Chatfield Senior High marching band raising funds to replace deteriorating sousaphones

DENVER ( KDVR ) — High school students in Littleton are looking for help to keep the music alive in the marching band: They’re tired of having to tape their musical instruments together just to be able to play them.

Chatfield Senior High School sophomores Sam Stephens and Carter Musson love marching band.

“It’s a really fun thing to do and everyone here loves it,” said Stephens.

What they don’t love, however, is the state of their sousaphones.

“The welding has come undone and then, so, they just, like, collapse in on themselves,” said Stephens.

The two students say the instruments are more than 60 years old and are barely holding on.

“During a show one time we had eight minutes before we were performing, the welding down here came off and the entire bell fell off,” said Musson. “So we had to run and get duct tape and tape it up.”

The instruments have tape in some places, dents all over and even a hole in the back of one. All these defects impact how they play.

“It makes the sound sound bad,” said Stephens.

“It’s really demoralizing,” said Musson.

The two say all band members pay a fee each year to join, but it doesn’t go towards new instruments. Instead, they’ve turned to a GoFundMe because they can’t replace them on their own.

“It would be about $3,000 for each tuba,” said Musson.

The cost, they say, is worth it because they hope this will bring music to the ears of future students as well.

“We don’t want anyone else to have to deal with the tape mess that is our sousas,” said Stephens.

The students are looking for five sousaphones, which they say with shipping will run around $17,000 in total.

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