Re: 3-valve Eb/low range/function?


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Posted by Steve Bloom on December 14, 2000 at 23:14:38:

In Reply to: 3-valve Eb/low range/function? posted by Jason on December 14, 2000 at 00:53:31:

One might refer to Clifford Bevan's excellent book, "The Tuba Family", for development of the tuba in various countries. The previous posters are dead on regarding the use of the Eb in brass bands, but the design of American E-flat tubas owes itself to a different heritage. When the tuba was first designed, it was only made in the Eb and F versions, and there was no "contrabass" tuba at the time (1850s). In fact, all the early professional bands such as Gilmore and Sousa used Eb tubas exclusively until the BBb came into favor around 1900. It was at this time Sousa replaced all the E-flats with Conn BBb horns, preferring the larger sound of the contrabasses which imparted a fuller foundation. At the same time, music that had been written solely in the "bass tuba" range was expanded to take advantage of the newer "contrabass" tubas. To be sure, there were CC horns in the late 1800s but they were not yet universally accepted as orchestral instruments except in some countries, and even then only for literature which was written to take advantage of the added low range. The short answer is that the Eb "got by" because the majority of literature at that time was scored in that range.


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