Playing tuba is an enlightening experience. It can also be humbling as you have to sit in the back of the ensemble providing the backbone to the music being played. Many people think the tuba is an instrument not worth playing. They would rather play something "cooler" like the drums or guitar (whatever that means). But the tuba holds a special place in my heart for a number of reasons.

The tuba seldom has the melody and usually has long and sustained notes, but when it does get hold, it is a joyous occasion for us. However, the lack of melodies is one of the reasons there is very little tuba repertoire as well as the tuba being a fairly new instrument (relative to other instruments, anyway).

Classical instruments like the flute and violin have hundreds of years behind them, and in that time, they have just as many composers that write for them. The tuba has only been around since the 1830s, so with less than 200 years under its belt, there has not been much music written specifically for it.

This is normally fine until it's time to play a solo and the only thing to play is a song called "Hot Crossed Buns;" you're in trouble at that point.

Playing tuba has also enlightened me about boredom. There have been many times when the conductor works with a group of instruments or a section of music that does not involve the tubas.

There are only so many times a person can be engaged while listening to a few measures of music at a time. Tuba players learn when these times come and use the time in less productive manners; story time!

I once played a symphony that had the tubas playing nothing for pages at a time. Naturally, I used that time to catch up on something college students need: sleep. My tuba buddies sitting on either side decided to take advantage of this situation by messing with me. While I slept, they would take the tuning slides out of my tuba, take my mouthpiece, try to make me drop my tuba and trick me into playing by preparing to play an upcoming part.

I started getting them back by blowing their music off their stands while they were playing, which would further render their lips useless due to laughing. Of course, as time went on, there were less opportunities to nap the time away, so we made puns instead.

For example, we played a piece in the community band called, "Angels in the Architecture" by Frank Ticheli. If we had played it during a power outage we had earlier in the year, it would have been "Angels in the Dark-itecture."*crickets*

Playing the tuba is a real doozy. It's sometimes boring and not every exciting, but it's so different from other instruments and can lead to weird and crazy times.