What instrument did you start your musical career on?

[ackmondual]

One instrument that someone else did mention that should have been included on your survey even though very few did start on it would be the piano. I started on the piano then cornet then to euphonium. The piano was a huge help in college and in many ways put me above the other brass majors. A huge help in harmony/theory. Our piano and music theory instructor was adjunct to Julliard, so that gave me even a better start. I tried to convince my own son to study keyboard while he was studying cello. In university he found out how important it is to know keyboard.

This would be my situation too. I started off on piano. However, I just assumed the survey and thread topic referred to a "musical ensemble" or concert band type deal. Later on started off on trumpet (which was what I voted for), but at my band director's suggestion, me and another trumpet player ended up doing baritone horn, which was what I stuck with through school and college.

Being able to have a visual to recall the white keys and black keys was helpful for a brass instrument in terms of music concept and just picturing notes in general. For example, B# is really just C.

[Isaiah]

I started out on the violin when I was probably 5 or 6. I absolutely hated it, but I kept playing because my two older siblings played. I still played up until right before fifth grade, when I got to pick an instrument to play for middle school band. I picked the baritone/euphonium and have been playing that since fifth grade and I just recently graduated from high school.

I am assuming that playing the violin helped me to read music, but I learned bass clef for playing the baritone. I used treble clef for violin, but I can't read that anymore and I don't think I can even play the simple songs anymore. That probably is because I practiced my violin as little as possible.

Just last week I decided I needed a better euphonium, because I had used the schools instrument while I was in school and all I have at my house is the student model Jupiter baritone that I got in fifth grade. I ordered a Wessex Dolce and I can't wait to try it out.

[LargoBone]

I started on the clarinet in 5th grade because my mom and my brother had played clarinet. Once 6th grade rolled around I stopped caring and struggled to keep improving, and was ready to quit. During my last lesson before the end of first semester, my director stopped and asked me if I would try the trombone because she thought I would make a great trombone player. I agreed to try it for one semester out of spite, and less than a year later I was first chair and finally having fun making music. About 6 months after switching to trombone, my private teacher showed me the euphonium (he always knew I would go on to play professionally) and the rest is history. Sort of.

Now, I play (in order of frequency): tenor trombone, euphonium, bass trombone, alto trombone, tuba, trumpet/cornet, horn, piano

[Kit15]

I'm new to euphonium in general so I've been lurking around for a while with not a whole lot to contribute. But I saw this topic and thought it might make a good first post.

I voted flute but technically I suppose my first instrument was the piano. Though I wussed out and dropped it the moment it became remotely challenging.

I had always been fascinated by the trombone ever since I first saw one. My grade school didn't have a band so when I dropped piano I was asked if there was another instrument else I'd like to learn. And I said...flute. It also facinated me, though not nearly as much as the trombone did. But I doubted my ability to play trombone as I was starting a "real" instrument a full year before my "recorder year" in school and it seemed so big. Also I unfortunately got the wrong idea that the flute would be a better fit for a girl...not that I was ever actually told that. Just that most, if not all, of the trombone players I saw on TV were men and that must have got into my 9-year old head somehow.

So I've been playing the flute for almost 25 years but I topped out in high school and my college only had a pep band to play with. I did finally get to play the trombone in high school jazz band. THAT was exciting. I was given an instrument before Christmas break and was thrown in to sink or swim with the sharks in January. I caught on pretty quickly but never felt good enough to ditch the flute for it completely. Especially since I was in the honors band on flute, with most of my close friends, and I was writing slide positions in my jazz music all the way until the bitter end of my senior year. Never really got the hang of it back then.

Time passes. College comes and goes. I get a job. Get married. Dabble with my husband's tenor sax. Have a kid. Bought my own trombone off of eBay. Dabble with it now and then, but become frustrated because I'm dealing with working on my sound AND a slide now that I can't hide behind an "easy" 3rd trombone part plus an entire band. So I start thinking "I know how to press things with my fingers...what if I learned to play baritone/euphonium instead as a stepping stone?".

More time passes - and then I suddenly lost a family member in an accident about 2 months ago. After I could feel emotions again, I realized two things:

1.) Life is so much shorter and so much more fragile than I ever realized.
2.) I suddenly had the urge to play lots of slow ballads on an instrument that sounds amazing playing slow ballads.

So why not learn to play one? I started renting a student euphonium with the initial end goal of being "Tubachristmas Ready". After that I thought I'd return to working on trombone with a new perspective, but I've just fallen completely in love with this instrument in its own right. I've had it almost 2 weeks and I'm shocked at how quickly I'm picking it up. I'm already better at euph than I ever was at trombone, even in high school. I'm finally sight reading in bass clef and I don't need to write fingerings (or positions) anymore. I'm even throwing myself to the sharks again and joining a newbie-friendly community band by the end of the month.

I'm definitely saving my nickels for a euph of my own. I think this phase of my life is going to last a biiiit longer than 5-6 months.

[John Morgan]

Welcome to the Forum, Kit15!! I enjoyed reading your story and your evolution to the euphonium. It is indeed a splendid instrument. I wish you many years of happiness with the euphonium and good luck on your pursuit of your own euphonium. There are some good choices for a fairly inexpensive instrument with Wessex and Mack Brass, and of course many good choices with all the major top brand makers. In my opinion, you have chosen the "right" instrument.

Here are some nice pieces to listen to and be inspired from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFwII4eYaM0 - very pretty and moving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNQcPZFbnwE - beautiful harmony from two of the world's finest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFO8iB55zXs - beautiful tone and great piece

[Kit15]

Welcome to the Forum, Kit15!! I enjoyed reading your story and your evolution to the euphonium. It is indeed a splendid instrument. I wish you many years of happiness with the euphonium and good luck on your pursuit of your own euphonium. There are some good choices for a fairly inexpensive instrument with Wessex and Mack Brass, and of course many good choices with all the major top brand makers. In my opinion, you have chosen the "right" instrument.

Thanks for the welcome!

I do have my eyes on the Mack/Dolce and will probably go that route. It's amazing how accessible these instruments have become recently. It's a real internal conflict to have book knowledge of how an instrument works and know you'll be looking for intermediate features pretty quickly, especially ones that significantly extend range or just make playing easier (i.e. having the F attachment on trombone is a godsend for me to play on a basic level), yet feel unable to justify thousands of dollars on an instrument for someone with very little practical knowledge. My husband is going through a similar situation pining for a (french) horn. He hasn't played in years but he was good enough in school to justify purchasing a carefully selected name brand double. But because he's lost so much to the passage of time, he's paralyzed by the price tag that will come with it. The rental Yamaha I've got now retails at almost double the price of the Dolce. If they're as adequate as I'm reading they are, it's a no-brainer.

[flintparrell]

I started off in 5th grade with flute, 6th grade through 8th I played the trumpet, and from 9th to now I've been playing Euphonium. In 10th I picked up trombone (very slowly), and later bass trombone. Who knows what's next for me!

[mbrown]

My journey to the tuba was round about... I began in grade four with the flute... I was the ONLY boy playing Flute amongst a bunch of girls, am well, you know, fourth grade boys aren't too interested in girls. So, one of my friends played clarinet and I changed (I didn't realize my mistake until 8th grade) and stayed with it until 9th grade. I went to a small school in 9th grade and the kid that played the tuba moved or something... Since I was a big kid and was doing good on clarinet, and there were a lot of clarinets, the teacher asked if I wanted to play. I agreed, was shown how to pucker and buzz, given a finger chart, and shown where Bb was on the piano and told now go play...

I was more interested in learning to be a band director in music school, so I actually spent as much or more time learning the instruments in techniques classes as I did on my tuba/Upright bass which my scholarships were for. Oh, and GIRLS!!!! knowing how to play Flute got me into the Flute ensemble and I was the only guy... That was fun!

Ive spent a career teaching band and rarely touched a tuba, never owned one of my own, always used the school's when I had to... After I retired, the bug hit again and I'm playing 4 nights a week somewhere. Tuba and euphonium... I'm beginning to get addicted to the euph. We played stars and stripes tonight. It was my first attempt with the euphonium... WOW WAS THAT FUN OR WHAT!!!!! I never got a part like that for tuba!

[Eupher6]

French horn in 1968, but that lasted only a couple of months. Hated dragging that thing home from school. Switched to tenor trombone and stayed with that throughout junior high and high school. Sorta taught myself euph along the way, but these were the usual bell-front Reynolds, King, and Olds horns. The only 4-valver (non-comp, of course) was a Reynolds. Enjoyed playing that horn, and also delving into treble clef in Bb, and also tenor clef. I still struggle with alto clef, but my viola-playing wife does not.

Have branched out into all the low brass instruments, tuba most often these days. Still playing 49 years later.

[highpitch]

A Wards 'Lyceum' cornet in 1963, I was 10.

Went to a baritone @ 13, it's been downhill since then:-)

Dennis

[Anorak-Horn]

I started being taught baritone when I was 8 in 2001 by my grandfather. I then joined a brass band for lesson at 10 and was given a cornet for five seconds, a tenor horn for fifteen and then was given a 70's Boosey and Hawkes Imperial Baritone and there it began.

[kdstaller]

I started on cornet in the 4th grade through 6th. When the four elementary schools combined together at Shawnee Jr High in Ft Wayne, we had 27 trumpet players and no low brass. The director asked for volunteers to switch to low brass. Since my two older brothers played euphonium, I opted to follow suit. Being a treble clef reader, I quickly discovered that half of the parts for "baritone horn" were written in bass clef. I taught myself to transpose bass clef on the fly. Only problem is when there is a question about what note should be in my part at a particular bar location, I can only tell what the note is "in treble clef". When I got to high school (Ft Wayne Northrop), the director liked my tone and intonation so well that he promoted me to the Senior Concert Band for all four years. My grade school horns were Conns, Yamahas, and Pan Americans. When I started working as an engineer, I went across the street to Mynett's music store and bought a brand new Besson 765 that I played for 27 years straight in church orchestras and community concert bands in Ft Wayne, Phoenix, Dallas, and now Tucson. I also play a british baritone (Schiller), valve trombone (Wessex), alto horn (1910 Besson), and a King 2341 tuba.

[Clayton M.]

Started on clarinet in the summer before entering 6th grade. I wanted a instrument small enough to hide in my backpack on the walk home from school. At the time, two other boys were playing clarinet with me...we had a small posse to protect ourselves from the multitude of girls in the section. When those two guys quit band, I quickly asked to change to cornet! I probably should have stayed, but hindsight, blah blah blah...

I played cornet and later trumpet through my school years and into college. Failed to get into the Army on a bandsman ticket, but continued to play for enjoyment and in small ensembles throughout my enlistment. After my military service, I moved back home and joined some classmates and former instructors in a local community band. The band, being trumpet heavy, looked like it needed more euphoniums, so I decided to make a switch. I always thought I sounded better on euphonium anyway!

[Liuto]

I started playing classical guitar when I was 17. I practiced a LOT (5 hrs each day) and got to a decent level of proficiency. At university, I am a physicist, I joined the chamber choir and this was my major field of doing music for 30+ yrs, on a pretty advanced level.
In parallel, I learned a bit of piano, took a small number of lessons on the alphorn (a wedding gift from my wife). And I got a liuto attiorbato, a 14 course, 27 strings Italian baroque continuo lute, hence my nick.

I always loved brass bands, even good German oompah music, but I never thought I would be playing low brass.

Until last year. After a family crisis, I decided I should do something just for me. I spent several days on Youtube listening to low brass instruments. What finally got me hooked were two clips, Dave‘s brilliant rendition of the Arpeggione sonata and Anthony Caillet playing Café 1930 by Astor Piazzolla. What a smooth sound (and somewhat frightening range).

I ordered a good quality Chinese compensated euph from Thomann, probably a Besson BE2052-2 clone. The horn has since been declared a good instrument by several professionals.

And I immediately got an extremely competent teacher who is mercilessly showing me my weak spots. I wouldn’t be where I am now without him.

I practice almost every day and am progressing decently. It appears I was made for the euphonium or vice versa. After almost one year, my range is now quite satisfying, A1 to B4 (AA to b1) with a few notes to either side on good days, but this is the useable range. The higher notes need more work.
After 4 months my teacher sent me to a band and I have since joined two others. One is a big band. For this job, I bought a large bore Bb/F trombone (B&S MS14 „Meistersinger“, I am loving it) and am taking lessons, too. Still struggling a bit with the positions though. I consider the euphonium my main instrument so I don’t worry, this will become better.

In three weeks, I‘ll have my first student recital exactly one day less than a year since I got the horn. I‘ll be playing Après un Rêve by Fauré which fits nicely on the euphonium. Wish me luck please.

I‘ll retire next year and could not be happier about having found something to work on. Low brass rules. And this forum, too.

[John Morgan]

Welcome Liuto!! I enjoyed reading your post and are happy that you have found the euphonium, it is after all, an absolutely exquisite instrument!! And trombone, too!! You must be staying busy with both of those plus your regular work. Good luck on your recital. Where do you play that? Will there by many people attending?

I have lived in Germany three different times for a total of almost 9 years. The last time I was there, I lived east of Nuremburg in a little town called Weiherhammer. I played in a town band with all German folks and it was really fun. I bought a German horn to use and played with them for two years.

Nochmals herzlich willkommen und viel Glück beim Konzert!