Big, Bold and Brassy - The Giant Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest pitched brass instrument in the modern orchestra and it really is quite big at almost four feet (1.22 meters) in height.

But the traditional Tuba is nothing compared to the Giant Tuba…

Ok this photograph is not a picture of a musical instrument, it’s actually an Imperial Japanese Army Acoustic locator used in the world wars to pick up the sound of plane engines – but it was known as the War Tuba on account of its uncanny resemblance to the instrument of the same name.

And even this isn’t the Giant Tuba – though it is a fairly huge tuba.

This is it. The Giant Tuba show above. Anyway, while the Giant Tuba is not as large as the War Tuba, it is still pretty impressive for an instrument designed to be played by a human being.

Facts About the Giant Tuba

• It was made in the early 20th century by Besson in London.
• It stands at nearly 8 feet (2.4 metres) tall.
• It is made from 34 feet (10.3 metres) of tubing.
• It weighs 112 pounds (50.8 kgs).
• It plays like an an open valve instrument as the valves don’t move.
• The lowest note playable on this mammoth tuba is Bb (B flat) – a full three octaves below middle C.
• This corresponds to the second lowest note on the modern piano.
• It lowest note registers at the incredibly low frequency of 29.14Hz.

After it was made, this Giant Tuba was fitted to the wall of the Besson and Co. factory in Euston Road, London as a shop sign. It then moved to the Boosey and Hawkes shop on the Edgeware Road, where it remained until 1948 when it was moved to the B&H Factory in Edgware, North London.

In 1990, B & H loaned the Giant Tuba to a chain of music shops called Normans. The people at Normans stripped and renovated the tuba. The Boosey and Hawkes Edgeware Factory closed in 2001, but a long-time employee, Tina Southwell, managed to acquire the famous tuba before the factory closed.

Nowadays, the Giant Tuba is part of an archive exhibition of musical instruments that was put together by Boosey and Hawkes. While this particular incarnation of the company has only been in existence since 1930, it was formed by the amalgamation of two much older instrument manufacturers – Boosey and Company and Hawkes and Son which had been established in 1792 and 1865 respectively. As a result, they created an archive of instruments that they had manufactured down through the years and the Giant Tuba has joined this exhibition.

A Giant Tuba Gone Wrong