Strictly Oompah: So then it's really a Sue-sar-phone?!

Sunday, February 21, 2016

So then it's really a Sue-sar-phone?!

Among the gems that I found while at the U. S. Marine Band Library (just over a year ago) that were not directly related to Sousaphone history was this explanation of how to pronounce Sousa's name - written by Sousa himself:

This was in Sousa Band Press Book no. 8, and is a clipping from the April 23, 1899 edition of the New York Journal. Here's the accompanying article:

I'm not entirely sure what the "good old-fashioned way" of pronouncing it was back then, but today we tend to say "Sue-zuh," and "Sue-zuh-phone." But I guess it should be "Sue-sar" and "Sue-sar-phone"!

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Sousa on the Sousaphone

"The Sousaphone received its name through a suggestion made by me to J. W. Pepper, the instrument manufacturer of Philadelphia, fully 30 odd years ago. At that time, the United States Marine Band of Washington, D. C., of which I was conductor, used a double B-flat bass tuba of circular form know as a 'Helicon.' It was all right enough for street-parade work, but its tone was apt to shoot ahead too prominently and explosively to suit me for concert performances, so I spoke to Mr. Pepper relative to constructing a bass instrument in which the bell would turn upwards and be adjustable for concert purposes. He built one, and grateful to me for the suggestion, called it a Sousaphone. It was immediately taken up by other instrument makers, and is today manufactured in its greatest degree of perfection by the C. G. Conn Company, of Elkhart, Ind." (John Philip Sousa, Christian Science Monitor, August 30, 1922, p. 8)