A really big moment in Sousaphone history!

[Dave Detwiler]

Hi all,

Here's a big moment in Sousaphone history, given that the instrument was conceived by Sousa for concert purposes, but is now almost exclusively known as a marching instrument.

As far as we know, the first visual record that we have of a Sousaphone on the march is from late September 1899, when Sousa's Band participated in the parade to honor Admiral Dewey in New York City. Herman Conrad is seen here wielding his Conn Sousaphone that had been built less than two years earlier.

The parade route started at Grant's Tomb and ended at Washington Square - which is roughly eight miles, over which Conrad carried his 33-pound monster horn!

1899 Conrad in Dewey parade.jpeg (62.14 KiB) Viewed 427 times

[lost]

I know I get heat for it, but the raincatcher style sousaphone is best suited for indoor playing. Outdoors, the sound going up does not carry, which is why it was probably reconfigured to forward facing, which angered Sousa I guess?

But my theory is he probably enjoyed conducting indoor concerts more when it really mattered. Indoors he would naturally be turned off by forward facing bells, helicons, and the like. However outdoors, he must have surely heard a diminished bass section...guess we'll never know.

[Dave Detwiler]

I know I get heat for it, but the raincatcher style sousaphone is best suited for indoor playing. Outdoors, the sound going up does not carry, which is why it was probably reconfigured to forward facing, which angered Sousa I guess?

But my theory is he probably enjoyed conducting indoor concerts more when it really mattered. Indoors he would naturally be turned off by forward facing bells, helicons, and the like. However outdoors, he must have surely heard a diminished bass section...guess we'll never know.

I don't know that the bell-front Sousaphone, which debuted in 1908 and was called a Wonderphone Helicon, angered Sousa, but he definitely preferred the original bell-up design for his band.

Interestingly, and perhaps to your point, in all three of the photos that exist showing Sousa's Band marching (1899, 1900, and 1916), the upright-bell Sousaphone is positioned in the front rank, on the far right, which might have helped the sound to carry back to the rest of the band.

[lost]

I swear I read somewhere that Sousa wasn't fond of the bell front sousaphone. I can't be making that up.

[tubanews]

I would like to thank JP Sousa for all my future disability claims.

[Dave Detwiler]

I swear I read somewhere that Sousa wasn't fond of the bell front sousaphone. I can't be making that up.

I can't recall any specific quote Sousa made against the bell-front horn we call the Sousaphone (and, again, they called a Wonderphone Helicon). But he did express his displeasure with the standard helicon bass. Here's the earliest reference to this I've found, from 1919: http://tubapastor.blogspot.com/2019/12/ ... -1919.html. (This brief article does have a least one exaggeration, though - quoting Sousa as saying that the Sousaphone weighed 70 pounds! More reliable quotes put it at 33 pounds.)