Virtual Euphonium and Fingering Chart

A euphonium simulator with real valves

A euphonium is one brass tube about nine feet long, and at any length a tube plays a whole ladder of notes — the harmonic series. Your lips choose the rung by how fast they buzz, and that rung is called a partial. The valves switch in extra tubing, which moves the whole ladder down: valve 2 a half step, valve 1 a whole step, valve 3 a step and a half, and a fourth valve, where there is one, two and a half. So every note is two things at once — a valve combination and a partial — and fingering a euphonium is knowing which pair gives the note you want.

Play it two ways. In Notes, tap the note you want: the drawing pushes its valves down, lights the tubing the air goes through, names the partial and prints the note on a staff — and every key carries its own valve dots, so the keyboard is the fingering chart. In Valves + air, play it like the real thing: hold the pistons with one hand and blow on the air ladder with the other. Each rung is labelled with the note it gives under the valves you are holding, so you can watch the ladder slide down as your fingers go down.

Two chips set it up for the horn and the part in front of you. Instrument picks three valves, four, a compensating horn, or a baritone. Bass clef or Treble clef picks how the notes are named and where they sit on the staff — it changes no fingering and no sound, only what each note is called.

Euphonium fingering chart, B♭1 to F5

Every note with its valves, in bass clef (concert pitch) and in B♭ treble clef, for a three-valve euphonium or baritone, a four-valve euphonium, and a compensating one. The rule behind it is short: play each note on the nearest partial at or above it, and press the valves that take it down the rest of the way. That is why the combinations get simpler as you climb — the rungs crowd together, and near the top there is always one close by.

A dash is a note that system cannot reach: three valves have nothing between E2 and the pedal, and a non-compensating fourth valve stops one semitone short of it. The last column is alternates — the same note on the same partial with another combination, or on a higher partial with more tubing. Sharps and flats are spelled the way band parts spell them; C♯ is also D♭, F♯ is G♭, and the valves do not care which.

Baritone fingering chart: the same chart

A baritone horn is the same nine feet of tube in B♭ as a euphonium, so it takes the same fingerings, note for note. Nearly every baritone has three valves, so a baritone fingering chart is the 3 valves column above — and a band part marked Baritone B.C. is the bass-clef column, Baritone T.C. the treble-clef one. Nothing else changes.

What is different is the bore. A baritone’s is narrower and its bell smaller, which makes it brighter and lighter, closer to a trombone, where a euphonium is darker and rounder. Choose Baritone horn above the instrument and the fingerings stay where they are while the sound changes — that is the whole difference between the two, heard.

Bass clef or treble clef: one horn, two names for every note

A euphonium part is printed one of two ways. In bass clef it is at concert pitch: the open note in the staff is written B♭2 and sounds B♭2. In treble clef it is written a major ninth higher, so that same open note is written C4 — middle C, open, exactly as on a trumpet or a cornet. That is the point of the treble-clef part: a brass-band player moves between instruments and keeps one set of fingerings.

So the two columns of the chart are not two sets of fingerings. They are two names for each note, and the valves under them are identical. Switch the instrument to Treble clef and the keys re-letter themselves, the keyboard redraws so that written C is a white key, and the staff changes clef; the note that comes out does not move. What a microphone and a dial make of all this is on the euphonium tuner page.

Three valves, four, or compensating

On three valves, 1-3 and 1-2-3 are the sharp combinations every player learns to fix, and the low E is as far down as the valves go. A fourth valve is one loop the length of 1-3, so the low F and the C become 4, and 2-4 replaces 1-2-3 for the low E and the B. Then it goes on below the E, and this is where the two kinds of four-valve euphonium part company.

Each valve’s loop is cut to be right on its own. Stacked, they fall short of the tube a low note needs, and with the fourth valve in the stack they fall short by most of a semitone. A non-compensating horn lives with that: each combination is played a semitone above what its valves add up to. A compensating horn fixes it in the plumbing — the fourth valve sends the air back through the other three, and each one that is down adds a second, smaller loop.

Pick 4 valves · compensating and hold the fourth valve with another: the small loops inside the first three light up, which is the air going round a second time. On that horn the keyboard runs unbroken from the pedal B♭1, because all four valves reach the B1 a non-compensating horn has no fingering for.

The partials a euphonium uses

With no valves down a euphonium plays B♭1, B♭2, F3, B♭3, D4, F4, B♭4, C5, D5 and F5 — partials 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 12. The 7th is about 31 cents flat and the 11th about 49 flat, both too far from the piano to use, so no chart fingers a note on them. The 5th, the D above the staff in bass clef, is about 14 cents flat — the note euphonium players lip up without thinking about it. On the air ladder every rung is there, the flat ones striped, so you can hear them.

Bare horn: the sharp combinations, uncorrected

Turn on Bare horn in Valves + air and every note comes out where the tubing puts it, with nobody lipping it and no slide pulled. On three valves 1-3 comes out about 30 cents sharp and 1-2-3 about 54. On a non-compensating horn all four valves are about 75 cents sharp of the note they add up to, which is why they are played as the note above. On a compensating horn 1-4 comes out dead on and 1-3-4 only about 30 sharp — the compensating loops, heard. These are the loops alone, as a model: a real horn’s slides are cut a little long to split the difference.

How to play it

Hold a note to blow it and let go to stop — a euphonium sounds only while air goes through it. Slide along the keys without lifting to slur from note to note in one breath. On a phone the keyboard is wider than the screen: drag the strip above it to move along the instrument, and it follows a song or a practice note on its own.

In Valves + air, press or release a valve while you blow and the note changes with no new attack — a valve slur. Slide along the ladder while you blow and the lips jump a partial — a lip slur. Try the bottom rung with valves down: the pedal register goes on below the keyboard.

On a computer keyboard, in Notes, the letters climb a semitone at a time from Q, the low F. In Valves + air, J, K and L are valves 1 to 3 under the right hand, and the number row blows the partials: 1 the pedal up to 9, then 0, - and = for the 10th, 11th and 12th. The fourth valve is ; beside the other three on a non-compensating horn, and F on a compensating one — under the left index finger, which is where that valve is on the instrument.

Songs to play

Press Play a song under the instrument and pick one. The songs are read an octave down, in the euphonium’s own register, and in B♭ — the band key, C in treble clef — they sit between the low F and the F above the bass staff. Three valves play all 36 in every key on the menu but A♭ major, where 35 fit — the rest dip below E2. Four valves, compensating or not, play every song in every key. Play shows each fingering as it sounds, Practice waits on the next note and pushes its valves down in the drawing first, and Play along closes a ring on each note in time with the music.

More instruments you can play here

The online tuba is the same instrument an octave down, the online trumpet the same fingerings an octave up, and the online trombone the same nine feet of tube with a slide where the valves are. Got a real euphonium or baritone that sounds off? The euphonium tuner listens through your microphone and explains what the dial shows for each clef.

Frequently asked questions