It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the newer instruments in the modern orchestra and concert band, and largely replaced the ophicleide.

19 was granted to Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht and Johann Gottfried Moritz[5] on 12 September 1835 for a "bass tuba" in F1.

The addition of valves made it possible to play low in the harmonic series of the instrument and still have a complete selection of notes.

Prior to the invention of valves, brass instruments were limited to notes in the harmonic series, and were thus generally played very high with respect to their fundamental pitch.

Harmonics starting three octaves above the fundamental pitch are about a whole step apart, making a useful variety of notes possible.

The ophicleide used a bowl-shaped brass instrument mouthpiece but had keys and tone holes similar to those of a modern saxophone.

Another forerunner to the tuba, the serpent, was a bass instrument shaped in a wavy form to make the tone holes accessible to the player.

Tone holes change the pitch by providing an intentional leak in the bugle of the instrument, but this system has a pronounced effect on the timbre.

Tubas were mostly used by French composers, especially Hector Berlioz, who famously used the ophicleide in his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Benvenuto Cellini.

Sax's instruments gained dominance in France, and later in Britain and America, as a result of the movements of popular instrument makers such as Gustave Auguste Besson (who moved from France to Britain) and Henry Distin (who eventually found his way to America).

[8] The cimbasso is sometimes used in historically accurate performances and is commonly called for in film and video game soundtracks.

The modern sousaphone, named after American bandmaster John Philip Sousa, resembles a helicon with the bell pointed up (in the original models as the J. W. Pepper prototype and Sousa's concert instruments) and then curved to point forward (as developed by Conn and others).

In most of Europe, the F tuba is the standard orchestral instrument, supplemented by the CC or BB♭ only when the extra weight is desired.

One popular example of the use of the French C tuba is the Bydło movement in Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, though the rest of the work is scored for this instrument as well.

[11] Two were built by Gustave Besson in BBB♭, one octave below the BB♭ contrabass tuba, on the suggestion of John Philip Sousa.

Later, in the 1950s, British musician Gerard Hoffnung commissioned the London firm of Paxman to create a subcontrabass tuba in EEE♭ for use in his comedic music festivals.

Also, a tuba pitched in FFF was made in Kraslice by Bohland & Fuchs probably during 1910 or 1911 and was destined for the World Exhibition in New York in 1913.

In addition to the length of the instrument, which dictates the fundamental pitch, tubas also vary in the overall width of the tubing sections.

No standards exist for these designations, and their use is up to manufacturers, who usually use them to distinguish among the instruments in their own product line.

Though smaller and lighter, they are tuned and keyed identically to full-size tubas of the same pitch, although they usually have 3 rather than 4 or 5 valves.

Modern piston valves were developed by François Périnet for the saxhorn family of instruments promoted by Adolphe Sax around the same time.

The fifth and sixth valves also give the musician the ability to trill more smoothly or to use alternative fingerings for ease of playing.

Some tubas have a compensating system to allow accurate tuning when using several valves in combination, simplifying fingering and removing the need to constantly adjust slide positions.

The patent on the system limited its application outside of Britain, and to this day, tubas with compensating valves are primarily popular in the United Kingdom and countries of the former British Empire.

This does have the disadvantage of making the instrument significantly more "stuffy" or resistant to air flow when compared to a non-compensating tuba.

But many prefer this approach to having additional valves – or to the manipulation of tuning slides while playing – to achieve improved intonation within an ensemble.

Adding the six semitones provided by the three valves, these alternative resonances let the instrument play chromatically down to the fundamental of the open bugle (which is a 29 Hz B♭0).

The lowest note in the widely known repertoire is a 16 Hz double-pedal C0 in the William Kraft piece Encounters II, which is often played using a timed flutter tongue rather than by buzzing the lips.

The tuba is generally constructed of brass, which is either unfinished, lacquered or electro-plated with nickel, gold or silver.

In the earliest years, bands often used a tuba for outdoor playing and a double bass for indoor performances.