did you play any instruments before u played tuba?

[GhostlyBoy08]

I used to play bassoon in 7th grade but then the tuba player had to move and i ended up playing tuba and have loved playing it ever since

[dmeacham5]

Yes I played and started off playing baritone in sixth grade and was in choir, but practically got kicked out I was so bad...

[kkg]

Trumpet in high school.

[Bob Kolada]

Trumpet and baritone, so no and kinda.

[Conn 2J CC]

Tuba is what I started on, just after 7th Grade.

[Tubaryan12]

Started on trumpet. Never once regretted the switch.

[Dan Schultz]

Started on piano at age seven and tuba at twelve. I didn't realize it at the time. But... piano was a good thing. I have not touched a piano in over fifty years but the fundamental things I learned turned out to be priceless.

[SousaWarrior9]

I started on the F horn in 5th grade. Then quickly realized that transposing was not my thing. A year later one of our trombones switched to tuba. I heard that low bass sound behind me and knew it was my destiny .

[bigtubby]

Started on piano at age seven and tuba at twelve. I didn't realize it at the time. But... piano was a good thing. I have touched a piano in over fifty years but the fundamental things I learned turned out to be priceless.

So much truth above. I started on t-bone, moved to bass in high school. After school actually began learning about music on guitar. Have always wished for a piano (equal temperament all laid out so neatly) background.

[Jerryleejr]

Started on trumpet, played upright bass (bluegrass band) switched to tuba 8th grade, got bounced around as needed on trumpet baritone, and French horn. Filled in on tympani a few times dabbled with electric bass, now back on tuba.

JJ

[GC]

No. I was a late starter. There was no middle school band available in my school until the year I started high school. My chronic hearing problems prompted my parents to refuse to let me audition for band in the 9th grade; they confused hearing loss with tone deafness.

A few months into the 9th grade, most of my friends were band members. My dad, who was the band director's platoon sergeant in the Marine reserves, talked my director into giving me a tryout. There were only 10 weeks in my freshman year. Dad though he said he needed a French horn player. When I walked into the band room, he handed me a Sousaphone and said, "this is a bass horn." I immediately said, "I thought you said French horn! I can't carry this!" He said, "Of course you can. It may be big, but it's hollow. Just give it a try."

It didn't take long before I was hooked on music (though not necessarily the tuba). I learned trumpet fingerings about the same time I learned tuba fingerings and picked up baritone and trombone while I was in high school.

[Steve Marcus]

Piano and choral singing.

[David Richoux]

Tonette in second grade, Baritone in 3rd. Then we moved to a district with no elementary band, so my dad got me a trumpet. I played that until 7th grade (private lessons) when the need for a tuba player was obvious - so I volunteered! That was an Eb Sousaphone, went to BBb in High School, still Sousaphone. Learned trombone over the summer between 11th and 12th grade so I could play in our newly formed "Stage Band."

Learned G baritone bugle (two keys) in the US Navy San Diego Recruit Depot Drum & Bugle Corps in 1/2 day, played in a major parade the next day!
Played trumpet and trombone in a shipboard rock/funk band off the coast of Vietnam.

Bought an Olds BBb tuba to play in Junior College wind band and hardly ever played it. Got a $50 BBb helicon for parading with LTWCMB in 1978 and have been gradually increasing in numbers of tubas, helicons, Sousaphones, middle and high brass ever since.

My main axe (the one I get payed to play) is still BBb tuba and/or Sousaphone, but I am getting much better at Eb Alto Horn in the last few years (not much future big $$ for that horn, I think.)

[TubadudeCA]

Clarinet----> Alto Sax -----> Bassoon -----> Trombone ------> Baritone -------> Tuba


I'd like to think I've made the right choice

[TubadudeCA]

Clarinet----> Alto Sax -----> Bassoon -----> Trombone ------> Baritone -------> Tuba


I'd like to think I've made the right choice

[Bandmaster]

Yep.... piano (4th grade) to clarinet (7th grade) to tenor saxophone (fall of 11th grade) to tuba (winter of 11th grade).

But then I regressed a little in college and got talked into playing contra bass clarinet in one ensemble for a semester. And later, when I was much older (50), I marched baritone for one summer in a senior drum corps.

[padgman1]

French Horn in middle school..........my high school did not have a band/orchestra, so no more music..................until 3 years ago. My community in Illinois ( Olney) has a community band that started up 5 years ago ( we also have a summer community band for more serious players that has been in existence for 50+ years). I went to their concert to listen and fancied I could possibly play...I still had my SCHOOL HORN ( I have no idea how they did not track this down). I saw 5 French Horn players there and thought, No Way I could get in there. I only saw 1 tuba player, though, and thought, maybe I could learn how to play that. A discussion with the music director ( a friend) and her husband ( also a band director and a t-bone player) later, a "found" King 3 valve horn, and I learned how to blow.......now I have a Conn 5J ( thanks to Mr. Village Tinker) and enjoy playing passibly in this band.

[b.williams]

Trumpet
Euphonium
Trombone

[scottw]

I am apparently one of those rarities: I started in 6th grade on tuba, adding string bass in HS. Only in methods classes in college did I first play one of those "other" instruments.

[NDSPTuba]

I played F Horn for 26 years. The last ten of those professionally. I ended up on tuba as a last ditch effort to find an instrument I could play after embouchure dystonia ended my F horn playing career. I still from time to time pick up a horn and "attempt" a come back. I always end up back on tuba. The better I get at tuba, the more I learn about the embouchure for tuba, the more I try to apply that "approach" to a F Horn come back. While I can say I've had limited success on Horn using this approach, it is still a mess of quivers and shakes, that I just don't get on tuba. So I end up sticking with tuba.