When was the tuba made

How It's Made Some tubas have piston valves the button thingies like the trumpet. Other tubas have rotary valves the lever thingies like the french horn. The brass tubing for the tuba begins at the mouthpiece, and bends and folds until it finally flairs, forming a large bell.

If you were to stretch the metal tubing out it would be eighteen feet long. It is also the most common instrument for student tuba players. Both instruments are designed to make the instrument easy to carry, and to project the sound toward the audience. Fun Fact Tubas are made of brass, a metal made of copper and zinc. I am as yet uncertain as to the origin of this instrument, or who its inventor was, but this early example comes from England.

The Russian bassoon, despite its name, is actually a Belgian-made instrument of serpent configuration consisting of two wooden tubes joined at the bottom. It was invented circa The helicon, thought to have been invented in Russia circa , was designed to be a marching horn, carried on the shoulder.

This bass instrument was the forerunner of the Sousaphone, which is the self-same instrument with a directional bell grafted on. In , Ignaz Stowasser of Vienna produced large numbers of these instruments for cavalry and infantry bands.

The tuba proper was first patented by Prussian bandmaster Wilhelm Wieprecht and German instrument-builder Johann Gottfried Moritz in This instrument was soon adopted by British brass bands. There are many design configurations for the tuba. The tuba has a wider conical bore profile and deeper cup mouthpiece. His work on the tuba, however, was a limited, secondary matter compared to the brasswinds that bear his name. His apparent intent was to create an integrated family that included the entire range of the various diverse brasswinds.

To accomplish this he selected a single archetypal design upon which all of his instruments were based. That underlying design is the bore profile of the valved bugle or cornopean, the predecessors of the cornet.

This means that the Eb bass Saxhorn brass instruments have a narrower bore and smaller bell profile than the tuba. Conn in , was actually first manufactured by J.

Pepper in , where it was displayed at the industrial exhibit in Philadelphia that same year. As previously stated, the Sousaphone is really just a helicon with directional bell grafted on. Pepper suggested the design to John Philip Sousa.

In fact, the original J. The instrument was later known as the sousaphone. When the tuba was first introduced, it rapidly replaced the ophicleide in bands and orchestras in Germany. It was more slowly accepted by other countries, particularly Britain and France. By , the tuba had become the standard brass bass instrument and the ophicleide was obsolete. The general design of the tuba has changed little since the early days of its development. It is a massive instrument with a large bell of anywhere from in The main tubing is shaped in an elliptical coil with the bell pointing up.

There are numerous variations on this shape however. For example, the sousaphone is a circular shaped instrument with the bell pointing forward. Certain upright tubas have also been made with a forward pointing bell.

Other tubas have left or right facing bells. The position of the bell is important because it affects the overall tone quality the instrument produces. Most tubas have four valves that are of the piston variety. However, certain instruments have anywhere from two to six valves. Rotary valves are also used for certain brands of tubas. These valves are faster than piston valves but less durable. A large, cup-shaped mouthpiece is used.

Tubas are available in five different keys including double B flat, double C, E flat, F, and the double G contrabass bugle. The primary raw material used for making standard tubas is brass.

Brass is an alloy composed of copper and zinc. Other metals that may also be added to modify the characteristics include tin and nickel. This material is yellow in color and malleable. Other types of brass are also used when different effects are desired. Silver brass that includes copper, zinc, and nickel is also used.

The zinc in brass makes the alloy workable at lower temperatures. Some custom manufacturers use special blends of brass for different parts of the tuba. This material gives the instrument a unique sound. Beyond brass, only a few other materials are used to make the tuba. Most of the screws are composed of stainless steel. In some cases, certain surfaces on the instrument such as the valves or the sliding pipes are coated with chromium or a nickel alloy.

This reduces friction and helps the pieces move more freely. During production, flux and solder are used to connect the various tubes.

To reduce the possibility of damage, valves are lined with felt where the valve button meets the instrument body. For decoration, a material such as mother of pearl is used on the valve button. Cork may also be used to line the water key. To reduce weight, the bulk of the sousaphone is composed of fiberglass. The demand for tubas is much less than for other brass instruments such as trumpets, bugles, or trombones.

Therefore, production is not typically done in a highly automated fashion. The three general steps of production include piece forming, assembly and final finishing.