Thursday, Soussa

Thursday morning and I am downloading Sousa marches. I am tired of hearing “River Kwai March” over and over again from our PA system, so,  for a change, I am playing music from the American king of march John Philip Sousa. I heard his music performed on TV by American high school college bands. Sousa phone was named after him; I don’t know if he invented the instrument or if it was just named after him but Google, I supposed, could answer that .Anyway for more info about Sousa click the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Philip_Sousa and learn more about the guy and his music.

He looked like a German Kaiser or some Field Marshall. Anyway, marches are really military music what with the rhythm and the cadences and all that stuff that make a person who hears marches stop what he/she is doing and fall in line and do the left, right, left, check cadence check thing.

These are Sousa phones as you can see they are quite big instruments and they require great amount of air to play. So in order to play this instrument, three things: lung power, physical strength, and tough scrotum. I don't know if its a scientific fact or just a myth of some sort but according to folklore wind instruments because it require a lot of air to play could enlarge their players testicles or may even burst their scrotum. Anyway, There are two types Sousa according to the materials used to make them. there are the brass ones and the plastic ones as you can see from the picture. The former is heavier while the latter is lighter. Anyway...

Here's a sampler of his music.