I started on trumpet, but every school year they would hand me a larger horn so that by high school marching band I would be trapped under a sousaphone.
I'm sure a lot of brass playing big guys know the same story. They look at the trumpet player who is bigger than the others and think "Oh HE could carry one of those big suckers"
I had more fun with valve trombone in the school jazz band, but I played tuba, and whatever else I could get my hands on, all through school.
My sophomore year we had a new director and we were basically 'digging through the attic' of the band hall, clearing out the junk and partially mouse-eaten marching band uniforms. We found several old instruments up there that no one remembered belonging to the school. One of the 'found' instruments became my concert band tuba until I graduated. I got to play it because nobody else could lift it. It was immense and unwieldy, but MAN it sounded good.
It was the largest tuba I have ever seen. It was a Conn. And someone told me that model was called a 'recording bass'. I don't know about that But I do know it had four piston valves and a removable bell and weighed about eighty five pounds.
