What's the difference between a Baritone and a Euphonium?

[imperialbari]

You are sticking your nose in a bees’ hive, so I will give you my strictly personal, but multinational interpretations of these terms:



Basically baritone and euphonium are both instruments covering the vocal tenor, baritone, and bass ranges.



The British, as in almost any other matter, have gotten everything wrong, so they call their small bore (originally about .516, recently perverted into .547) Bb instrument typically covering the tenor functions in bands by the sick name of a Baritone.



The Germans as usual have gotten everything right, but in a fashion unbearable for the entire sphere of humanity, so they call their equivalent tenor instrument a Tenorhorn. Actually this instrument has the same bore as the older Brit baritones, but the Germans put a much more voluminous bell on these instruments.



One coulf call the Belgians narrowminded because they made tiny Bb Tenorhorns under the Mahillon brand name.



But again the Brits won the game of narrowmindedness. They reserve the Tenor horn title for their Eb alto instruments, which every sane nation on this planet calls an Alto horn.



The Germans call their wide bored, wide belled instrument Bariton. Which makes sense, as it actually covers the baritone range in the Don Juanian sense. You probaly know that opera by Wolfgand Gottlieb Mozart, where one can not sleep through the ending because of those trombones.



The Brits are geeks, so they of course took inspiration from the Greeks (The Brits spell about as well as I do), so they called their instrument covering the baritone range a euphonium. Literally a tool for radiating beautiful sounds (so please go home and practise).



The USians see themselves as the great mediators of this planet, so they made a compromise between the Brit baritone (which is a tenor as you remember) and the Brit euphonium. The bore somewhat to the euph side. And the US term was quite rightfully: the Baritone.



When US military bands were in Europe during and after WWII, they found out that the Brit euphs actually were better tools for making music than were the US baritones.



Making the US the largest market for Brit euphs. Since 1970 the Swiss and the Japs actually make better euphs, than the Brits do. A knowledge reserved for the minority of US euph players.



Confused? Then I have not told of the French terms. And I am not going to do so. At least for now. Neither I will tell of the terms in my country.



Just for the preservation of your sanity I will tell you of the Polish term for French horn: Róg!



Isn’t that just an obvious term?



Klaus

PS: This topic can be debated endlessly. The above text was written on the old version of the TubeNet during the summer of 2001, where I found it myself, as I had lost my own draft. The version there has suffered a bit from not so kind ASCII-filters, so I edited it, supplemented it with a missing word, but did not correct my old spelling errors. The form is not intended to be serious, but I think, that most of the instrument related information stands true.

[dwaskew]

best articles on this can be found on David Werden's site:

http://tubaeuph.com/eu-articles-bareuph.cfm

[Rick Denney]

Is there a difference between a baritone and a euphonium, or are they they just two names for the same instrument?

If you live in the U.S., and you look at the upper corner of that 40-year-old band music and it says "Baritone Horn", then you can translate that to "euphonium" in your mind with no musical damage. The baritone that was current when that music was published and a modern euphonium serve the same basic musical role.

If you live in England, a baritone is to a euphonium as a tenor trombone is to a bass trombone. They are both the same key, but the former is generally narrower with a smaller bell.

I disagree with Mr. Werden's distinction of traditional American baritones as being distinct from, say, a Yamaha 321, which everybody calls a euphonium. The newer models are bigger, but then my Holton is bigger than my Miraphone and they are both still tubas. One can play an old Connstellation baritone anywhere they might play a modern Willson, and vice versa. The sound will be different, but then the sound of a modern symphonic-bore tenor trombone will be different than an old pea-shooter, and yet they are both still tenor trombones. Everything has been getting bigger over that period.

Rick "thinking euphoniums and baritones are the same thing in America and different in England" Denney

[9811matt]

My stock answer is usually "about $400"...


followed by

Baritone = bass cornet
Euphonium = bass flugelhorn

which inevitably results in either "ohhhhh", or "what's a flugelhorn?"

[RyanSchultz]

Euphonium = bass flugelhorn

So for fun, a flugel horn sort of being a soprano tuba, we could go to Tenor, or better yet, "Baritone Tuba."

Euphonium, Baritone, Baritone Tuba--I can hear the middle school kid's mothers now!

This is a really interesting topic. . .

[sloan]

You are sticking your nose in a bees’ hive, so I will give you my strictly personal, but multinational interpretations of these terms:



Basically baritone and euphonium are both instruments covering the vocal tenor, baritone, and bass ranges.



The British, as in almost any other matter, have gotten everything wrong,

strike one

so they call their small bore (originally about .516, recently perverted into .547)

strike 2

Bb instrument typically covering the tenor functions in bands by the sick name

strike 3

[windshieldbug]

Like the /4 system, it's whatever the maker decides to call it...

[RyanMcGeorge]

I don't think it is so much about bore size as it is about taper. In America anyway, I thought it was as simple as the horn being conical (euphonium) or cylindrical (baritone). Then you have the english baritone, which is the really cute small horn typically only seen in an authentic brass band. So in the US you have the Euphonium, the baritone, (which both can cover the same role even though the euphonium is superior) and then you have the occasional english baritone. I don't think the "American baritone" "aka middle school horn" is even used in England but I don't know that for a fact.

[Dan Schultz]

Conn called their 14i horns 'baritones' and their 20i horns 'euphoniums'. Same bores... same bottom bows... same slides and crooks. Both had three pistons and just about everything except the pistons (the 20i had oval ports) would interchange. Go figgur!

[Chuck(G)]

Tuba = Euphonium on steroids
Baritone = Alto horn on steriods

[Rick Denney]

Conn called their 14i horns 'baritones' and their 20i horns 'euphoniums'. Same bores... same bottom bows... same slides and crooks. Both had three pistons and just about everything except the pistons (the 20i had oval ports) would interchange. Go figgur!

Yup. In American usage, euphonium = fancier than baritone.

I reject the taper design argument. Old American baritones have smaller bores, smaller bows, and smaller bells. But then, Besson tubas of the same era have smaller bores, smaller bows, and smaller bells than, say, my Holton. An instrument with a smaller bell stack will have less taper. And an instrument with a wider taper will have to start it sooner to make it work, which explains that the larger instruments have two different sizes of legs on the main tuning slide. But when Besson first started importing euphoniums into the U.S., baritone players didn't say, "Gee, I'm quitting the baritone and picking up euphonium!" No, they said, "WOW! This baritone has a big, deep, round sound and this strange compensation stuff seems to work."

The Besson euphonium gained acceptance in the U.S. precisely for the same reason trombone players have gone from sub-1/2" bores to the .550 bores they play now: Everyone wants to play louder.

People are taller now than they used to be, too. And they are also wider, with a somewhat different taper design. But they are still people.

Rick "thinking difference in varietal rather than species" Denney

[SplatterTone]

It's easier to make fun of a baritone ... bariturd.
Euphoniumturd doesn't quite have the same zing to it.

[Dan Schultz]

It's easier to make fun of a baritone ... bariturd.
Euphoniumturd doesn't quite have the same zing to it.

How 'bout barfonium?

[finnbogi]

Euphonium = bass flugelhorn

So for fun, a flugel horn sort of being a soprano tuba, we could go to Tenor, or better yet, "Baritone Tuba."

Since the word euphonium doesn't translate well to Icelandic, I refer to these horns either as a baritone horn (following the German tradition) or a tenor tuba (especially when making excuses for playing one).

[GC]

A British baritone is more like an upright valve trombone than anything else.

[tubatooter1940]

This is so confusing!

All I know is that my first year playing tuba in the Fairhope High School Band, a girl from up my street played (she told me), baritone. She was a major hottie. I noticed she played melody a lot and I thought she played with great passion-or it could have been the way she wrapped herself around that horn when she played it.
I guess there is no way for a novice to tell a baritone from a euphonium or anything similar at a glance.

[Steve Inman]

Is there a difference between a baritone and a euphonium, or are they they just two names for the same instrument?

"Baritone" is simply a little-known recombination of the words "Bet on air", showing clearly that it produces a smaller, "tighter" sound than the euphonium, unless you have a big lung capacity, due to the narrower taper of today's British Baritone.

"Euphonium," on the other hand, is a more well-known recombination of the phrase, "Pie? Uh ... Um ... no." This shows that the chubbier euph would like to be able to slim down to the proportions of the trimmer-tapered baritone, but has heretofore been unable to accomplish this task.

When you discover the rather secretive etymology behind the names for these two instruments, you clearly see how similar they actually are, whilst retaining the unique characteristics that continue to differentiate the two instruments today.

A visit to the Yamaha musical instrument web site will let you see photos of contemporary baritones and euphoniums (euphonia?) so that you can see the different taper, bell and bore dimensions of these two instruments. If you turn the clock back a few decades, the previous posts do a good job stating the case that the 'baritone' back then in the USA was closer to the non-compensating euphoniums today (than to the British baritone available today), though not quite as large.

Steve "they were called 'baritones' in my high school band" Inman
Kokomo, IN

[red0radio0head]

Here's the simplest way I can think to put it:

Cornet = euphonium (both have conical tubing)
Trumpet = baritone (both have cylindrical tubing)

You can't tell the difference much when they're apart (apart from size). Take the tuning slide out of the baritone and turn it around and it should go back in, even being turned backwards. You can't do that with a euphonium. Conical tubing makes a more mellow sound, as with cylindrical tubing you can equate to trombone and trumpet sounds (bright).

Hope that's a bit clearer...

[red0radio0head]

Also--I'm willing to bet, that almost everyone that has told you that they played baritone actually played euphonium. I don't know of any middle schools that own authentic baritones. People just confused the two instruments for so long that they have become synonymous with one another over time here in the US.

[Biggs]

"Baritone" is simply a little-known recombination of the words "Bet on air", showing clearly that it produces a smaller, "tighter" sound than the euphonium, unless you have a big lung capacity, due to the narrower taper of today's British Baritone.

"Euphonium," on the other hand, is a more well-known recombination of the phrase, "Pie? Uh ... Um ... no." This shows that the chubbier euph would like to be able to slim down to the proportions of the trimmer-tapered baritone, but has heretofore been unable to accomplish this task.

That is, in all likelihood, the greatest wisdom ever shared here.