Real recorded tuba notes on a piano keyboard: click, touch or type, and the tuba answers. The tuba is the lowest instrument of the brass, the foundation of brass bands and marching bands. Free, nothing to install, with note names, your computer keyboard and a metronome.
Recorded notes, the tuba's own range, and the keyboard you already know.
Every key plays a recording of a real tuba: 9 notes from F1 to D4, each key pitched from the nearest one. The tuba is low brass instrument with valves: a wide, conical tube several metres long, a large cup mouthpiece and three to six valves; the player buzzes the lips slowly to make its very low notes.
The keyboard covers E1 to D4, where the recordings sound natural; a real tuba plays D1 to about F4. Use the octave arrows to move, and More keys on a wide screen.
Alternate a low note and the note a fifth above it - C and G, F and C - for an oom-pah bass line. The note sounds as long as you hold the key, like a bow or a breath.
Famous tuba music: Mussorgsky-Ravel, Pictures at an Exhibition: Bydło; Vaughan Williams, Tuba Concerto; Brass bands and oom-pah music. Pick out a melody by ear on the keyboard above.
Click or touch a key. The first note starts the sound; the tuba recordings for the visible keys load in the background.
A S D F G H J K L play the white keys, W E T Y U O P the black ones (Q and Z on AZERTY). Z and X move an octave (W and X on AZERTY).
Set Labels to C D E or Do Ré Mi to see every note name, or to Keys to see your own keyboard letters.
Turn on the metronome and play along. Then try the same melody on the trombone or the piano.
| Type | Sampled tuba, playable on this page, free |
|---|---|
| Family | Brass - low brass instrument with valves |
| Samples | 9 recorded notes, F1 to D4 |
| Range here | E1 to D4 |
| Real range | D1 to about F4 |
| Notation | Bass clef |
| Controls | Labels, octave arrows, More keys and a metronome |
| Computer keyboard | Ableton layout by key position - QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTZ |
| Credits | Tuba samples from tonejs-instruments by Nicholas Brosowsky, CC BY 3.0 - see credits |
| Requirements | Any modern browser with Web Audio - Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari |
Most online instruments are a synthesiser with a picture on top. This one plays recordings of a real tuba, so the attack, the tone and the decay are the instrument's own. The tuba is the lowest instrument of the brass, the foundation of brass bands and marching bands.
The tuba was patented in Prussia in 1835 by Wilhelm Wieprecht and Johann Moritz. It replaced the ophicleide as the bass of the brass section.
A real tuba is written in bass clef. The keyboard here plays the sounding notes, so a melody you find by ear is the melody you hear. To go further, the free sheet music and chord pages work with any instrument you can read music on.
Yes. Every key plays a recording of a real tuba - 9 notes from F1 to D4 - pitched to the nearest key. The recordings come from the tonejs-instruments library, under a Creative Commons licence.
Yes. The middle row of letters plays the white keys and the row above it the black keys, by key position, so it works the same on QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards. Set Labels to Keys to see the letters on the keys.
A tuba plays D1 to about F4. On this page the keyboard goes from E1 to D4, where the recordings sound natural.
Mussorgsky-Ravel, Pictures at an Exhibition: Bydło; Vaughan Williams, Tuba Concerto; Brass bands and oom-pah music.
Yes, free with no account and nothing to install. It runs in any modern browser, on a computer, a tablet or a phone.
The tuba on this page is free, with no account. GOONS Studio adds a sampled piano, drum machines, synths and a sequencer in the browser - free for 7 days, no card required.
Free on this page, no account. Play the trombone →