Posted by Rick Denney on March 22, 2001 at 16:06:21:
In Reply to: Re: Bah! ITEA. TUBA was a cool name posted by Change okay on March 22, 2001 at 14:53:30:
I really don't care one way or the other--I haven't been a member in quite a while so I have no official say.
But to say that euphoniums are not part of the tuba family but sousaphones are is a little misleading. If you use the term tenor tuba, as many do and have done around the "international" world, then you include euphoniums directly. But a sousaphone is a form of a helicon, and its branch of the family split off even before the word "tuba" was commonly used for all bass brass instruments. Sousaphone players were apparently not feeling slighted, or we'd have ITSEA (Gee, we could have stolen the old federal highway program acronym--ISTEA).
I have no problem with the notion that "TUBA" was not dignified enough for the academics if that was the real reason and if they would just say so. These guys have to impress their faculty committees to get promoted, and an article in the "TUBA Journal" doesn't exactly sound as academically elite on a tenure application as an article published by the International Trumpet Guild. It seems to me that this is a good enough reason to change the name--a large share of the members are closely tied to academia--without a lot of palaver about inclusion. Of course, a solid record of tough and objective peer review to maintain superior scholarly standards might do even more.
When I'm feeling left out of an organization, I want activities that include me, or a seat on the board, or a portion of the journal devoted to my cause, or something substantive. I don't want a symbolic name change for which I'm now supposed to be grateful. Were I euphonium player, or a woman sensitive about such things, I'd want more substantive changes than this if I was feeling slighted. Otherwise, I'd be feeling patronized.
So, if I had a beef about ITEA, which I don't, it would be because changing the name doesn't solve the problems cited as reasons to justify the change, which suggests that the real reason was hidden.
Rick "who prefers the real rather than the apparent" Denney