of tuba manufacturer names, what a cimbasso is, what music we play, and what makes us tick...

She's began to notice that my tuba friends and I have a similar lifestyle and have some of the same "weird quirks" in our personality. Her having a degree in psychology makes her curious about what it is to be a tuba player beyond what we do when we are behind the horn making low notes.

So I've decided to put a list together of some of the things that describe us/what we do besides play tuba.

For me it seems like we are:

Beer Drinking
Food Loving (all kinds; healthy and unhealthy)
Mechanically Inclined
Friends of animals
Lovers of the outdoors
Sarcastic
Philosophical
Hardheaded
A little crazy

Help me out a little... Im sure we can get a pretty good top 10, maybe top 25 things that describe what makes us who we are!

-Jason

[bort]

I think a key component is the potential to be serious for a MAXIMUM of 2 hours at a time (probably less).

[Heavy_Metal]

A kid next to me blurted out as a joke, "bloke will do it !!!"

So even at that tender age you were called "bloke"?

[Dan Schultz]

Is this yet another 'study'?

[jrobba]

Is this yet another 'study'?

No, it's just a way for us a talk about some other things we have in common that makes us who we are as tuba players

[Donn]

I remember reading an account of the personalities one would expect to find in ... an orchestra I guess it was, and the tuba player was the one who would make friends with the stage manager.

In my limited experience - generally larger build, and maybe a certain kind of mechanical intuition about music that lends itself to playing bass lines (even if they're already written out for you, I suppose.) But much variation in personality in general. Unlike say trombone players.

[MikeW]

I shlepped my tuba, music bag, stand etc into the concert hall tonight, and heard that voice from somewhere in the band saying "oh good, Mike's here!". Nobody's ever likely to pay real money to listen to me, but there are two bands that trust me enough to let me help them enjoy making their own music; just every once in a while you get to be reminded how good that feels.

What makes me play tuba ? PRIDE man, pure PRIDE !
Where else can an atheist experience the power and the glory ?

As for why I started on tuba, it was the usual story - a flu epidemic took out all the basses, so a couple of us got drafted from other corners of the band (trombone and baritone, I think). It was a revelation, like firing up a truck that can haul when all you've ever driven is a town car. While I was still blissed out, I walked into the trade-stands area at a contest, and there was the loss-leader: a gleaming 4-valve E-flat Imperial, at a price point that only just emptied my bank account (plus a pay packet or two) - pure horn dorn, lust at first sight! I've bought other tubas (only beaters) since then, but my first love is still with me; I can't imagine life any other way.

[tbn.al]

I started playing trombone in 1957 because my aunt had one I could use for free. I formed a quintet in 2000 because that had been my favorite literature when I was in college. It only took one rehearsal to realize that my bass trombone wasn't going to cut it on the bottom for 90% of the stuff. I bought a Pan American Eb of ebay and went to see Lee Stofer. Now I am half a tuba player. I guess that makes me drink half as much, eat half as much, be half as hardheaded, etc. as the rest of you.

[iiipopes]

As a freshman in a high school with a superlative band program, good was barely good enough. I was first section in junior high, and looking at bottom of the ditch as a freshman. Then the director asked if anyone would volunteer to march with a sousaphone, to re-load the section after last year's seniors had graduated.

I thought, hmm. As a trumpet player on the field, I'll be buried and indistinguishable from over 100 other uniforms just like mine. But if I play souzy, they will all see me! I immediately volunteered, and the rest is history.

[Kevin Hendrick]

Is this yet another 'study'?

"Sometimes a tuba is just a tuba ..."

[gwwilk]

Is this yet another 'study'?

Yep, it is. 'The Psychology of Tuba Players'. I think that's the unstated title the OP's wife had in mind when she made her observations.
[Personal Opinion]
We're not trumpet players in that we're content to play mostly background roles in ensembles and many of us have no aspirations to be soloists, educators, or conductors. We're often content to 'lead from behind' as it were.

We're almost crazy because one of the more popular definitions is 'Repeating the same behavior and expecting different results.' That pretty much sums up practicing, although the behavior DOES subtly change as we learn. So we're probably not actually crazy in our behavior there. Otherwise all bets are off.

Historically it has been a pursuit dominated by males, but the proportion of female tuba players is growing. Girls' parents apparently have figured out that a 'free' instrument in middle school can rescue a budget from an otherwise devastating purchase. (Let's give parents' personalities a little credit/blame here, too.)

Drinking beer isn't a prerequisite, especially in middle school.

Musicians in general have borderline OCD. They're a subset of people who are generally successful in their pursuit of higher education because they can successfully achieve long term goals because of rather than despite their personalities.

We're windy. Witness this forum.

Tuba players don't readily conform to a norm. When we feel it's necessary we delight in being obstreperous, cantankerous, contrary, pseudo-intellectual, and argumentative. There's that borderline OCD. and this forum as supporting evidence, again.
[/Personal Opinion]

[jrobba]

Tuba players don't readily conform to a norm. When we feel it's necessary we delight in being obstreperous, cantankerous, contrary, pseudo-intellectual, and argumentative. There's that borderline OCD. and this forum as supporting evidence, again.
[/Personal Opinion]

This is great! Couldn't have said it better myself... Literally, I couldn't! My vocabulary is still supported by the operating system programmed into me at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego

[Kevin Hendrick]

Tuba players don't readily conform to a norm. When we feel it's necessary we delight in being obstreperous, cantankerous, contrary, pseudo-intellectual, and argumentative. There's that borderline OCD. and this forum as supporting evidence, again.
[/Personal Opinion]

... and, in some cases, that OCD isn't merely 'borderline' ...

[bort]

Historically it has been a pursuit dominated by males, but the proportion of female tuba players is growing. Girls' parents apparently have figured out that a 'free' instrument in middle school can rescue a budget from an otherwise devastating purchase. (Let's give parents' personalities a little credit/blame here, too.)

Drinking beer isn't a prerequisite, especially in middle school.

True, beer isn't a prerequisite... but it is something that I have found in common with about 90% of other tuba players I've known. And the other 10% are still cool too.

In my college marching band, one year we had 20 sousaphone players, and 12 of them were girls (some had played tuba before college, others switched in college). That was a lot of fun. I've only ran across 1 or 2 woman tuba players since then.

[Dan Schultz]

.... In my college marching band, one year we had 20 sousaphone players, and 12 of them were girls (some had played tuba before college, others switched in college). That was a lot of fun. I've only ran across 1 or 2 woman tuba players since then.

You have to consider that many girls are in college looking only for an mrs. degree! What better way to find a great guy than to be in the tuba section!

[bort]

Haha, I haven't heard the "mrs degree" bit before. That certainly has NOT been my experience out east here...both in DC and NY, seems like under 25 and married is pretty rare, and even under 30 and married is really not all that common.

[Donn]

Haha, I haven't heard the "mrs degree" bit before.

Sounds like you might be under 60.

[bort]

Haha, I haven't heard the "mrs degree" bit before.

Sounds like you might be under 60.

I'm barely halfway there.

[Steve Marcus]

From the age of 3, I knew that I wanted to play tuba. At that age, there was a picture that hung above my bed of a circus scene. I remember staring at the tuba (sousaphone) player.

My father let me use his record player at that age. I would place my ear close to the speaker so that I could hear the bass line better.

Whenever I heard music, I would grind my teeth very slightly to give the impression internally that I was providing the bass line.

On Gene Pokorny's Orchestral Excerpts CD, he states (I don't have the exact words) that the first requirement to be a tuba player is that you have to love the sound of the tuba.

We're not trumpet players in that we're content to play mostly background roles in ensembles and many of us have no aspirations to be soloists...We're often content to 'lead from behind' as it were.

There are always exceptions to that statement (we all could name tuba soloists), but I believe gwwilk's comment is generally true.

Then there's Garrison Keiller's description of tuba players, with his tongue firmly in cheek:

The brass section is made up of men who were at one time in the construction trade and went into music because the hours were better. They are heavy dudes, and that's why composers wrote so few notes for them: because they're juveniles. The tuba player, for example, is a stocky bearded guy who has a day job as a plumber. He's the only member of the orchestra who bowls and goes deer hunting. It's not an instrument for a sensitive Lutheran, and anyway, there's only one Tuba player and he's it.

[Steve Marcus]

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