Every time I play my concert horn (Eastman EBB226), I dread picking up my sousa again. My bandmates prefer the sousa for the spectacle of the thing, but I much prefer my concert horn because I feel better playing it, and ultimately I think it sounds better. I'm happy to play sousa in general, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the sousa because of how much better my Eastman feels to play.
My question is this: should I be thinking about an adjustment to my current sousa, or an entirely different horn—or is this just the deal with sousas? I understand that it's a different beast and I'm not concerned about my tone or anything else on the sousa. It really just comes down to ease of play. in a perfect world, I want a sousa that feels as good to play as my Eastman.
As we all know, sousas aren't always readily available to try out, so I have limited experience with sousas in general. I own two (the other is a Barcone "baby sousa" that is fun, but lacks the oomph I want, and has more quirks than I generally want to deal with), and I played a few school issued ones back in the 1990's in high school. That's it.
I should also mention that I'm almost 50, and am only 5'3" so light is best for my continued gigging on sousa (hence the carbon fiber bell on a fiberglass sousa!)
Any thoughts/advice/suggestions would be welcomed.
