Posted by delurked on September 02, 2002 at 12:00:52:
In Reply to: Re: tips on wearing a sousaphone posted by Kenneth Sloan on September 02, 2002 at 11:14:47:
As far as the goosenecks go, it's the same as with a tuba. Have them buzz their resepctive mouthpieces, this will provide the proper angle at which the gooseneck should envelope the shank; then have a second person adjust the gooseneck for them. Since I always played Kings, I'd attach one bit to the mp and the other to the gooseneck and then adjust.
Hands should never touch the gooseneck. Maybe js could enlighten us further, but IMO holding the neck will cause them to break eventually. The only exception to this is when the gooseneck will no longer stay in place on its own, i.e. it is already broken.
In high school, I wore a beret. Since I taught my section mates how to wear their horns properly, we would have had room for hats with full plumes; we wore berets because we didn't have "room" for full plumes. No one ever checked. In college we wore nothing on our heads, not even the pep band baseball caps during pep band functions. Ostensibly, the brim of the cap would hit the bell and cause problems. Berets were said to be "too hot" for the Texas sun. That the majority of us wore baseball caps in the stands during football games with no problems was never noted. If anyone asked, we replied that certain players could wear the hats, but others could not. Not wearing the same headgear as the rest of the band is a benefit of being a tubist. ;-)
I learned how to hold a sousaphone from a Don Little's book, Practical Hints on Playing the Tuba. Our section had a copy that was handed down from year to year.