Mustang Band to Play "Mustang Sally" with The Pit Pops at Tailgate Party!

[MrMustang1965]

SMU Mustang fans can catch the Pit Pops playing on The Boulevard prior to the game this Saturday, October 4. It's the pregame Tailgate Party, on the SMU campus.

We'll be set up in the center of the party action on the steps of the Owen Fine Arts Center, playing from 4:00 until game time. The Mustang Band will even be joining us for an over-the-top version of "Mustang Sally". (ROCK ON!)

Come on out and join us for the party and follow the Mustang Band on into the stadium for the game against UTEP.

Go Ponies!

The Pit Pops rock and roll, with a lot of soul.
Pit Pops Demo http://www.jingles.com/jmw/PitPopsDemo.mp3
If the link doesn't work, cut and paste the address into your browser:

"The Pit Pops" are:

Clyde Pikes – lead vocals
Jim Shaw – lead guitar, background vocals
Jon Wolfert – keyboards, background vocals
Brad Mitchell – bass guitar
Tommy Nuckols – drums, background vocals
Skip Alexander – percussion
Roger Holmes – saxophone, flute
Dave Stephens – lead trumpet
Gary French – vocals, second trumpet, percussion
Brian Cahill – soundboard and equipment wrangler

[Pony4Life]

OK, speaking of the Mustang Band, I have a question (and foregive me if there's an obvious answer here - I'm an admitted novice.)

How come almost every band that comes in to play at Ford Stadium has a bunch of those big Sousaphones, while the Mustang Band has those smaller tubas that sit on your shoulder? I think the big ones look great, and I assume (correct me if I'm wrong here) that they're louder, too. I would think they might help fill Ford Stadium with sound.

Is it a budget thing? Are they unusually expensive or something? Thanks

[MrMustang1965]

Pony4Life: Your question is a good one and warrants a serious answer. The reason the Mustang Band doesn't have those HUGE tubas is because the band is modeled after the classic 'big bands' of the 30s and 40s (Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, etc.) that did not incorporate those instruments into their system. There were sousaphones for the bass sound and that's what you see on the field at Ford Stadium.

BTW, it's nice to have the Diamond M back in the icons!

[couch 'em]

Plus, I think you can't really highstep with sousaphones, and their sound is less focused. I may be wrong, but I think they are more expensive, but there really is no point to them for us. They are good if you have to carry them around for a LONG time, but jsut for half times and such a nice rocket-launcher tuba sounds more our style, looks more uniform, less highschoolish, and easier to transport on a bus. Plus, sousaphones are for weaklings who can't hold a regular tuba up

[MustangSally]

And as far as volume goes, our tubas are just as loud. Pretty much the shape of the instrument is the only difference. From what I've heard, sousaphones don't provide the "response" or focused sound of a concert tuba. While most fans probably don't notice the tuba sound, other bands do. They always think "oh only 3 tubas, this will be weak" but they always comment later on how loud our guys played them. Am I making any sense?

BTW, MrMustang1965 are you in the Pit Pops? Tommy mentioned we might do that gig with you all, but it wasn't confirmed for us yet.

[Greenwich Pony]

Actually, the sousaphones, while designed for marching before they came out with "covertables" do not have a strong or as clear a sound as the shoulder tubas. It is just that in years gone by, you had to strap a heavy concert tuba to your chest, which was very heavy and awkward to carry. Now that they have converter tubes so that concert tubas can be carried on the shoulder, the sound of concert tubas is much more precise and much louder man for man.

[DiamondM]

Not that the SMU Mustang Band is a "drum corps" style band, but no competition-level drum and bugle corps has sousaphones, they use on the shoulder bass horns.

It is also true that the sousaphone could affect our tuba players' ability to march high step effectively, since the wrap around portion could come down low enough on some players to interfere with chair step.

The volume is not a matter of which horn is used but how hard the players blow, and ours blow hard. )

[MrMustang1965]

Originally posted by MustangSally:


BTW, MrMustang1965 are you in the Pit Pops? Tommy mentioned we might do that gig with you all, but it wasn't confirmed for us yet.

No, I'm not. (Darn!) But I've sung "Mustang Sally" numerous times at karaoke venues and I've won several karaoke contests singing it! :w00t: