Tuba rotary-valved tubas pitched in the same octave as euphoniums. The "Small Swiss Tuba in C" is a tenor tuba pitched in C, and provided with 6 valves to make the lower notes in the orchestral repertoire possible. The French C tuba was the standard instrument in French orchestras until overtaken by F and C tubas since the Second World War. One popular example of the use of the French C tuba is the "Bydło" movement in Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition", though the rest of the work is scored for this instrument as well. Larger BBB subcontrabass
Brass instrument almost universal by (at latest) 1864 as witnessed by Arban's Method published in that year. The effect of a particular combination of valves may be seen in the table below. This table is correct for the core 3-valve layout on almost any modern valved brass instrument. The most common four-valve layout is a superset of the well-established 3-valve layout and is noted in the table, despite the exposition of four-valve and also five-valve systems (the latter used on the tuba) being incomplete in this article. Since valves "lower" the pitch, a valve that makes a pitch too low (flat) creates