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The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the newer instruments in the modern orchestra and concert band, and largely replaced the ophicleide. Tuba is Latin for "trumpet".
A person who plays the tuba is called a tubaist, a tubist, or simply a tuba player. In a British brass band or military band, they are known as bass players.
The addition of valves made it possible to play low in the harmonic series of the instrument and still have a complete selection of notes. Prior to the invention of valves, brass instruments were limited to notes in the harmonic series, and were thus generally played very high with respect to their fundamental pitch. Harmonics starting three octaves above the fundamental pitch are about a whole step apart, making a useful variety of notes possible.
The ophicleide used a bowl-shaped brass instrument mouthpiece but had keys and tone holes similar to those of a modern saxophone. Another forerunner to the tuba, the serpent, was a bass instrument shaped in a wavy form to make the tone holes accessible to the player. Tone holes change the pitch by providing an intentional leak in the bugle of the instrument, but this system has a pronounced effect on the timbre. By using valves instead, the tuba could produce a smoother tone, which led to its popularity. Tubas were mostly used by French composers, especially Hector Berlioz, who famously used the ophicleide in his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Benvenuto Cellini. These pieces are now normally performed on F or CC tuba.
Adolphe Sax, like Wieprecht, was interested in marketing families of instruments ranging from soprano to bass, and developed a series of brass instruments known as . The instruments developed by Sax were generally pitched in E and B, while the Wieprecht "basstuba" and the subsequent Červený contrabass tuba were pitched in F and C (see below on pitch systems). Sax's instruments gained dominance in France, and later in Britain and America, as a result of the movements of popular instrument makers such as Gustave Auguste Besson (who moved from France to Britain) and Henry Distin (who eventually found his way to America).Clifford Bevan, The Tuba Family, Scriveners, 1978. .
The cimbasso is also seen instead of a tuba in the orchestral repertoire. The Italian word cimbasso, first appearing in the early 19th century, is thought to be a contraction used by musicians of the term corno basso or corno di basso (), sometimes appearing in scores as c. basso or c. in basso. The original design was inspired by the ophicleide and the bassoon. The cimbasso is sometimes used in historically accurate performances and is commonly called for in film score and video game .
Tubas are used in , drum and bugle corps and in many (see below). In British style brass bands, two E and two B tubas are used and are referred to as basses.
Well known and influential parts for the tuba include:
have been written for the tuba by many notable composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams (Tuba Concerto), Edward Gregson, John Williams, Alexander Arutiunian, Eric Ewazen, James Barnes, Joseph Hallman, Martin Ellerby, Philip Sparke, Kalevi Aho, Josef Tal, Bruce Broughton (Tuba Concerto), John Golland, Roger Steptoe, David Carlson, Jennifer Higdon (Tuba Concerto), and Marcus Paus ( Tuba Mirum).
A tuba with its tubing wrapped for placing the instrument on the player's lap is usually called a concert tuba or simply a tuba. Tubas with the bell pointing forward ( pavillon tournant) instead of upward are often called recording tubas because of their popularity in the early days of recorded music, as their sound could more easily be directed at the recording microphone. When wrapped to surround the body for cavalry bands on horseback or marching, it is traditionally known as a helicon. The modern sousaphone, named after American bandmaster John Philip Sousa, resembles a helicon with the bell pointed up (in the original models as the J. W. Pepper prototype and Sousa's concert instruments) and then curved to point forward (as developed by Conn and others). Some ancestors of the tuba, such as the military bombardon, had unusual valve and bore arrangements compared to modern tubas.
During the American Civil War, most brass bands used a branch of the brass family known as Saxhorn, which, by today's standards, have a narrower bore taper than tuba—the same as true Cornet and Baritone horn but distinct from Trumpet, Euphonium, and others with different tapers or no taper. Around the start of the Civil War, saxhorns manufactured for military use in the USA were commonly wrapped with the bell pointing backwards over the player's shoulder, and these were known as over-the-shoulder saxhorns, and came in sizes from cornets down to E basses. However, the E bass, even though it shared the same tube length as a modern E tuba, has a narrower bore and as such cannot be called by the name tuba except as a convenience when comparing it to other sizes of the saxhorn.
Most music for the tuba is written in bass clef in concert pitch, so tuba players must know the correct fingerings for their specific instruments. Traditional British-style brass band parts for the tuba are usually written in treble clef, with the B tuba sounding two octaves and one step below and the E tuba sounding one octave and a major sixth below the written pitch. This allows musicians to change instruments without learning new fingerings for the same written music. Consequently, when its music is written in treble clef, the tuba is a transposing instrument but not when the music is in bass clef.
The lowest pitched tubas are the contrabass tubas, pitched in C or B, referred to as CC and BB tubas respectively, based on a traditional distortion of a now-obsolete octave naming convention. The fundamental pitch of a CC tuba is 32 Hz, and for a BB tuba, 29 Hz. The CC tuba is used as an orchestral and concert band instrument in the U.S., but BB tubas are the contrabass tuba of choice in German, Austrian, and Russian orchestras. In the United States, the BB tuba is the most common in schools (largely due to the use of BB sousaphones in high school marching bands) and for adult amateurs. Many professionals in the U.S. play CC tubas, with BB also common, and many train in the use of all four pitches of tubas.
The next smaller tubas are the bass tubas, pitched in F or E (a fourth above the contrabass tubas). The E tuba often plays an octave above the contrabass tubas in brass bands, and the F tuba is commonly used by professional players as a solo instrument and, in America, to play higher parts in the classical repertoire (or parts that were originally written for the F tuba, as is the case with Berlioz). In most of Europe, the F tuba is the standard orchestral instrument, supplemented by the CC or BB only when the extra weight is desired. Richard Wagner, for example, specifically notates the low tuba parts for Kontrabasstuba, which are played on CC or BB tubas in most regions. In the United Kingdom, the E is the standard orchestral tuba.
The euphonium is sometimes referred to as a tenor tuba and is pitched in B, one octave higher than the BB contrabass tuba. The term "tenor tuba" is often used more specifically to refer to B rotary-valved tubas pitched in the same octave as euphoniums. The "Small Swiss Tuba in C" is a tenor tuba pitched in C, and provided with 6 valves to make the lower notes in the orchestral repertoire possible. The French C tuba was the standard instrument in French orchestras until overtaken by F and C tubas since the Second World War. One popular example of the use of the French C tuba is the Bydło movement in Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, though the rest of the work is scored for this instrument as well.
A very small number of larger subcontrabass tubas exist as novelty instruments. Two in 36′ B♭, an octave below the B♭ contrabass, were built by Gustave Besson on the suggestion of Patrick Gilmore, but were not completed until after his death in 1892. One survives in the Harvard University Band, where it was restored and features occasionally in concerts. Another with four valves was exhibited by maker Bohland & Fuchs in 1928, in height with a bell, weighing ."Bohland & Fuchs Show Largest Brass Bass Horn." Music Trade Review, 87:8 (25 August 1928), 16. In 1956, British musician Gerard Hoffnung used a 32′ C subcontrabass tuba, built by German maker Rudolf Sander, in the first of his comedy Hoffnung Music Festivals. In 2010, a fully playable Riesentuba in 36′ B♭ with four rotary valves was built and resides in the Markneukirchen Musical Instrument Museum, Germany.
Piston valves require more maintenance than rotary valves – they require regular oiling to keep them freely operating, while rotary valves are sealed and seldom require oiling. Piston valves are easy to disassemble and re-assemble, while rotary valve disassembly and re-assembly is much more difficult and is generally left to qualified instrument repair persons.
Tubas generally have from three to six valves, though some rare exceptions exist. Three-valve tubas are generally the least expensive and are almost exclusively used by amateurs, and the sousaphone (a marching version of a BB tuba) usually has three valves. Among advanced players, four and five valve tubas are by far the most common choices, with six-valve tubas being relatively rare except among F tubas, which mostly have five or six valves.
The valves add tubing to the main tube of the instrument, thus lowering its fundamental pitch. The first valve lowers the pitch by a whole step (two semitones), the second valve by a semitone, and the third valve by three semitones. Used in combination, the valve tubing is too short and the resulting pitch tends to be sharp. For example, a BB tuba becomes (in effect) an A tuba when the first valve is depressed. The third valve is long enough to lower the pitch of a BB tuba by three semitones, but it is not long enough to lower the pitch of an A tuba by three semitones. Thus, the first and third valves used in combination lower the pitch by something just short of five semitones, and the first three valves used in combination are nearly a quarter tone sharp.
The fourth valve lowers the pitch by a perfect fourth, so it can be used in place of the combination of the first and third valves. When tuned properly it helps solve the issue of valve combinations being too sharp. Using the fourth valve with the first three valves allows the musician to extend the instrument's range down to the fundamental pitch. As with other valve combinations that lengthen the tubing considerably, some of these lower notes can be sharp.
A fifth and sixth valve, if fitted, are used to provide alternative fingering possibilities to improve intonation, and are also used to reach into the low register of the instrument where all the valves will be used in combination to fill the first octave between the fundamental pitch and the next available note on the open tube. The fifth and sixth valves also give the musician the ability to trill more smoothly or to use alternative fingerings for ease of playing. This type of tuba is what is most found in orchestras and wind bands around the world.
The bass tuba in F is pitched a fifth above the BB tuba and a fourth above the CC tuba, so it needs additional tubing length beyond that provided by four valves to play securely down to a low F as required in much tuba music. The fifth valve is commonly tuned to a flat whole step, so that when used with the fourth valve, it gives an in-tune low B. The sixth valve is commonly tuned as a flat half step, allowing the F tuba to play low G as 1-4-5-6 and low G as 1-2-4-5-6. In CC tubas with five valves, the fifth valve may be tuned as a flat whole step or as a minor third depending on the instrument.
The Blaikley design plumbs the instrument so that if the fourth valve is used, the air is sent back through a second set of branches in the first three valves to compensate for the combination of valves. This does have the disadvantage of making the instrument significantly more "stuffy" or resistant to air flow when compared to a non-compensating tuba. This is due to the need for the air to flow through the valves twice. It also makes the instrument heavier. But many prefer this approach to having additional valvesor to the manipulation of tuning slides while playingto achieve improved intonation within an ensemble.
Most modern professional-grade euphoniums also now feature Blaikley-style compensating valves.
The lowest note in the widely known repertoire is a 16 Hz double-pedal C0 in the William Kraft piece Encounters II, which is often played using a timed Flutter-tonguing rather than by buzzing the lips. The fundamental of this pitch borders on infrasound and its overtones define the pitch in the listener's ear.
Most marching bands opt for the sousaphone, an instrument that is easier to carry since it was invented specifically for this and almost always cheaper than a true marching tuba. The earlier helicon is still used by bands in Europe and other parts of the world. Drum and bugle corps players, however, generally use marching tubas or .
Standard tubas can also be played whilst standing and marching, which is the usual practice in British brass bands and . With the comfort of the player in mind, companies have provided harnesses that sometimes use a strap joined to the tuba with two rings, a 'sack' to hold the bottom of the tuba, or numerous straps holding the larger parts of tubing on the tuba. The strap(s) goes over the shoulder like a sash or sit at the waist, so the musician can play the instrument in the same position as when sitting.
This practice was mostly used in the New Orleans jazz scene. The tuba was used most frequently with the Louis Armstrong groups and prominent in the album Hot Five.
In modern jazz, it is not unknown for their players to take solos. New Orleans style like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Rebirth Brass Band use a sousaphone as the bass instrument. Bill Barber played tuba on several Miles Davis albums, including the sessions compiled as the Birth of the Cool and Miles Ahead. New York City-based tubist Marcus Rojas performed frequently with Henry Threadgill. Starting in 1955, Stan Kenton made his fifth trombonist double on tuba, namely on ballads to make use of the tuba's distinct warm, enveloping sound.
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