Tuba

The tuba (Latin, "trumpet"; UK: ; US: ) is a large brass instrument in the bass-to-contrabass range. It is a member of the valved bugles, a large and diverse family of instruments characterized by their wide conical bore and use of valves to alter pitch. The tuba usually has four or five valves, although some models have three or six. Descending from the serpent and ophicleide, the tuba was invented in Prussia by Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht and Johann Gottfried Moritz and patented in 1835 as the Baß-Tuba, pitched in 12-foot (12′) F. Its five valves provided a fully chromatic contrabass instrument with a deep, full contrabass timbre.