Tuba Demographics

[ronr]

70s; Conn fiberglass sousas and Reynolds Contempora recording basses in high school. In uni it was whatever they could find until you got in the top band and they had a couple Rudy Meinl 4-bangers. I think they still have the Meinls

[vespa50sp]

I graduated from US in central MN, then went to college in St Cloud and Minneapolis. We had Couesnon tunas and one three valve Reynolds in HS. I still see Couesons on craigs list here. Conn brass and fiberglass sousas. In college the school was excited about their Yamaha 321's (I never cared for them). The hot players owned Yamaha 641, Miraphones and Meinel Weston. There was a run on St Petersburg about a decade ago, but they didn't seem to fair well in The hands of students. The Jr High my community band plays in has a variety of old 3va!ve Kings and just purchased a herd of Yamaha 105's.

The colleges did not seem to push c instruments for students until after the late eighties or so. Then you knew someone was "serious" if the bought a c. I rarely saw any Eb's, except for antiques until recently. I didn't know that f was a thing until recently.

[WC8KCY]

Growing up in the '80s in the central part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, my small high school (Rapid River) had:

An early '70s YBB-321 that was very shoddily made
A brand-new YBB-103
Two absolutely horrible brass sousaphones marked "Elkhorn, A Div. of Getzen" that were probably built by Orsi.
Two Olds Ambassador 3-valve bell-front baritone
A brand-new Reynolds 4-valve version of the Olds Ambassador baritone
A Conn 14I 3-valve bell-front baritone

A neighboring high school (Big Bay de Noc) launched its music program in 1970, and generously supplied instruments for most of the kids to play. Other than a Yamaha or Signet fiberglass sousaphone and a YEP-201 euphonium, everything else was Bundy.

A larger neighboring high school (Gladstone) had a fleet of YBB-201 tubas.

Escanaba's high school had gold-metallic Holton fiberglas sousaphones.

Carney-Nadeau high school had a wonderful brass Pan Am sousaphone.

At peninsula-wide Honors bands and festivals, I recall only seeing YBB-201 and 321 tubas, along with one Mercedes 3-valve front-action upright tuba.

Northern Michigan University had a fleet of Mirafone 186 tubas in excellent condition as well as some Conn 20K sousaphones.

Lake Superior State University had a huge top-action 4-valve Conn with detachable upright and recording bells, also in excellent condition. I got to play that excellent tuba from 1988-1991 in the LSSU band and the Sault Symphony Orchestra. Sadly, the skeletal music program at LSSU was axed not very long afterward.

The Escanaba City Band owned a marvelous Buescher BB-flat sousaphone, a Conn front-action E-flat tuba that wasn't playable, a Holton 3-valve bell-front baritone, and a small fleet of Conn 14I 3-valve bell-front baritones.

A four-rotor BB-flat inscribed "Meinl-Weston, A Div. of Getzen" hung around Escanaba's Musik Guild Shoppe for a few years. Eventually, an Escanaba City Band player bought it. He marched the MW in parades well into his 80s!

The Negaunee City Band had a player with a Conn Raincatcher Bb-flat sousahone. That sousaphone, which was even bigger than the giant Buescherphone I played in Escanaba, sounded gorgeous...

Curiously absent: King brasswinds, and Buffet clarinets. I never even heard of Buffet clarinets until I began playing at the collegiate level. Even then, my clarinet professor at NMU--who only cared about the gear you were playing if it was holding you back--was a Yamaha player.

Being closer to Elkhorn, Wisconsin than Elkhart, Indiana, many more Holton and Getzen trumpets, cornets, and trombones were found in our area than those of other makes. Back then, the G. Leblanc HQ in Kenosha was happy to let you test-play anything they had on hand, and arrange for your local dealer to sell you whatever horn you picked out. That said, the step-up trumpet and cornet of choice in our area was the Getzen Capri. Advanced students might move on to a "Doc Severinsen" Getzen Eterna trumpet, but the really serious kids had Schilkes, not Bachs.

[WC8KCY]

previous post...
...back when local sales tax was c. 1-cent on the dollar, local property tax was "noticeable" - but not much more, teachers were mostly "people who wanted to be home by the time their own children were home, and - thus - were looking for something like a 75%-time job with 75%-time pay", and it was understood that - were band instruments supplied for STUDENTS, that STUDENT-grade instruments would do.

Like those ideas or not, those were the times.

My parents were both teachers. Dad got paid less than $15K a year well into the 1980s. We couldn't make it on just that.

During my career in high school, the budget situation was so dire that bus service was discontinued and the art and home economics programs were cut. It's my understanding that if our band director didn't have as much seniority as he did, the music program surely would've gotten the axe, too. Around the same time, a neighboring high school suspended its music program temporarily, then deep-sixed it permanently.

I might have had a junky tuba to play on, but at least we still had band. And I am still grateful for that.

[MN_TimTuba]

Moved from trombone to tuba in 1970, small town just north of the Twin Cities (MN) metro. Sr Hi and Jr Hi students all played the same 3 tubas, Reynolds 3-valve front action bell front tubas, always in stands. We had both brass and fibreglass sousaphones, but I never once paid attention to the makers. Family moved to Brainerd, MN, my Jr and Sr years, much larger school with a generous budget. There we had Conn 20J tubas, always in stands, and one shiny new 4-valve upright/upright Besson that we played only if we were first chair, and it was cased when not in use. The way that horn was babied, I was amazed that my director was willing to let me take the Besson to a series of (non-school) youth solo contests that culminated in the national contest in Colorado. Plenty of fibreglass sousas, I believe a collection of Conn and Yamaha. Got my Mu Ed degree in a small school just NW of Chicago, the school owned a bunch of BBb Couesnon 3-valve upright, upright bell pea shooters, no sousas. I purchased my own Yamaha 321 during my sophomore year (since it looked and felt a lot like that Besson), tho' my instructors from the Chicago Lyric Opera recommended getting a rotary CC (but A Jacobs played my Yammer during a lesson and said it was a good horn, so that was enough for me). During HS it seemed that every solo/ensemble contest I played in, every tuba player from every school had a different horn (bell up or front, big or small, mostly 3 valve with a few 4 valve, FA or TA), and I don't remember ever once seeing a rotary tuba except on some LP album covers - and I really wondered what they were, but never took the time to write manufacturers for literature, so I was pretty clueless. My MOA was just to make my horn sound good, no matter what was put in my hands.

[toobagrowl]

I grew up in Elon/Burlington, NC.

-- Middle school --> I started 6th grade band on percussion. Wasn't a great fit for me, and I wanted to play a brass instrument. So I told the band director I wanted to switch to trombone. He told me that if I took lessons for it over the summer before the beginning of my 7th grade year (so I could catch up with the trombones who already had a full year on it) I could. So I started trombone my 7th grade, and the band director was then looking for a couple brass players to move to tuba/sousa. One of the trombone players switched to sousa/tuba, and my ears fell in love with the big, deep, rich sound it had. He started on sousa -- it was a 'Continental Colonial' sousa (Pan-American/Conn 14k stencil). I told the band director I wanted to switch to tuba/sousa. He told me that if I memorized the holiday parade music on trombone, I could make the final switch to tuba/sousa. So after the holiday parades/Christmas break, I switched to tuba/sousa halfway thru my 7th grade year, and stuck with tuba /sousa since
That middle school had that Pan-American/Conn 14k stencil 'Continental Colonial' sousa, which played great and was mostly raw brass. There was also an old Conn 20k sousa with the 3rd valve button missing, about 60% lacquer. And there were two 3/4 tubas -- an old (discontinued) Yamaha YBB-102 with the weird leadpipe, and a newish King 1140. The little Yamaha had a flattened bottom bow, warped bell and tape over a crack in the leadpipe. Still played well for a small BBb. I started on tuba/sousa sometime in 1993, I think. I took that little Yamaha home to 'get started' on tuba -- it was the very first tuba I played. I played on all those 4 tubas & sousas while there.

- The tumpet and trombone players were on student King horns. The 'baritones' (euphoniums) were on 3-valve Jupiters.


-- High school --> Three 1980s-models King 2350 sousas; two H.N. White King sousas -- one a 1250, and the other the King 'Giant' model (1270?). The three 1980s Kings were refurbished sometime before I got there (1995-96 school year), and the H.N. White sousas were refurbished my freshman year. All were silverplated. There was one tuba there -- an ugly recording-bell Besson (non-comp) BBb.

- The more 'serious' trumpet players had silver Benge or Bach trumpets; The more 'serious' trombone players had F-trigger large-bore Benge trombones.

- The marching baritones were silver Blessing horns. Maybe 3 or 4 of them.

Man, that was a long time ago .

[Tom Eshelman]

Jr High School ('59-'62) Only Conn 14J Eb's.
High School ('62-'65) Four 3v 2-piece BBb Reynolds Contemporas and one Eb Reynolds Contempora.

[basslizard]

Port Angeles, WA in the late 80's - we played everything on 3/4 King convertible marching tubas. My senior year a brand new full-sized concert tuba arrived, and the new band director wouldn't let me play it. It sat on a stand in his office all year long. Made me mad every time I walked past his office. I also have the toe-aches in bad weather from all the times I dropped those sharp cornered cases on my birkenstock-clad feet. Broke my toes on a regular basis loading and unloading the truck.

University time - mid-90's I borrowed an older full-sized Miraphone (I think, I could be wrong) for Symphonic band. (Fort Hays State University, Kansas)
I didn't have room in my schedule when I went to University of Arkansas for band.

My Jupiter is a de-accessioned middle school instrument from the 1980's, southern US. I'm thrilled to have it. First tuba I've ever owned. Everything else was always borrowed.

My flock of literal barn finds are all from a school that quit it's music program in the 1950's here in South Dakota. They're student model horns.

[Bnich93]

This thread is gonna eat our brains if we arent too careful. Considering I was 13 when this thread died and 26 when it came back from the dead...

[paulver]

Growing up in western Pa.......... the high schools and colleges around here generally used King and Conn. As time went on, Yamaha edged its way in. When I started teaching in the early 70's, a friend of mine showed me a Miraphone he'd bought for his school band program. I've been impressed with them ever since, and bought them for my school programs whenever possible. That being said, I don't know if it's the price that scares the directors or if they and students alike, just don't know about them. In any case, the Miraphones/Mirafones haven't caught on in this area. Nowadays, it's appears to be just simply...... the cheaper...... the better. All kinds of Chinese horns are in use here.

Last spring I was at a youth orchestra rehearsal in Ohio, that my daughter was in... (french horn player), when the tuba players walked in carrying their tubas, sans cases. I recognized their horns immediately, even though they were pretty beat up. I approached the kids and was wanting to confirm my "suspicions." When I asked what brand they were playing, they both instinctively replied........ "Tuba!" I said "I know that!! I want to know what BRAND they are...... Are they Miraphones?" Both kids shrugged their shoulders and said... "I don't know!" These were high school kids, not junior high. They were indeed Miraphones, but these kids had no idea what they had in their hands!! Very sad!!!!!!!