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
Pitch of brass instruments valve that puts it into E, and when combined, these put the instrument into the key of B. The B contrabass is often fitted with a valve in F and has been fitted with both a valve in F and G, so that it matches its bass trombone counterpart, but is pitched an octave lower. See Types of trombones The bass tuba is commonly available in F and E, while contrabass tubas are available in C and B. Pitch of brass instruments The pitch of a brass instrument is determined by its vibratory length, which determines the fundamental frequency of