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Band Parent Book Reviews
Unlike the fanciful titles listed in the section
"What You Should Be Reading", the books reviewed here
actually exist which makes them much easier to read. They all have some
band-relatedness that makes them especially appealing to the discerning band
parent of literary habits.
Marching Along
By John Philip Sousa
Copyright 1928 by Hale, Cushman and Flint, Boston
Copyright renewed 1956 by Jane Pricilla Sousa and Helen Sousa Abert
Copyright of revised edition 1994 by John Philip Sousa Inc.
Published by Integrity Press, Westerville, Ohio
ISBN 0-918048-11-7
BP '00's Rating- Five Stars
The March King's autobiography covers the period from the Civil War to the
1920's which includes the entire Golden Age of bands. This is as close as
anyone today can get to J.P. Sousa himself. It is a mine of information on the
history of band. One quibble, Mr. Sousa gets careless about dates in the later
half of the book.
A Treatise on the Tuba
By Donald W. Stauffer
Copyright 1989 by Stauffer Press, Birmingham AL
(Currently unavailable but it is worth hunting for a used copy.)
BP '00's Rating- Five Tubas
If you want to know all about tubas then this is THE book you
need. Its all here, the history, the different types, detailed information on
intonation difficulties, the famous tuba players and plenty of pictures. Dr.
Donald W. Stauffer, Commander USN (ret) was former tubist with the Rochester
Philhamonic and the U.S. Navy Band and later was appointed Leader of the U.S.
Navy Band. He was an active tubist and conductor from the 1930's to the 1990's.
Much of the information in the book comes from his personal involvement inthe
development of tuba playing during those critical decades. The book was
published by Dr. Stauffer's own publishing company and apparently is now
unavailable. It is worth looking for a used copy.
In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash
By Jean Shepherd
Copyright 1966 by Jean Shepherd
Published by Doubleday, NY
ISBN 0-385-02174-7
(Currently available in paperback.)
BP '00's Rating- Five Stars
Jean Shepherd's novel about growing up in 1930's Indiana was the
basis for the popular 1983 movie, A Christmas Story. The movie tells of young
Ralphie Parker's misadventures in pursuit of the "Holy Grail of Christmas
presents", an Official Red Ryder Range Model Air Rifle (the one with a compass
in the stock).
For those who love the movie, its all here, the winter of BB gun
obsession, the Orphan Annie secret decoder debacle, etc. But the movie only uses
material from a few of the book's early chapters. There is a get deal more and
it is just as good. The book takes Ralphie all the way to adulthood. For band
parents these is a whole chapter about the Hohman High School Band in which
Ralphie plays sousaphone. (Knew there was something I liked about that kid when
I saw the movie.) It was clear from the BB gun episode that Ralphie is prone to
obsessive behavior. When it comes to the sousaphone, Ralphie is a tuba-nerd's
tuba-nerd, an inspiration to all of us who have toiled under the "Great Horn".
Here is a brief excerpt from Chapter XXIV. (The note numbers are mine.)
"When the bitter winds of dead winter howl out of the
frozen North, making the ice-coated telephone wires creak and sigh like
suffering live things, many an ex-Bb sousaphone player feels an old familiar
dull ache in his muscle-bound left shoulder, a pain never quite lost as the
years spin on. Old aching numbnesses of the lips, permanently implanted by
frozen German silver(1) mouthpieces of the past. An instinctive hunching
forward into the wind, tacking obliquely the better to keep that giant
burnished Conn bell(2) heading always into the waves. A lonely man, carrying
unsharable wounds and memories to his grave. The butt of low, ribald humor;
gaucheries beyond description, unapplauded by music lovers, the sousaphone
player is among the loneliest of men. His dedication is almost monk-like in
its fanaticism and solitude.
He is never asked to perform at parties. His fame is
minute, even among fellow band members, being limited almost exclusively to
fellow carriers of the Great Horn. Hence, his devotion is pure. When pressed
for an explanation as to why he took up the difficult study and discipline of
sousaphone playing, few can give a rational answer, usually mumbling something
very much like the famed retort of the climbers of Mount Everest.
There is no Sousaphone category in the renowned jazz
polls. It would be inconceivable to imagine an LP entiled:
HARRY SCHWARTZ AND HIS GOLDEN SOUSAPHONE BLOW COLE
PORTER IN STEREO
And yet every sousaphone player, in his heart, knows
that no instrument is more suited to Cole Porter than his beloved four-valver.(3)
Its rich, verdant mellowness, its loving somber blues and grays in tonality
are among the most sensual and thrilling of sounds to be heard in a man's
time.
But it will never be. Forever and by definition those
brave marchers under the flashing bells are irrevocably assigned to the rear
rank.
Few men know the Facts of Life more than a player of
this noble instrument. Twenty minutes in a good marching band teaches a kid
more about How Things Really Are than five years at Mother's granite knee.
There are many misconceptions which at the outset must
be cleared up before we proceed much further. Great confusion exists among the
unwashed as to just what a sousaphone is. Few things are more continually
irritating to a genuine sousaphone man than to have his instrument constantly
called a "tuba". A tuba is a weak, puny thing fit only for mewling, puking
babes and Guy Lombardo (4)--the better to harass balding, middle-aged dancers.
An upright instrument of startling ugliness and mooing, flatulent tone, the
tuba has none of the grandeur, the scope or sweep of its massive, gentle,
distant relation.
The sousaphone is worn proudly curled about the body,
over the left shoulder, and mounting above the head is that brilliant, golden,
(5) gleaming disk-- rivaling the sun in its glory. Its graceful curves clasp
the body in a warm and crushing embrace, the right hand in position over its
four massive mother-of-pearl capped valves. It is an instrument a man can
literally get his teeth into, and often does. A sudden collision with another
bell has, in many instances, produced interesting dental malformations which
have provided oral surgeons with some of their happier moments.
A sousaphone is a worthy adversary which must be
watched like a hawk and truly mastered 'ere it master you. Dangerous,
unpredictable, difficult to play, yet it offers rich rewards. Each sousaphone
individually, since it is such a massive creation, assumes a character of its
own. There are bad-tempered instruments and there are friendly sousaphones;
sousaphones that literally lead their players back and forth through beautiful
countermarches on countless football fields. Then there are the treacherous,
which buck and fight and must be held in tight rein 'ere disaster strike. Like
horses or women, no two sousaphones are alike."(6)
Is that great writing or what? That is just part of the
introduction to Chapter XXIV. The chapter tells the moving story of Hohman Band
Drum Major Wilbur Duckworth's last Thanksgiving Day parade. It is worth the
price of the book just for that. There is a great deal more, after all, the band
chapter is number XXIV.
It would be terrible if Mr. Shepherd didn't get it right about
band and sousaphones. Happily (and unusually in the case of sousaphones), Mr.
Shepherd knows of what he speaks. He even gets the little details right. I do
not know if he was a sousaphone player but from how he writes about it, he
certainly could have been. My notes on some details in the excerpt-
(1) German silver, now called "nickel silver", is an alloy of
copper, zinc and a little nickel. (Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc).
German silver contains no silver but is has a bright silver color. It is
harder than brass and is used for mouthpieces, ferrules, leader-pipes,
tuning-slides, bracing and decorative trim on all types of brasswinds.
(2) C. G. Conn Inc., of Elkhart, Indiana, made the first
production model sousaphones sometime in the late 1890's (The J. W. Pepper
Company claims to have made the very first sousaphone in 1893). Sousaphone
players in Sousa's Band used Conn sousaphones, usually four-valved models with
upright bells. Except for Sousa himself, bandmasters generally preferred
bell-front sousaphones with large flaring bells up to 30 inches in diameter.
Mr. Shepherd describes this type. In those days, Conn sousaphone bells
sometimes were decorated with elaborate engraving. Conn and King, now both
part of UMI, remain the largest US producers of sousaphones.
(3) To reduce weight and cost, most sousaphones now have only
3 valves. Back when there was still a large market for them among professional
musicians, Conn made large bore 4 valve sousaphones. Some of these grand
monsters weighed over 45 pounds, twice the weight of sousaphones made today. A
German tuba-maker, Miraphone, still makes a production model 4-valve
sousaphone. A Czech tuba-maker, Cerveny, offers a 4-rotary-valve BBb helicon.
(4) The Royal Canadians (Guy Lombardo's band, famous for its
New Year's Eve broadcasts) used a tuba instead of a string bass. Tubas were
widely used in jazz and dance bands before electric amplification was
available for string basses.
(5) Most sousaphones were silver-plated until the Depression.
Then the cost of silver became prohibitive. Instrument makers switched to
clear lacquer as their standard finish. Silver finishes are still available
but at considerable extra cost.
(6) Until modern machining and quality control techniques were
applied to tuba manufacture in the 1960's (Meinl Weston was among the first
companies to do so) individual instruments of the same model varied greatly in
playing characteristics. There is usually a noticeable and significant
difference between identical modern instruments. In the old days, instrument
to instrument variations were extreme.
This book is highly recommended for band parents.
The Art of Brass Playing
By Philip Farkas
Coming SOON
Copyright 1999 by George Yenetchi
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