What is your main axe?

[Lew]

Lately my main axe is a Besson 983 Eb tuba, although I play BBb tuba almost as often. I have been thinking of just sticking to the Eb because it is such a versatile horn, but I have so much fun with the others that I'm not ready to do it yet. Once I get too old to lug around the big horns I expect that I will go to Eb exclusively.

[Dan Schultz]

tuba, sousa, or helicon. What's a euphonium?

[Shockwave]

My main axe is trumpet, 2nd main is bass trombone, 3rd main is tuba, 4th main is baritone.

-Eric

[MartyNeilan]

These days my main axe is a baton. However, I think conducting middle and high school students with an actual axe such as Chuck depicted could be very appealing.

P.S. I did vote for tuba.

[Dylan King]

Replace the Windows with MAC OS and this is really what is going on in my studio right now.

[Z-Tuba Dude]

Geez! I would have thought that more of our members were euphemists!

[Will]

I just spent 4 years finishing up a tuba performance degree, so I guess you would say tuba. But I love every chance to play euphonium and actually play more bass trombone now than either of the previous two. (That's currently what I'm being payed to play.)

[Kevin Hendrick]

Geez! I would have thought that more of our members were euphemists!

That's one way of putting it ...

[Kevin Hendrick]

... I wasn't aware that you swing both ways.

"Don't axe, don't tell"?

[Chuck(G)]

Chuck,

I like to give it the business on BOTH ends.



Doc

I hate things with more than one sharp edge.

Something an old gentleman once told me: "You know, if you're a carpenter and hit yourself in the head with your hammer, it really hurts. But if you're a logger and you hit yourself in the head with your chainsaw, it's a different story..."

[Steve Inman]

1. Guitar(s) -- acoustic and electric
1. (approximate tie) tuba: CC and Eb at present
3. euph (just in case the occasional 2nd 'bone part doesn't sound right on tuba)

[windshieldbug]

[Z-Tuba Dude]

There must be some more euphonium players out there!

[windshieldbug]

For me, that'd be

2/ you couldn't play the trumpet your Dad bought for you

Then I found out what exciting opportunities baritone players have waiting for them out in the real world...

[TubaRay]

Believe it or not, tuba was my first choice of instruments in sixth grade. Just a luck break for me. I didn't have to be a trumpet reject.

[Dylan King]

I switched over from trombone to tuba in Jr. High because the tubist (Gus) was busted for drugs. The band director begged me to switch, and promised me an "A". I laughed at him because we both knew I would be getting an "A" whether I switched to tuba or not.

I seriously didn't want to switch over. As a fat kid, I knew the tuba would be the butt of every locker room joke. I was a "Lard-***". You know how much lard a Jr. High kid can fit in an ancient Conn EEb tuba? I just wasn't having it.

When Gus left the band the next week, things just fell apart. All of a sudden Gus was gone, and so was his oom pah pah. Mr Pitteski was forced to play the important tuba parts on his C trumpet while conducting. He often did this when people were missing. But it sounded so silly being played on the trumpet.

I started to play the tuba parts on the "bass trombone" as my band leader called it. It was really a Bundy F trigger. It was quite difficult to read notes so low, I remember. But I soon learned that I liked being the only one playing the part. And of course being band music, I was playing all the time. I took a tuba home over the weekend and was playing the next Monday. By the end of the week, Mr. Pitteski had given me the solo part for the band version of Tubby the Tuba. We performed it at the spring concert.

The big rumor going around the band was that Danny Manning of the Los Angeles Clippers was coming to narrate the piece. He didn't show up to his one rehearsal, so Mr. Pitteski got some unknown LA voice-over actor and "Broadway Star" to narrate. He actually did a good job. I wish I could remember his name, but as I said earlier, he was unknown.

We played it first for the entire student body at a special assembly. A bunch of gangster jr. high students just happy to be out of pre-algebra for a microsecond. I knew what line in the narration was coming up, and I knew what was going to happen. It sucked.

Tubby was a fat little tuba.

Glorious and frightening laughter broke out. The laughter was frightening to me, but glorious to each and every cruel kid squirming around in the crowd. It was even worse considering where we were in the hall. The entire band was in the orchestra pit, with the narrator in the center on stage, with me and Peepo on each side. Six feet above the band! And right in front of 1500 screaming, laughing Jr. High school students. Luckily, because I was so smart, the chicks still dug me, and a few lady friends of mine made me feel better after the assembly performance.

My nick-name in the P.E. locker room from then on changed from Lard-*** to Tubby. I pretended I didn't like it, but as it turned out it was a whole lot easier to deal with. And a whole lot more fun. I was named after a musical character that I had performed and represented. What the heck had these stupid monkey kids done at that age?

I really shouldn’t answer that remembering now that two of my classmates got pregnant that year.

I wonder if any other people on this board were called Tubby at one time or another as a kid. I'd bet there are even a few adult Tubby’s running around somewhere out there.

“Lard-Assâ€