Tubby the Tuba: Assignment #9

My sister Carol's assignment was that Christy and I write about music that had an impact on us when we were kids.

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If you've seen the movie "Thirty-two Short Films about Glenn Gould", you might remember when the very young child Glenn Gould is transfixed by Wagner's " Tristan and Isolde: Prelude" as it comes over the radio. It portrays a moment when the beauty of the music entrances him so deeply that he is out of touch with the physical world around him and is enchanted by the slowly swelling sounds of Wagner.

Each time I've watched "Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould", I've watched this scene and thought of my own experiences listening to music as a very young child living on 14 E. Portland in Kellogg, Idaho.

Until my mom and dad bought our family a legitimate stereo (see the story, here), my world of music centered around a little turntable that played little records at 78 rpm. The record player's needle was long, like a sewing macine needle, and records came in decorated covers that looked something like this.

My favorite of these little records was Tubby the Tuba. I'm amazed how often I think of this funny little story about a tuba in an orchestra who is mocked by the sexier and lighter instruments like the violins and trumpets and even the trombone, but who learns a melody from a bullfrog and takes it back to the orchestra and the instruments love it!

I know this tale is primarily a learn the orchestra story, but, for me, as a little boy, the melody Tubby learned awakened something sensitive and melancholy in me.

Before I was in kindergarten, I played this record repeatedly. I enjoyed the story, but what I really enjoyed was the way Tubby's melody made something rumble in my belly and gave me the feeling that I wanted to cry.

It was the first melody to affect me this way. It was the first to move me to sit still, absorb it, stare into nowhere, and feel like crying.

The melody worked on me this way largely because of the story it helped accompany. I loved how Tubby found acceptance. I loved how Tubby became an admired member of the orchestra. I loved how that melody travelled through the orchestra and each instrument wanted to play it and soon it developed into a sound created by the orchestra playing in unity.

But, even more, I remember feeling sad for Tubby. I didn't like how the snooty instruments treated him. I remember how grateful I felt that Signore Pizzicato didn't have a snooty attitude toward Tubby.

I know I didn't live up to my feelings about Tubby in that I was guilty of picking on certain kids at school, but the more lasting impact Tubby had on me was, in fact, a desire to see the underdog treated fairly. It might sound weird, but Tubby had more impact on me about loving others than Sunday School did. I recognized as a pre-schooler that Tubby was being treated badly and I knew I shouldn't treat others like he was treated.

That early sense of compassion has been inseparable, even to this day,with the Tubby the Tuba melody. Today during the ninety minute period of inactivity I have during Othello, I listened to Tubby the Tuba again. The CD I listened to was a gift from my step-son-in-law, a tuba player with the U. S. Army. I listened and I could feel the tugging at my heart. I felt for Tubby again. I was on his side as he was teased. Then he learned the melody from the frog and as Tubby played it, not only was I back in the bedroom at 14 East Portland, old, old feelings of sympathy and empathy welled back up. Early feelings were back. Innocent feelings. Feelings that still, to this day, guide how I try to treat others, especially my students, many of whom are unprivileged, many of whom have been shunned and knocked around.

Many of them are Tubby the Tubas, treated poorly, but looking for the melody that will transform them.