The Tuba

Tuba refers to a family of lip-vibrated, upright, valved, metal wind instruments with a folded tube of wide, conical bore. It was designed to fill an urgent need in brass bands for a satisfactory bass to the valved bugle. Although built in various sizes, only the baritone in B-flat (along with the wider-bored euphonium) and the basses in F, E-flat, CC, and BB-flat survive.

Out of the experimental development in the 19th century, the lasting changes included the addition of a tuning slide with a weighted balancer, a water valve, additional stays, a receiver pipe for the mouthpiece, and metal alloys and overlays, especially applied to prevent wear in the slide and to reduce friction in movement.

Index

Brass concepts

Brass instruments

Musical instruments
  HyperPhysics***** Sound Go Back