Serpent (instrument) also appears in operatic scores by Spontini and Bellini, but it was replaced in the 19th century by a fully keyed brass instrument, the ophicleide, and later on by valved bass brass instruments such as the euphonium and tuba. After that the serpent dropped off in popularity for a period of time. Bernard Herrmann used a serpent in the scores of "White Witch Doctor" (1953) and "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1959), as did Jerry Goldsmith in his score for "Alien" (1979). In the 1970s, instrument-maker Christopher Monk began playing, and later making Serpents, and in 1976 he
Tuba lowest pitched tubas are the contrabass tubas, pitched in C or B, referred to as CC and BB tubas respectively, based on a traditional distortion of a now-obsolete octave naming convention. The fundamental pitch of a CC tuba is 32 Hz, and for a BB tuba, 29 Hz. The CC tuba is used as an orchestral, and concert band instrument in the U.S., but BB tubas are the contrabass tuba of choice in German, Austrian, and Russian orchestras. In the United States, the BB tuba is the most common in schools (largely due to the use of BB sousaphones in