Elizabeth Eshelman, hailing from a long line of tuba players, pens a love letter to the instrument. She understands its perception of a clunky background horn:
[I]n truth, you put up with a lot of boring musical parts. While the rest of the band or orchestra minces away with eighth notes, you befriend the whole note. Play just about any march or polka and you’ll see where the oom-pah stereotype comes from (though I will say, Sousa marches, like “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” also afford some real challenges). Further, the Ohio State University equivalent for Chinese water torture could well be the tuba part to “Hang On Sloopy”: Everyone else goes on with “Haaaang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on!” but the tubas are stuck hanging on to the same introductory pattern for the entire song.
Yet the payoff is worth it:
It’s easy to joke about tacet markings and the predictable bass lines that tubists must bear, but when a tuba takes the melody, or even a counter-melody, it’s ineffable. The tuba’s tone can be so dark and haunting, like the relief of a thick patch of shade on a sunny day. I encourage you to listen to the first phrase of Holst’s “Suite No. 1 in E Flat.” Go ahead, YouTube it. Several bass voices play that opening line, but listen to the one on the very bottom—that’s the tuba. The piece is for military band, but for some reason, when I hear that line, the tuba voice makes me think of how the ocean was once known as “the deep,” that lovely, lulling undertow.
The Dish 