Fifty Years of Tuba Playing...

Summer of 69, fifty years ago marked many happenings. Man landed on the moon, Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock. I took up playing the tuba. 

I have not been to the moon but on a recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC I saw an exhibit of famous guitars. This is a photo I took of the white Fender Stratocaster that Hendrix played the National Anthem on at Woodstock. It was a screaming, distorted blues based version that at a time of the Vietnam war brought the sound of bombs brusting in air to the forefront. Hendrix, a 101st Airborne Veteran was later quoted, "I'm an American. I played it." Thankfully in an age of National Anthem controversy his electric psychedelic version is better remember than the 1944 attempt by composer Igor Stravinsky to make the Anthem easier to sing. The police claimed there were laws against turning the Anthem into a dancehall number but maybe it was the uncomfortable dissonant chord during the land of the free part that got him.   

In that summer of 69 I was a big old kid who spent a good bit of time in the backyard swing twisting the dials of a pea green 9 volt transistor radio that mostly fit into the palm of my hand. I'm pretty sure I was not aware of Stravinsky but I knew who Hendrix was. Soon to start the 7th grade it was important to pick your electives and football seemed like the thing for me. I was big. Only thing was my dad said no. Seems his brother Don had hurt his leg playing football and it was not quite the same after that. Later on my dad would tell me never to join the army. He had landed on Normandy Beach. I think maybe he had a nose for things that never left you the same afterwards. 

If I could not play football my other choice besides nothing was band. I remember my parents hauling me up to the band hall and the director, Mr. Geer, took a look at this big old kid and pronounced me a tuba player. That was 50 years ago. I have stuck with it through Jr. high, high school and college band. I've played in the Astrodome, the Cotton Bowl, in concert halls, churches and street corners. After 50 years I've played the Star Spangle Banner a lot more than Hendrix did in his short life.     

Thanks mom and dad. I don't know if any of us knew what we were doing but you set me on a path. I recently heard of a discussion some young people had about how they were traumatized by their parents making them take music lessons. I'm not sure what I think of that. Playing music is not a choice I made but once I got started it's been everything for me. Maybe those traumatized people did not have good teachers. What makes a person dive in and do his best at something that was not his choice? I think since returning to full time play in spring of 2018 with the Lufkin Community Band I probably spend 3 to 5 hours a week on tuba and that's not counting all the time spent dinking on stringed instruments.    

50 years on a horn. There have been some ups and some downs as you might well imagine and it could be argued that playing the tuba never left me the same. This little story here does not even come close to telling the whole tale. But wait, wait here it comes, the sale pitch. I am in rehearsals with a six piece brass group and we have been working on polkas. We are looking around for gigs. Keep a watch for us or drop me a line.