At my high school in a small farming town in Southern California, we had a wonderful band teacher, who taught us all from elementary school through high school. Our little school, with only about 600 students had a band of over 100 players when I was there. He was great and the band wasn't at all bad. But that's not the story:
The Four Sousaphones
Every morning, our high school school had a flag-raising ceremony. The trumpet players in the band took turns playing "To the Color," as the flag was raised every morning. All of the students were expected to face the flag, stand at attention and participate. It was a pretty good tradition, and gave even the last chair trumpet player a chance to solo on that bugle call.
I was a clarinetist and oboist in the band, and felt left out. The band did own four Conn sousaphones, though, and low brass always interested me in some way. I fiddled with them from time to time, learning some scales and enjoying playing the things. One day, an idea popped into my head, and I talked to one of the sousaphone players and a couple of trombone players who were close friends. After all, isn't a sousaphone just a big-assed bugle?
So, we began practicing. We played "To the Color" before band practice every day for a couple of weeks. A quartet of sousaphones doing bugle calls. Finally, we felt ready. One morning, we told the trumpet player to take a hike and marched out of the band room, shouldering all four of the school's sousaphones. We played "To the Color" ff as the flag rose, all in unison, all in tune, and without a false note. It was beautiful!
As the ringleader of this motley group, I found myself in the school principal's office later that day, being thoroughly dressed down for our performance. "A mockery!" he called it. "Disrespectful!" he said. Since I was well known as the chief prankster at that school, I suppose he may have had some reason for his reaction, but I wasn't having any of it. "No, sir," I countered. I then gave him a brief history of brass instruments and told him that the sousaphone was, in fact, just the contrabass of bugles. I then explained that the four of us had practiced for two weeks so we could deliver a perfect performance of that bugle call. "No disrespect was intended at all," I told him, with a very sincere look on my face.
There wasn't much he could say to all of that, so he dismissed me, shaking his head sadly. Truly, it was one of the best school pranks that year. The "Four Sousaphones" were the talk of the campus and all four of us became mildly notorious for our performance, which was recognized by the student body as we intended it to be recognized. Our band director, patient as always, did suggest that we might consider not playing an encore of our performance, but allowed as how we had done a very nice job on our gigantic bugles.
The Four Sousaphones
Every morning, our high school school had a flag-raising ceremony. The trumpet players in the band took turns playing "To the Color," as the flag was raised every morning. All of the students were expected to face the flag, stand at attention and participate. It was a pretty good tradition, and gave even the last chair trumpet player a chance to solo on that bugle call.
I was a clarinetist and oboist in the band, and felt left out. The band did own four Conn sousaphones, though, and low brass always interested me in some way. I fiddled with them from time to time, learning some scales and enjoying playing the things. One day, an idea popped into my head, and I talked to one of the sousaphone players and a couple of trombone players who were close friends. After all, isn't a sousaphone just a big-assed bugle?
So, we began practicing. We played "To the Color" before band practice every day for a couple of weeks. A quartet of sousaphones doing bugle calls. Finally, we felt ready. One morning, we told the trumpet player to take a hike and marched out of the band room, shouldering all four of the school's sousaphones. We played "To the Color" ff as the flag rose, all in unison, all in tune, and without a false note. It was beautiful!
As the ringleader of this motley group, I found myself in the school principal's office later that day, being thoroughly dressed down for our performance. "A mockery!" he called it. "Disrespectful!" he said. Since I was well known as the chief prankster at that school, I suppose he may have had some reason for his reaction, but I wasn't having any of it. "No, sir," I countered. I then gave him a brief history of brass instruments and told him that the sousaphone was, in fact, just the contrabass of bugles. I then explained that the four of us had practiced for two weeks so we could deliver a perfect performance of that bugle call. "No disrespect was intended at all," I told him, with a very sincere look on my face.
There wasn't much he could say to all of that, so he dismissed me, shaking his head sadly. Truly, it was one of the best school pranks that year. The "Four Sousaphones" were the talk of the campus and all four of us became mildly notorious for our performance, which was recognized by the student body as we intended it to be recognized. Our band director, patient as always, did suggest that we might consider not playing an encore of our performance, but allowed as how we had done a very nice job on our gigantic bugles.
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