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Here's something I've been wanting to know about the 4th valve on a BBb tuba. I know you can use it to play more lower notes below the low BBb. But can you also use it to play the very high notes above the F, for instance?

Hank74

Generally, the higher you go, the fewer valves you need. I don't use the fourth valve for anything in the staff or higher.

On my CC tuba, the Ab at the top of the bass clef staff, and he Ab an octave above that I play with a 2,4 valve combination. I don't have to, but 23 is really flat up there, and the really high Ab centers incredibly well with that finger combination. Also the G below the really high Ab I finger 2,3,4,5, it also centers very well. The reason I use those fingerings is or intonation, but mostly because those fingerings are more reliable and and I can count on them when l need to play those notes on my CC.

You can play those notes using a fourth valve, but generally people don't (bloke's examples the exception). The reason is that if you use the fourth valve for higher notes, you are using more tubing to play the same thing. Most people find that this makes their horn feel stuffier. Also, because you are using more tubing, the note will be higher in the overtone series, which is likely to make it more inaccurate, harder to hit, just when people find they NEED accuracy.

Bloke's notes are good reason to use it, but mostly people don't go that way.

I'v found that the 4th valve can make for smoother trils in the staff. When I play my 983 Eb, I play the Eb in the staff open, and the F above it 4th when doing a trill. Strangely enough, it is much smoother than going from open to 1st...

Another 2 cents of information.

When playing those high notes with an overly long amount of tubing, they not only seem stuffy, but come across as brighter, mainly due to a large amount of cylindrical piping in the mix. For wahtever reason, this seems to make a much larger effect on the timbre of the instrument in higher ranges than lower ones.

I know this may seem silly, but the high G#/Ab (think Bydlo) slots best for me right now with a 2/4 fingering on my HB-2 (CC).

Bloke's comments are exactly correct. I also sometimes find the 4th valve useful for other notes. For example, on my Weril "toy tuba" the C above the staff is very flat with open or with 1. 4 works well and I don't have to think about it. (3 is even better, but I can't always remember to use it.) My old Kings from the 1930s (with the tuning slide in the leadpipe) had a very sharp high F (4th line up from the bottom of the staff) which would not have been a problem if it had a 4th valve. Sometimes the 4th valve is not used much in a particular passage; in cases like that you can "pre-tune" it to get good intonation of that one "problem note". (This is useful only for music that is written out and rehearsed; not for the fun stuff.)