The tuba is the lowest pitched of the brass wind instruments, with a wide conical bore, three or four valves, a deep cup-shaped mouthpiece and a vertically coiled tubing with an upward pointing bell. The word tuba was originally the name of a straight built bronze Roman trumpet, ending in a slight flare and played with a detachable ivory mouthpiece. The tuba is often relegated to a simple "oom-pah-pah" type bass line, and rarely called upon for solos. However, the tuba is an extremely capable instrument, less nimble than smaller instruments but capable of a range of expression as wide as any other instrument and more than most - from soft, lyrical to loud, bombastic and even fast, complex.
Click the picture on the left to hear a special version of the Flight of the Bumble (Tuba-) Bee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, played by the Canadian Brass Ensemble.
The tuba was designed to fill an urgent need in brass bands for a satisfactory bass to the valved bugle. The first tuba was patented in 1835 by the Prussian bandmaster Friedrich Wilhelm Wieprecht and the German builder Johann Gottfried Moritz. Its antecedents include the serpent (an S-shaped, cup-mouthpiece wooden bass with finger holes) and the ophicleide (a keyed bass bugle). In 1835, Adolfe Sax, working in Paris, patented a homogeneous family of tubas under the name Sax-horn, which were subsequently adopted by French bands. Sax and other makers patented slightly different models under other names, the result being a confusing array of tubas of all sizes.
Modern military and brass bands use tubas of two different sizes. The Eb and the BBb bass, a fourth lower. When these tubas have three valves, their lowest notes are the A below the bass staff and the E below that respectively. The Eb bass generally has a fourth valve that lowers the basic pitch by a fourth to BBb. These basses are coiled vertically and held upright aslant the player's body, with the bell pointing to the right; in the United States, the bell may be turned forward.
Orchestral tubas vary in different countries. Large instruments in BBb or a tone higher, in C, are used in the United States and parts of Europe. The original pitch of F is preferred in Great Britain and (with rotary rather than piston valves) in Germany. All have the fourth valve and often a fifth valve tuned to a wide semitone for facilitating good intonation in certain fingerings. The military band euphonium normally serves as a tenor tuba. Tuba parts are written at actual pitch except in brass bands, where transposed notation allows the parts to be read with cornet fingerings.
Also noteworthy are the 9-foot and 12-foot Wagner tubas in Bb and F respectively; made with left hand valves and relatively narrow bore and played with deep conical mouthpieces by French Hornists. These instruments provide a new colour midway between the mellow horn and the more aggressive tuba. German Composer, Richard Wagner, used it for special effects in his four part music drama cycle, the Ring of Nibelung, since then it has been used in other large orchestral scores.
The helicon is a bass or contrabass built in a spiral circular form and resting on the shoulder. It is believed to have been invented in Russia but was perfected in 1849 by Ignaz Stowasser in Vienna. The helicon is chiefly used in military bands. In the United States, the bandmaster John Philip Sousa introduced a removable wide bell that is raised above the player's head, commonly known as a sousaphone.
