TIMELINE HISTORY OF THE TUBA

Renaissance to Baroque The tuba we know today, being made fully of brass has

descended and developed quite extensively over the past couple of centuries starting out in Europe within the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In these periods an instrument constructed of a curved or straight wood body and a mouthpiece, the Cornett, was the predecessor of the modern day trumpet. This instrument was the base model for the construction of the Serpent. The Serpent is the great grand father of the tuba. The Serpent, not in the same family as the cornett but related by design, included the addition of a brass mouthpiece and sometimes a lead pipe. The body of the instrument was curved wood with some openings and keys similar to woodwind instruments. The shape of the wooden body of many Serpents was bent to restrict the overall length/inconvenience of the instrument thus making the lower half look like a snake or like the name of the instrument, a serpent.

Renaissance to Baroque

Above: a picture of cornetts. Right: a picture of a Serpent

Although the Cornetts were designed, updated and used many centuries before the serpent, the serpent started finding it’s way into ensembles in the 1700’s.

Classical to Romantic The Ophicleide was the predecessor to the

Serpent. Created in 1817, the Ophicleide was created as an improvement to the serpent. Where the serpent was designed so that the player could play it comfortably, the Ophicleide was designed to fix the intonation problems. The big difference between the Serpent and the Ophicleide is that the Serpent’s body is made of wood that was curved and the Ophicleide is made out of brass in a “U” shape.

Classical to Romantic

Left: This is a picture of an Ophicleide.

Mid-Romantic Period The Cimbasso is not really a relative of

the tuba, it was developed to complete the lower timbre of the Trombone range in an orchestra. Thus being designed after a Trombone. Verdi did not like the sound of the tuba-like instruments of his time so he decided to have Milanese instrument maker, Pelitti design a Contrabass Trombone with valves. Because of its popularity in Verdi’s operas, Othello (1887 and Falstaff (1893), The Cimbasso became a popular choice to use for other Italian operas by composers such as Donizetti and Bellini. Above: Picture of a Cimbasso

The Mid-Late Romantic to 21st Century Periods

In the late 19th century into 20th century the Helicon tuba was created. This tuba was specifically made for people to march with.

The Mid-Late Romantic to 21st century Periods The sousaphone

developed at the end of the 19th century was created for John Phillip Sousa because he did not like the sound of the instruments that were used in his marching bands.

The Mid-Late Romantic to 21st century Periods The Tuba that we all know and love today was designed

in the middle of the Romantic period. The big change that allowed the instrument to be adapted more to ensembles over the course of time was the invention of valves. Valves, first created in the early romantic period were designed to allow instruments to become fully chromatic. Valved Instruments did not come into wide popularity until the turn of the 20th century. This allowed the instruments to be refined in terms of intonation because one valve slide can tune that specific harmonic series as opposed to the entire instrument.

The Piston Valve This is an example

of the piston valve. It has a very simple design and allows the instrument to change harmonic series.

Rotary Valve The rotary valve is

also a popular option on Tubas today. It works similar to the piston valve by changing the harmonic series but it rotates instead of moving up and down.

The Modern Tuba Finally we get to the

tuba we have today. The Modern Tuba has been designed in 4 keys BBb, Eb, F and CC. These Tuba can come in different sizes, from 3/4 to 6/4. Thus unlike most other modern instruments that have specific dimensions the Tuba has a very broad range of sizes. Meinl-Weston 2000 CC Tuba

The Modern Tuba

Left: a Miraphone Firebird F Tuba, Center: a 22J Conn Recording BBb Tuba, Right: a Besson BE980 Sovereign Eb Tuba

Info page These are the links to the information that I found to compile this timeline history. http://www.freakingnews.com/Tuba-Missile-Pictures-17433.asp picture on front cover http://www.mccann-cornetts.com/pages/aboutcornetts.html picture of cornett http://www.yeodoug.com/articles/serpent/serpent_tempted.html picture of serpent http://www.serpentwebsite.com/ info on serpent http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/zink.htm info on cornett http://www.contrabass.com/pages/ophicleide.html info in ophicleide http://www.britishtrombonesociety.org/forum/topic?f=7&t=97 picture of cimbasso http://www.vsl.co.at/en/70/3139/3153/3158/5524.vsl http://www.vsl.co.at/en/70/3139/3153/3158/5525.vsl info on the cimbasso http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_valve picture of rotary valve