C or CC tuba?

[PMeuph]

My understanding is that the label does not actually follow any kind of octave naming system.

http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary ... ation.html" target="_blank

They are now referred to as CC and BBb tuba even though they belong on different octaves. Same goes for EEb tuba.

BBBb is a rare subcontrabass tuba...

[eupher61]

and the dreaded EEb....there is no standardization.

[sloan]

Any attempt to DERIVE the current naming scheme based on some sane system of notation is doomed to failure.

Trying to make it so is a fool's mission.

The received truth; use these terms and you will be understood:

C tuba - the obsolete French "teakettle"
Bb tuba - no such thing. If you mean "tenor tuba", then say so.
F tuba - bass tuba in F
Eb tuba - bass tuba in Eb
EEb tuba - large bass tuba in Eb (advertising hyperbole meant to imply an Eb to be used more like a BBb than an F)
CC tuba - contrabass tuba in C
BBb tuba - contrabass tuba in Bb

Anything else - whatever the owner wants to call it, there are no rules or conventions to guide you.

[Donn]

EEb tuba - large bass tuba in Eb (advertising hyperbole meant to imply an Eb to be used more like a BBb than an F)

But mainly in Merry Old England and its more tractable colonies, true? In the US, Eb is Eb.

[sloan]

EEb tuba - large bass tuba in Eb (advertising hyperbole meant to imply an Eb to be used more like a BBb than an F)

But mainly in Merry Old England and its more tractable colonies, true? In the US, Eb is Eb.

Blimey, mate - do the Yanks make Eb tubas?

[Kevin Hendrick]

EEb tuba - large bass tuba in Eb (advertising hyperbole meant to imply an Eb to be used more like a BBb than an F)

But mainly in Merry Old England and its more tractable colonies, true? In the US, Eb is Eb.

Blimey, mate - do the Yanks make Eb tubas?

http://kanstulmusic.com/kanstul_tubas.html

[GC]

I prefer to call it the Fbb tuba.

[sloan]

...
But mainly in Merry Old England and its more tractable colonies, true? In the US, Eb is Eb.

Blimey, mate - do the Yanks make Eb tubas?[/quote]
http://kanstulmusic.com/kanstul_tubas.html [/quote]

I figured they were Brits, because they call their tubas "EEb".

[GC]

Let's not forget the E# tuba, too.

[Donn]

I figured they were Brits, because they call their tubas "EEb".

They mean to sell them to Brits, perhaps.

[MikeW]

Way back, when I first started getting confused about tubas, I was told that an Eb had 3 valves, but a 4 valve instrument was called an EEb as a marketing ploy, the cover story being that "it can play chromatically all the way down to the pedals, so it's 'virtually' a contrabass...". It seemed like a distinction worth making, and there were enough 4-valve instruments around to justify the different labels. I have the impression that most American Eb tubas had only three valves, so the question didn't arise in America until they started importing 4-valve instruments.

I was in a British brass band at that time, probably around 1976, so F and C/CC didn't get discussed much, but there must have been a dozen or so F and maybe several big CC in the country by then; I can remember an aging violin player asking me "Is that an orchestral tuba ?", when he actually meant "is that in F ?"