Merry TubaChristmas

I grew up with a tuba in the house. My father went to college at a music conservatory, partially funded with a tuba scholarship. He taught me that a man willing to shove an unwieldy 25-pound horn in his '89 Astro minivan can make a real go in southern Minnesota's lucrative pro-bono wind ensemble world. At nights, after putting us to bed, Dad removed his magnanimous conch shell from its hard case behind the couch and rehearsed, blowing entrepreneurially into a metal mouthpiece, rattling the floorboards while I vainly tried sleeping upstairs.

Tuba playing, at least secondhand, taught me humility. When mustering courage to line up my father's weekend hobbies with those other pheasant-hunting, bowling, or woodshop-abled fathers, I'd say, "My dad played his tuba this weekend," and there would be an awkward silence before one of my stone-faced friends changed the subject.

Certainly sexy gigs existed for regional heavyweights: a spot in the St. Peter Govenaires or in Schell's Hobo Band, where Dad once filled in among the jolly oom-pah-pah-ers rolling through a parade on the back of a flatbed. For that he got $50, plus payment in beer. ("You want a red or a blue?")

Even among musicians, the tuba is a lowly vessel. Violinists' children don't furrow their brows attempting to decipher the melody while their dads practice Handel's For Unto Us a Child Is Born. The flutist's son won't whimper late at night as mom reworks the same jubilant stanza of Sousa's The Washington Post.

Dad plodded through bass lines that rendered famous songs unrecognizable. Three solitary root notes apparently constitute the tuba part in approximately 75% of music in the Western canon; we'd have to go to Dad's shows to find out whether he'd been rehearsing a classic rock song or Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto. We never had a clue. Never did the august instrument in his lap take the melody — except for maybe on Edwin Eugene Bagley's paunchy National Emblem March. Or, of course, that one glorious time of year.

Last Saturday, at the bleak Madison East Center in Mankato, we marked the annual return of that one glorious time.

Mom and I slunk past the "Pain Management" poster outside the entrance to the mostly abandoned shopping mall around 1:05 p.m. Showtime was 1:00. No signs or arrows directed us. We followed the warm, boozy strains of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" over the beige carpet and past the fake snow settings.

TubaChristmas is hard to hide.

When we rounded the corner, 30 or 40 tubas, euphoniums, and a few rogue baritones sat in a half-circle, and a rotund man wearing a Santa hat and band director's tie raised and lowered his hands in a sure common time count. We moseyed to the back of the crowd. "Austin decorates better," Mom whispered, nodding to the two simple garlands. She should know. She's accompanied my father to many a TubaChristmas.

TubaChristmas isn't merely a local phenomenon. It's a worldwide (sorta) organization with a (sorta) website headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana. If you or a loved one plays tuba, you've undoubtedly encountered (and quite possibly enjoyed) this celebration of bass.

If not, don't fret. Sometime this month near you, at a wide open public space with firmly bolted wall fixtures — including this coming Sunday at St. Paul's Central Presbyterian Church — a few dozen low-brass aficionados will gather to play seasonal numbers. There won't be any toy solider trumpets or gossamer winds — only members of the stoic tuba family. This is not a threat. This is not a drill. It will last approximately an hour. Someone will decorate her tuba in neon lights. It's TubaChristmas. Get wild.

"They try to jazz the songs up," Mom told me, as we stood watching the Mankato performance.

Several dozen people in folding chairs (mostly spouses, children, and grandchildren) watched Saturday's show. Not much had changed since my last Mankato TubaChristmas, about a decade ago. The ensemble plays four-part, SATB harmony, often with homemade arrangements of classic yuletide numbers like the stately "Silver Bells," the jocular "Go Tell It on the Mountain," or "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," during which a man in the audience stamped out time with his cane.

After a few tunes, tubas Christmas music starts to lose its novelty — there's only so much one can do with a dotted quarter note. Takeoffs can be murky: the coagulation of dozens of lumbering brass instruments right out of the gates can sound like something is being swallowed uncomfortably. The songs clock in around a minute, minute-thirty — and not all are comical guffaws. On songs like "Silent Night" or "The First Noel," you can see why the men and women of the ensemble hold their baritones and euphoniums close to their chests, like mothers cradling babies in swaddling clothes.

The tuba is a surprisingly sweet, large, and knowing instrument. The music this stretched and widened pipe produces cannot be lost in shopping malls and seems to call out to passerby in ways ersatz pop renditions of the same strains cannot. I saw three or four mall-walking couples in their neon tennis shoes just halt and listen, awestruck by sounds that could fill a palace in Europe but instead were bringing life to a south central Minnesota mall the day after Black Friday.

TubaChristmas returns the holiday to its manger-ly roots. There aren't any barnyard animals braying, but a few dozen band directors with wide bells like golden mouths pointed to the austere ceiling playing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" does something to warm a drafty heart.

Tuba players come from all age groups: they're not all — or even mostly — saggy-bottomed louses with beer-swilling mustaches and Oktoberfest hats. There are a few throwback Bohemians, each with a Seussical horn wrapped around a generous belly (that basically describes my grandfather) — but on Saturday, applause went both to the 84-year-old euphoniumist waving from his chair and to the demure 12-year-old who stood up hoisting her slim baritone. The brass choir is diverse, all puffing cheeks like deep-sea fish near crenellated vents, bringing you beautiful sounds from the ages.

The director recounted TubaChristmases past — like the time at the Mall of America when security swooped in after one song because a minor sonic earthquake trembled the second floor; or the year out at a car dealership (coinciding with the annual holiday light show) when they had a thousand people in the audience.

Saturday, though, TubaChristmas was back in the mall. "At least they turned off the Muzak this year," Mom said.

The players arrived at 11 a.m., rehearsed until noon, broke for lunch, and performed at 1:00. There is no pay for participation in TubaChristmas. There are no accolades (beyond photos taken by family). The tubists play for the love of music.

A patron told the director's wife, who sang cantor during songs, that "it sounds so much better when we sing" — but I like the tubas just fine on their own. Maybe it's the comeback spirit that I love: a once-a-year chance to make music with a horn so often relegated to orchestral plumbing. TubaChristmas is the annual release. The great underdog becomes the over-dog. The lineman scores a touchdown. Ringo sings lead.

After the final song, "Jingle Bells," a mother of one of the younger performers approached by father and asked about where she could buy a soft-case like his for her daughter. My dad smiled. Tubists will beget more tubists. The tradition continues. As the Grinch discovered, holiday music traditions have a way of continuing on despite all odds — lighting up a church, a community center, or a dank mall rotunda, even if only a few dozen gather to watch.

Out in the parking lot, Dad started up his '04 pewter Bronco. He sold the Astro years ago, but his "new" car fit next to the other road-salt-covered vehicles driven by the TubaChristmas performers. They're not a showy bunch. They just need something to carry themselves, maybe their families, and their horns up the highway and back home.

As my dad always told us, "a tuba costs about the same as a good used car." These folks know where to spend their money.

Christopher Vondracek wrote a memoir half about himself and half about Lawrence Welk. He teaches in the English Department at Saint Mary's University in Winona.

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