What is a Sousaphone?

The tubas—including the baritone, euphonium, Sousaphone, and tuba proper—form one of the four main groups into which the brass family of instruments is often divided, along with trumpets, trombones, and horns. The Sousaphone is a type of bass tuba, used—like the marching tuba—mainly in marching bands, although in early days it was used in concert band settings as well. The Sousaphone is not used in the modern orchestra.

The sousaphone is one of a small group of instruments the names of which are eponyms, instruments that have been named after their inventor. The concept of the Sousaphone was created by the American composer and bandmaster John Philip Sousa, putting it in a category with the Wagner tuba—a horn conceptualized by German composer Richard Wagner—and the Saxophone, one of the numerous inventions of Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax.

Sousa created the specifications for the first sousaphones, which were modeled on the instrument called a helicon, which wraps around the player, resting on the left shoulder, and built in the 1890s. He requested a bell-up design, leading to the nickname “the rain-catcher,” and it was only in the early twentieth century that the bell-forward model was first made. In southern Europe, the Sousaphone is actually called the helicon.

While both marching tubas and Sousaphones are designed to be carried, the Sousaphone is distinctive in encircling the player, making it almost appear to be worn, rather than carried. Beginning in the 1960s, fiberglass bodies replaced the metal construction, making the instruments lighter, easier to handle, and less susceptible to dents.

The Sousaphone, like the tuba, may be pitched in Eb or Bb and is a non-transposing instrument. Because it is sometimes used off the playing field and parade ground, a special “sousaphone chair” has been developed to hold the instrument in a concert setting. The chair has braces to support the instrument, so a seated player does not have to bear the weight. Harry Wenger, a music educator and inventor, holds a patent for the Sousaphone chair. The chair enabled children who were too small to support the instrument to learn to play it.

Notable sousaphone players of the twenty-first century include Tuba Gooding, Jr. in the hip hop band The Roots and Nat McIntosh in the Youngblood Brass Band. A notable New Orleans brass band Sousaphone player is Kirk Joseph of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and his teacher, Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen, was a noted sousaphonist of the late twentieth century.