In this video, Brett Youens describes the logic behind the system of valves on brass instruments, with the tuba used as an example. www.geocities.com (Transcript) Hi. Let’s look a little more at brass instruments with valves and how they work. This is a tuba, but as we know, it could just as well be a trumpet, or a euphonium, or a French horn, or a flugelhorn; they all work on the same principles. Let’s look today at the logic behind the system of fingerings. If you think about it, there are only two possible states for a valve: either depressed or not. A lot like a human, I guess. So if each of the three valves has two different possibilities – and we have two times two times two – which gives us eight possibilities. The highest note we could play is by not depressing any valve. And a little lower is pressing the baby; a little lower is pressing the daddy, and a little lower is pressing the granddaddy. Now, let’s think about this from the bottom up: If we press everything, then we get the lowest note we could. And a little higher, subtracting the baby, subtracting the daddy, subtracting the granddaddy. So this is just a mirror image of itself. And these two notes, of course, produce – again, aside from tuning issues that don’t concern us here – the same note. Now, think about the following: Every single note that a tuba or a trumpet or a flugelhorn or a French horn or a euphonium ever plays, they play it with one of these eight possibilities. So there’s not much in the …
