5 valve fingering chart.

[Benjamin]

Hi, this is my first post and I have a good question to go with it. I'm a young but pretty good Tuba Player. I'm looking to buy me a better Tuba (The one I have is cheap and not very good) I would like to get a 5 valve Tuba at that. See I know how to play a 4 valve and I like it. But I want to learn the fingerings for a 5 valve. If any body knows a website or can give fingerings for a 5 valve Tuba I would be much aprecitive. Also make sure is is the fingers for a Tuba in the key of BBb.

Thank you.

[Will]

You can look at the CC fingering chart on the "Tips on Playing" link in the opening page of www.chisham.com. Just move it down a whole step to make it work for a 5 valve BBb.

Advice from nearby Christiansburg, VA!


-heads

[Lew]

Most 5th valves on BBb tubas today will be configured as a flat whole step. That is essentially the same as your 1st valve, but a quarter tone flatter. This is so that you can add the extra tubing required to bring the lower notes in tune without pulling your first valve slide. If configured this way, you would essentially just substitute 5th valve for any combinations below low B that would otherwise use 1st valve.

For example you could use the following fingerings (descending down):

B - 2-3-5
Eb - 4-5 (4 ledger lines below the staff)
Db - 3-4-5
B - 1-2-3-4-5

The 5th valve can also be used in combination with the 1st valve to give you a 2 whole step combination, instead of the 2-3 combination, or in combination with 2-3 for a 3 step combination. For example:

Gb - 1-5
E - 2-3-5
D - 1-4-5
A - 1-3-4-5

That said, there is absolutely no reason to buy a 5 valve BBb tuba for someone your age. The 5th valve helps with intonation primarily on the 8 notes listed above and you are likely to find only 2 of them, B and Gb, in any of the music you are likely to see. A 4 valve BBb tuba can play those notes just fine, and for that matter the intonation on the other notes is workable.

If you were an adult buying this to use regularly I would have a different recommendation, but even as an adult (amateur) tuba player I have never felt the need to have a 5th valve. I actually owned a 5 valve BBb tuba for a while, a VMI 3302, and sold it because I decided that the extra cost and weight of the 5th valve was just not necessary.

[Douglas]

If you have one of the new Arban books for tuba they have a 5 valve CC and BBb fingering chart in the back of the book.

More than likley not much help
Doug

[crbarnes]

The 5th valve is also used for the pedal register to fill in those notes that are difficult or impossible on a 4 valve horn.
Starting with the Gb below the staff, you have the following (assuming a flatted whole step 5th valve)
Gb 2/3 or 5
F 4 or 1/3
E 2/4 or 1/2/5
Eb 1/2/4 or 2/3/5
D 2/3/4 or 4/5
Db 1/3/4 or 2/4/5
C 1/2/3/4 or 1/2/4/5
B 1/2/3/4/5
Bb 0

[Captain Sousie]

Six valvers too.

[Captain Sousie]

Yup. They are almost all front action so you can play with four valves on the right hand and two on the left or five on the right and one on the left.

The right hand valve levers tend to be high up on the instrument.

I will try to find some pics.

Sou

[Captain Sousie]

It does help.

[mTaUrBkA]

I agree with lew. The 5th valve really isn't needed. I am a very serious high school aged tuba player that plays in several local community bands and college concert bands. 4 valves seem to do me just fine. I have never owned 5 valves, but I have used them before. In most situations I don't really like havign the the 5th valves. I like it most when playing a CC in a brass quintet. I have a BBb Mirafone 186....suits me very well. I don't know your budget, but I don't think you can really go wrong with that horn. Hopefully that helped you in some way.

[tubeast]

Benjamin,
I haven´t seen a six-valved BBb tuba yet, most of them come with 4 or 5 valves. I do use both a 6 valved F as well as a 5 valved CC, though. (A MW model 46 and a PT20, those are)

I figure that in general use the single purpose of more than 4 valves is to fill the gap between 1234 and the lowest partial of your horn. That´ll be a little less than 3 semitones from "kind of D" down to pedal BBb on a BBb tuba. (Sorry, I don´t really know how to properly express that in English).
All other uses of additional valves will correct intonation issues.
On the higher tuas, like Eb or F, these 5th or 6th valves are very important.
Being the only tubist of the community wind band, only having my F tuba, I needed my 5th and 6th valve all the time to pretend I had a contrabass tuba, pitch wise at the least.

What my point is: I do agree with others who stated that you rarely need a 5th valve on a BBb tuba. It depends on what Your aims in music are without having the expertise of a pro tubist to get around intonational flaws of your horn. (I don´t have that expertise but still want to play real low, so I depend on gadgets like additional valves). I DO come across scores with low Dbs or Cs in them, though. I couldn´t reach those with the band´s 4-valved BBb tubas, but BOTH my horns will produce them, the PT20 even comfortably so. But then again, that´s TWO damn notes out of a million You´ll be playing in your life, so why spend the extra bucks for that valve ? That would be more reasonable on CC and F tubas, in my opinion.
Read ya

Hans