Re: What'd you used to play


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Posted by Leland on September 07, 2001 at 13:24:18:

In Reply to: What'd you used to play posted by Steve Dedman on September 05, 2001 at 20:54:55:

Just posting because I seem to be the only one here who plays it and is willing to say so --

I started on bone in 5th grade because of the slide and all the fun sounds it could make, added baritone bugle in drum corps after my sophomore year of band (no coincidence that it had been my first year of marching band, too), and moved up to tuba and contrabass bugle at about the same time (tuba in my mom's brass quintet at church, and contra during "hell week" in my 2nd corps season.. Tuba might've been first). I didn't start playing tuba in school until my first year of college, when I spent a rather annoying season marching sousaphone (NOT the sousie's fault at all -- it was my sanctuary!), then switching to a physics major.

Obviously lacking direction, I took three years off, driving pizzas while I played my first personally-owned tuba in comminuty band and the church quintet, and spending my summers marching, then teaching, corps. I finally went back to college as a music major, marching tuba every year, playing euph on the stage for a couple years, and 3rd bone in jazz band (down in the power zone) for the last 6 of my 7 years there.

I did hit some percussion instruments a few times in public a couple times, even "sightreading" (more like "playing by ear") the snare part to one of the Holst suites in a community band rehearsal, and playing triangle & cymbals alongside my percussionist dad and Horn-playing mom (she was on bass drum) in a community orchestra for a concert. I learned piano and woodwinds just enough to graduate college, and haven't really touched either since.

I still play tuba when I have time in between working weekends, where I get paid to play a 2-valve/half step rotor contrabass bugle at Marine Barracks, Washington, DC. Tuba's awesome, but there's something else about contra that makes me tick. I hope that I bring a round tuba concept and meld it with the well-aimed shots the contra produces -- idealistically, the "best of both worlds". Whether I succeed or not is up to my section leader to decide -- but he seems to think I'm pretty good.

;-)


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