I didn't choose the tuba.

The choose-a... [laughter] Now, this is going to be hard.

[Jaunty second line music] The tuba is a brass instrument, and its the lowest in the brass instrument family.

It has a really warm sound, and you can feel its presence.

[playing a march tune] The tuba can have rotary valves or piston valves.

The rotary valves are normally on the concert horns in the front or on the side, and you kind of wrap your arm around.

A sousaphone will always have piston valves.

It's meant to be in outside in marching band contexts, which is why you put it on your body and the bell faces out towards your audience.

The sousaphone is also named after John Philip Sousa.

What do you call half a tuba?

a One-ba!

I love John Philip Sousa.

I just love his marches.

[Stars and Stripes Forever] He's like the founder of the American March, and he's the reason why the U.S. band is one of the most prolific performing groups in the world.

I started playing the tuba in the sixth grade.

I started playing tuba in seventh grade.

I started on French horn in the sixth grade and about a month in they asked if anyone wanted to switch.

My director gave me the tuba and said, play your lowest note And he goes, I think tuba would be a great fit.

Definitely not the size part of it.

[laughs] A lot of people do not think that I can play well or they see me as a weaker person.

And that's where I love marching band [drumline music] I have a cheer uniform on and I have my Sousa on.

So what we do for Cheer on Senior night is we go into a stunt and I decided to play my fight song while people are holding me.

And it was the coolest thing ever.

I just show like, I can do this and I am great at it.

I had such a great time in my band program growing up that I wanted to pursue music teaching, just like my band director was a music teacher and I wanted to continue playing the instrument that I loved.

I would like to continue the tuba playing and do music education to become a music director because I really love seeing people make music and it's taught me many things about myself that I did not even know about.

Do you want to play something?

Do you want to play with the Curnow?

Yes!

[Playing Tuba] We play tuba.

And so can you.