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
Famous quotes containing the words pitch of, pitch, brass and/or instruments:
“It is beyond a doubt that during the sixteenth century, and the years immediately preceding and following it, poisoning had been brought to a pitch of perfection which remains unknown to modern chemistry, but which is indisputably proved by history. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was at that time, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are lost.”
—Honoré De Balzac (17991850)
“He maintained that the case was lost or won by the time the final juror had been sworn in; his summation was set in his mind before the first witness was called. It was all in the orchestration, he claimed: in knowing how and where to pitch each and every particular argument; who to intimidate; who to trust, who to flatter and court; who to challenge; when to underplay and exactly when to let out all the stops.”
—Dorothy Uhnak (b. 1933)
“no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom
my townspeople what are you thinking of!
A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.”
—William Carlos Williams (18831963)
“The universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden.... Passions, greed, hatred, and lies; law, social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering.”
—Octave Mirbeau (18501917)