The Fabulous Party Boys and Adapting the Tuba for Modern Popular Contexts

Abstract

Tubas are instruments that are used primarily in classical (a term used broadly in this instance) settings. While wind bands, orchestras, marching bands, and brass ensembles have consistently held need for the tuba, the instrument has been seldom used in other contexts that garner mass appeal since the 1920s, when the double bass usurped the tuba as the bass instrument of choice in early jazz music. As a tuba player that has played in a variety of popular styles, I have arrived at the belief that the instrument's decline in use is the result of a number of practical and acoustic disadvantages that it has relative to other bass instruments that coevolved with these applications. I have recorded an album, The Fabulous Party Boys, that among other things attempts to overcome these disadvantages as they relate to funk music, and in this paper I will explicate what the disadvantages are as well as show how I have managed to mitigate them.