Marching brass 1980s and early 1990s, DEG Music Products commissioned Willson Brass of Switzerland to design a Euphonium bugle, and their design used a medium shank mouthpiece that is not regularly seen in the United States. The contrabass bugle, or "contra", is the bugle equivalent of a marching tuba and its variants (the sousaphone and helicon). This bugle was designed in the 1960s. The original design for a contrabass called for an instrument in CC (the equivalent tubing length of a CC tuba), carried in front of the marcher like the higher voices. This was quickly replaced with a shoulder carried variant
Brass instrument the player of a brass instrument has direct control of the prime vibrator (the lips), brass instruments exploit the player's ability to select the harmonic at which the instrument's column of air vibrates. By making the instrument about twice as long as the equivalent woodwind instrument and starting with the second harmonic, players can get a good range of notes simply by varying the tension of their lips (see embouchure). Most brass instruments are fitted with a removable mouthpiece. Different shapes, sizes and styles of mouthpiece may be used to suit different embouchures, or to more easily produce certain tonal