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What are Tuba Valves?

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Part of the video series: Tuba for Beginners: Learning Tips

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Summary: Tuba valves, four of them, and what they do to the pitch discussed in this free tuba video music lesson from our professional tuba player and teacher..

Views: 689 | Tags: instrument, play, instruction, brass, tuba, musical, musiclessons, musical instruments

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About the Expert

Kevin Smith Kevin is 51 years old, and a poet and therapist as well as tubist. Kevin has played a variety of musical styles over the course of his life, as well as a vari... read more

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Video Transcript

What are Tuba Valves?

Well now that we've talked about the tuning slides as they relate to the valves, we're going to show you the valves. There are four of them on a tuba. Most trumpets have three, but not all. I think out of all the instruments that have ever been created, there's more variation in brass instruments than any other instrument family, the strings or otherwise. This tuba has four valves and Kevin is going to take one out to show you that when pushing all these valves down, it turns on or off the air going through some of this tubing, thereby changing the pitch and making all the notes possible. You want to take one out there and show us? Sure, and just briefly, some tubas also have three valves. Occasionally some have a fifth valve which is called a "rotary valve", which is used to get lower sounds which we call "pedal tones". Valves come out like this, and also I don't have my valve oil with me, but there is a little spring down in here and we can put our valve oil on here. Do you use Cass? I do not use Cass. I have a new kind called Hetman, it's a synthetic oil and I love it. But you have to feel, on this instrument, there's a little indentation which I'm sure the camera can't see, there's no reason it should, but you'll feel a little piece of metal, I had it before, it clicks in, and then you know that it's ready to go in.

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