Hello there, my name's Mike thanks for joining us in this video.
We're going to do an unboxing of this magnificent musical instrument called the tuba.
The reason we're so far away from the camera at the moment is because the tuba is massive.
From one end of the box to the other end of the box we're talking well over a metre in length.
It's about half a metre tall as well.
When you pick up it weighs about 20 kilograms as well, so a really heavy big piece of kit this.
Now let's have a look at what's inside the case shall we, what's inside the box?
It's one of the most beautiful instruments ever in my opinion.
This is my tuba, it's a magnificent beast of a thing, sits on your lap,
all the sound comes out there,
big old thing. I'll show you more detail in a in a few moments' time
but also in my case I have a mouthpiece, you'll get a good look at that in a minute as well
and also a pencil case with a few bits and pieces in as well. I've got a pencil
for making notes on my music, I've got some valve oil to keep the valves motoring and running.
I've got some grease as well, I've even got some spare springs for my tuba as well.
So that's what I've got in my case, in my box.
What I'll do now is I'll take the instrument apart and I'll show you
what it looks like, all the bits laid out on the floor for you.
So this is my tuba laid out flat for you all to see.
It's made out of brass, or the main body of the instrument
is made out of brass, which is a composite material of copper and zinc.
If you look closely at the main body of the tuba,
it's actually a collection of lots of smaller bits of pipes all welded and soldered
together to make a bigger instrument.
I've taken out all the slides that can be taken out and laid them out for you,
as well as just one of the valves for you to see,
so you can get a feel for how the valve works as well, obviously the
mouthpiece is there as well.
Ok, so we're now going to put the tuba back together again
and we've got all the slides here and one of the valves out.
First thing we do, is we put the spring back into the casing. So the casing sits down here,
spring goes in and then we put the, very carefully put the valve in.
I'm going to put a bit of oil on it, just to make sure it runs really smoothly, a bit more maybe
and this is a bit fiddly at times, especially when there's a camera on.
It's fine, it's all about finding the right groove that it slots into is the tricky bit,
There we go we're in business and then we just screw the valve cap on.
So our valve is in and ready to play.
Then it's just a case of remembering which slide goes where, so this one's my first slide
and we just put it in like that, slides in nicely and what you can do is
you can just adjust every single slide slightly just to make it play in tune
with itself a bit better.
Second slide goes in, my third slide next,
this is always quite a fiddly one as well for me, in it goes.
Again I've just left a little bit out,
just to help it play in tune with itself.
And then on the other side, I've got this little weird one here goes in.
And then this other one tucks away at the back as well.
And then the main tuning slide is here, this is the main tuning slide,
when you hear an orchestra tuning,
this is what all the tuba players will be fiddling with to try and get
themselves in tune with the rest of the orchestra.
So we're almost ready.
Last thing to do is add the mouthpiece and we're ready to play.
Listen!
Ok so now we've got the tuba built again, we're ready to make some sounds with it.
The tuba is the biggest, it's the lowest, it's the heaviest of the brass family of instruments.
Just have a listen to how low this can go.
Really, really low notes there,
right at the bottom end of the piano and actually the lowest notes in all of the orchestra as well.
It's part of the brass family of instruments they include the trumpet, the trombone
and the French horn and then this big old thing the tuba is like the big brother
of all of those instruments playing the really low sounds.
Essentially though it's just a lot of piping, the piping comes in here via the mouthpiece,
goes around all of this piping and then all the sound comes out of the bell of the instrument there.
And the valves by the way just make the piping longer,
so if I press my first valve down we go on this extra detour, the sound
goes on this extra detour of piping making a bit longer and the longer the
pipe, the lower the note.
To make a sound, to make any sound actually you need
to create a vibration and for the tuba, like all the brass instruments you have
to vibrate your lips, so it would sound like this.
Into the mouthpiece.
Then into the tuba, we can get some different sounds, by changing how tight they are, we can change the pitch.
And then my valves, changing the length of the tuba, can fill in the gaps.
And so, a combination of my lips and the valves get us all the different notes on the tuba.
The role of the tuba in the orchestra is to play the very lowest sounds,
often anyway, like the double basses it produces the foundations for the orchestra,
the big fat sound that the orchestra makes.
If you're in a brass band, you'll be playing bass lines, if you're in a jazz band
again you'll be playing bass lines.
Some people say what can the tuba do that's really unusual?
You can create a didgeridoo sound which is quite cool.
You might have heard of that Australian instrument and if you sing
and play at the same time, you can get this really cool sound.
There you go. The tuba.
I'm now going to show you some different styles of playing.
Perform!
The tuba has lots of different roles depending on what bands or what group
it's playing with. For example if I was playing in a brass band you might hear
something like this.
If I was in a jazz band you might hear me playing a bassline more like this.
If I was in an orchestra you might hear me playing a line more like this
And then, if I accidentally find myself on stage on my own and having to play a solo,
you might hear me playing something like this.
So that's the tuba and it's now well and truly unboxed.