Hi, I play tuba, among other things, in a vaudeville show and one year we had a killer tuba player in the show who had an extremely expensive, orchestral quality horn, made with very thin and vibrant brass. One day at rehearsal, I asked if I could try it. He handed it to me and I gripped it by what I thought was one of main tubing pieces but was actually a tuning slide.(Yes, you can so tune a tuba) The tuba slid smoothly off the slide and slammed bell-first onto the floor, flattening the bell. This was a very bad thing. I almost puked, I was so scared, and upset. He just calmly took it from my shaking hands, put the slide back in, and said it was no big deal and that it had happened before, and that he'd just have it re-shaped. I didn't go near it for the rest of the summer, even when he said I could play it when he was having a day off. The horn I'm presently playing is an Eflat Huttl, with is roughly the Yugo of tubas. Cheap, crappy, thick, and toneless, but it goes. The end. Owl.