Pitch of Brass Instruments

Pitch Of Brass Instruments

The pitch of a brass instrument is determined by the fundamental frequency and the frequencies of the overtones, which typically follow a harmonic series. The fundamental is not playable in some instruments. The table below provides the pitch of the second overtone (an octave above the fundamental) for some common brass instruments in descending order of pitch. This is notated as middle C in brass band music.

B♭4 or A4 piccolo trumpet
E♭4 soprano trumpet or cornet
B♭3 trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, soprano trombone
E♭3 alto horn, alto trombone, alto trumpet
B♭2 tenor trombone, baritone horn, euphonium, B♭ horn, bass trumpet
F2 F horn
E♭2 or F2 bass tuba
B♭1 contrabass tuba, sousaphone

Read more about Pitch Of Brass Instruments:  Range

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