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Instruments Used To Describe The Roman Trumpet

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The word tuba comes from the Latin word tuba. This Latin term was used to describe the roman trumpet. The serpent was invented in France by Edme Guillaume c. 1590s. The serpent had wooden, conical tubing and was 213cm long. The serpent had 6 finger holes and a cup mouthpiece. As years passed other instruments were created before the tuba one of these was the tuba curva. In 1791 in Paris a brass instrument called the tuba curva was created. This instrument was similar to the Roman trumpet and is considered the “forerunner to the modern tuba. Another instrument was the ophicalide. This instrument was similar to the serpent because had conical tubing it also had a cup shaped mouthpiece. But Instead of Finger holes it had keys and pads resembling a saxophone, also it was made out of brass instead of wood. Farther down the line of time in Berlin Johann Moritz and Wilhelm Wieprecht invented the bass tuba in 1835 although it was not the first valved bass instrument it was the first to have the name tuba. Moritz and Wieprecht’s tuba was made out of brass keyed in F and had five valves. The tubas gave orchestras a pleasant bass sound. Hector berlioz a French composer said that “Wieprecht’s tuba was a bombardon with a improved mechanism and stated that its timbre was very much like that of the ophicleide”. There were two things that distinguished the tuba from the bombardon one is the wide bore and that the tuba has valves the bombardon did not. “Berlioz was one of the first composers to embrace the tuba with enthusiasm, using it in virtually all his scores in …show more content…

They also come in four different tunings the bass tuba in F and Eb and the contrabass tuba in C and Bb The bass and contrabass tubas are the largest and lowest pitched instruments

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