This article is classified "Real"
The tuba is a very heavy instrument. Even worse (and more awkward, at that) is its marching counterpart, the sousaphone. It's the big thing that wraps around the trunk of the tuba player. One has been led to ask, "Why does every marching band, especially in movies and cartoons, have one of these monstrosities in its arsenal?" The answer is simple. Without some poor zark blowing into this thing, there'd be nothing to watch. Most people do not admit it, but marching bands, for all their pretty marching patterns and schemes and the like, are incredibly dull. The only enjoyment one can gain from watching, say, a high school football half-time show, is keeping an eye on the sousaphonist(s) [1]. Why is this so? Well, there could be several reasons. First, and foremost by far, is the human condition which relishes in the suffering of others. In real life, the sousaphonist is always some scrawny schmuck who only wanted to play concert tuba for the Christmas pageant so his parents would have pictures. During the rests it is possible to see the wincing grimace across his pate, indicating that his left lung has long since collapsed. The second reason to watch the sousaphonist is the fact that of those in the audience who felt the snack bar would have been too crowded anyway, none will ever play the sousaphone. Flute? It's possible. Clarinet? Why not? But a sousaphone is restricted to organised marching bands, which most people are more content to watch than to participate in. Also, there is the hope that, in all the wavy little moving lines made up of the band, the sousaphone might topple over or hit some trombone player in the head, causing the "domino effect." One wonders what the embarrassed band would do to recover from such a mediocre cataclysm. Keep playing on their rears? Get up, take a bow, and dash away in a mad hurry? The world may never know. [1] It's even more fun when there is only one sousaphonist. (S)he is the only one that must suffer.