Tuba after American bandmaster John Philip Sousa, resembles a hélicon with the bell pointed up (in the original models as the J. W. Pepper prototype and Sousa's concert instruments) and then curved to point forward (as developed by Conn and others). Some ancestors of the tuba, such as the military "bombardon", had unusual valve and bore arrangements compared to modern tubas. During the American Civil War, most brass bands used a branch of the brass family known as "saxhorns", which, by today's standards, have a narrower bore taper than tuba—the same as true cornets and baritones, but distinct from trumpets, euphoniums,
Brass tablature valve on a four-valved instrument. Brass tablature Brass Tablature is a rather rare form of music notation that applies to all brass instruments, but is most commonly found written for trumpet. It consists of lines with partials, and numbers representing valve or slide positions. The basic setup is shown here, with names of open notes for each partial on the left and rhythm or rhythmic notation above. The bottom line, indicating first-partial pedal tones, is not usually used by trumpet or horn. The seventh partial (B♭ on trumpet) is This method is impractical in the altissimo range, because of fingering