Online Tuba

Four valves and eighteen feet of tube

A BB♭ tuba is one brass tube about eighteen 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 the fourth valve two and a half. So every note is two things at once — a valve combination and a partial — and fingering a tuba is knowing which pair gives the note you want.

Two things make it a tuba rather than a big trumpet. The bore is so wide that the bottom rung, the pedal B♭0, is an ordinary note — on a trumpet it barely speaks. And the fourth valve, which the rest of this page is mostly about.

Play it two ways. In Notes, tap the note you want: the drawing pushes its valves down and names the partial, and every key carries its own four 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.

Tuba fingering chart, pedal B♭0 to F4

Every note on a four-valve BB♭ tuba, with the three-valve fingering beside it — the one on a school tuba or a sousaphone. The rule behind the chart 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 above the staff there is always one close by.

A dash in the three-valve column is a note three valves cannot reach: the four semitones between E1 and the pedal. The B a semitone above the pedal is not on either column, because nothing reaches it. The last column is alternates — 1-3 and 1-2-3 still work on a four-valve tuba, just less well in tune, and valve 3 alone can stand in for 1-2.

The fourth valve, and why low E♭ is 1-2-4

On a trumpet, 1-3 and 1-2-3 are the sharp combinations every player learns to fix. A tuba player mostly does not use them. The 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, so the low E and the B become 2-4.

Its second job is below the staff. Between the low E and the pedal there are five semitones three valves cannot reach, and the fourth valve reaches all but one of them — with a twist no other chart on this site has. Each valve loop is cut to be right on its own, and stacked loops fall short of the tube the note needs. With three or four valves down they fall short by most of a semitone, so each deep combination plays a semitone above what its valves add up to:

The player lips each one onto the note, and the B a semitone above the pedal — eleven down, all four valves and then some — is not playable at all. On the instrument, press the valves in Valves + air and the caption says when a combination is playing somewhere other than its valves add up to.

The partials a tuba uses

With no valves down a BB♭ tuba plays B♭0, B♭1, F2, B♭2, D3, F3, B♭3, D4 and F4 — partials 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12. The 7th is about 31 cents flat and the 11th about 49 flat, both too far from the piano to use, and the 9th is left alone because the 10th sits just above it and does the job with a valve. The 5th, the D in the staff, is about 14 cents flat — the note tuba 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 loops put it, with nobody lipping it and no slide pushed. Two things add up: the partial’s own offset, above, and how far the stacked loops fall short. 1-3 comes out about 30 cents sharp, 1-2-3 about 54, and all four valves on the 2nd partial about 75 — which is the whole reason for the fourth valve, heard.

BB♭, CC or three valves

The chips above the instrument are three tubes with one rule between them. BB♭ with four valves is the band tuba and the default. BB♭ with three is the same horn as most school tubas and every sousaphone: everything above E1 is the same, with 1-3 and 1-2-3 where the four-valve horn has 4 and 2-4, and nothing between E1 and the pedal. CC is the orchestral tuba in the United States, sixteen feet of tube in C, and every fingering on it is the BB♭ chart a whole tone up.

There is no E♭ or F tuba here, on purpose. An F tuba usually has five or six valves, and a fifth valve’s length varies from maker to maker. The E♭ bass most players meet is the British compensating one, which routes the fourth valve back through the other three so its deep combinations are not a semitone sharp — a different chart, and none this page could check against.

A tuba part in bass clef is written at concert pitch, so the notes here are the notes a piano plays: nothing is transposed.

How to play it

Hold a note to blow it and let go to stop — a tuba 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, though a phone speaker gives you only its overtones.

On a computer keyboard, in Notes, the letters climb a semitone at a time from Q, the low F — the fourth valve alone. In Valves + air, J, K, L and ; are valves 1 to 4, under the right hand’s four fingers as on a top-action tuba, and the number row blows the partials: 1 the pedal up to 9, then 0, - and = for the 10th, 11th and 12th. Hold ; and press 2, and you are playing the low F.

Songs to play

Press Play a song under the instrument and pick one. The songs are read two octaves down, in the tuba’s own register, and in B♭ — the band key — they sit between the low F and the F at the top of the staff. With four valves the tuba plays all 22 of them in every key on the menu. Three valves lose the songs that dip below E1: 21 of 22 in G major. 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 trumpet is the same instrument four octaves up and one valve short, and the online clarinet is the other wind instrument you can finger yourself. Got a real tuba that sounds off? The tuba tuner listens through your microphone, reads the low notes most tuners give up on, and walks the main slide.

Frequently asked questions