What to do when someone calls your sousaphone a tuba? (poll)

[Bob Bigalard]

LET IT GO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk" target="_blank

[butch]

When I take the train or the bus with my sousaphone people normally don't have a clue what instrument it is. So I have to explain. It's often a good start for a nice conversation.

(I usually tell them that it is a sousaphone, which is like a tube but in a different configuration.)

[MikeW]

Me thinks if the designers wanted it to be CALLED a tuba, they wouldn't have named it a sousaphone.

Who cares what a droid from the marketing department wanted ? He stole the name Sousaphone from what we now call the Raincatcher, and attached Sousa's good name and musical reputation to a bell-forward instrument, when it is well known that Sousa suggested the Sousaphone solely as a means of getting rid of bell-forward basses.

Also, audience members around here are so proud of knowing what a Euphonium looks like, I only tell them its actually a Tuba if they specifically ask me.

[MikeW]

Yes the details of the instrument aren't relevant. Lets call sousaphones tubas. Blah blah blah. Donn you'd argue the time of day with a clock.

And so he should. What's the use of a clock if someone doesn't set it right now and then ?

[sloan]

Thank them for using the correct term.

"Sousaphone" is, of course, incorrect - unless you are carrying a raincatcher.

"Helicon" is arguably better - but still not quite correct.

We need a name for this instrument. Perhaps we should follow in the tradition of Marching French Horns, and call is a "Bellowphone".

[sloan]

I respectfully disagree. Like it or not, its the unintended name in the vernacular. Just like all inline skates are now "rollerblades".

Also, thanking them for something they didn't know to begin with would be a missed opportunity.

Lost "who won't let let this go"

You can't start from a "purist" position....and then fall back on "that's what everyone calls them".

Cake...Eat...pick one!

[Donn]

Also, thanking them for something they didn't know to begin with would be a missed opportunity.

Have you thought about what they know? What do you think "tuba" means to this hypothetical onlooker who applies the term to your sousaphone?

- the correct meaning of tuba as I think even you must acknowledge, including sousaphone and helicon?
- has he or she somehow learned "tuba" as a synonym for sousaphone?
- was it just a lucky guess, might as likely have said marimba?
- ?

Only the first seems at all likely to me. In which case, our onlooker has not only managed to distinguish your sousaphone from a French horn, he or she has also seen through to its essential similarity to the quite different looking lap tuba, for which I believe he or she deserves to be congratulated, instead of quibbled with.

(By the way ... am I right, we're not supposed to say "French horn" in the company of players of this instrument, lest they "gently correct us"? It's supposed to be just plain "horn"? A couple of people besides me have already committed this error in this thread, though, so I feel I might get away with it.)

[sloan]

Correct on the deprecation of "French" horn - I plead guilty, with the explanation that "horn" would have been ambiguous in my post and I was not confident that "Horn" would fix that for all readers.

[Donn]

It's a pedantic "correction" that makes certain players of that instrument look like turkeys to people who are just trying to use words to communicate.

[emcallaway]

[Donn]

By the way - a point that we could miss in a text medium - a sousaphone may correctly be called a tuba pronounced "too buh" - but I think most would agree, a sousaphone may not be correctly called a "tyoo buh."

[Steve Oberheu]

I actually have a good story about just that question....

Leaving the bar after a late-night gig, I was walking down the street around 2am and some drunk bystander from about 50 ft. away starts yelling at me, "Hey Tuba....Tuba maaaaan.....TUUUUUBAAAAAAAA..."

As I kept walking away without turning around, as is my custom, some other drunken bystander yells at the first one...

"IT'S A SOUSAPHONE....GET IT RIGHT, ****OLE!!!"

And I grinned....and kept walking......

[Mark]

I have, on more than one occasion, been asked after a concert, "What is that big instrument you were playing?". When I responded "It's a tuba", I was told quite confidently by the questioner that it was not a tuba because tubas are carried on the shoulder and wrap around the player's body.

[Kevin Elliott]

My one-year old nephew is fascinated by tubas. My sister-in-law is starting to get annoyed by this but I find it amusing and evidence of my nephew's strong character. I've played my 186 for him and my King sousaphone but as far as he's concerned, they're both tubas.

Maybe when he's older I'll straighten him out...

[jimmilo]

Invite them to Tuba Christmas.

[Mark]

I have, on more than one occasion, been asked after a concert, "What is that big instrument you were playing?". When I responded "It's a tuba", I was told quite confidently by the questioner that it was not a tuba because tubas are carried on the shoulder and wrap around the player's body.

You thanked them, didn't you...??

They bought tickets. Yes, I thanked them.

[tubasaz]

I just laugh a bit and then say like "I feel that this is like a big French Horn, isn't this ?". And show the sousa more closely putting the bell down and backwards like a Horn.
And usually more info is asked. People seem always to be so interested about my fancy sousa !

[Teubonium]

Standing in the lobby after a concert, a concert-goer asked me "What is the difference between a bass horn and a tuba?"

Another concert-goer quickly offered a definition. "A bass horn has the bell facing forward while a tuba has an upright bell."

[Greenbenches]

And submarines are ships, even if we call them boats. But all ships are not submarines. The difference is that all ships can dive, only submarines can resurface. I never called my sub a ship.
I'll stay with "sousaphone, it's a type of tuba".