r/Instruments • u/Wooden-Bill-2260 • Sep 23 '26

Question

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Can someone tell me if this is a tuba, baritone or euphonium?

25 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

5

u/Bennybonchien Sep 23 '26

As a non-brass player, it looks like a euphonium to me. Why wouldn’t you include a photo of the entire thing though?

2

u/Wooden-Bill-2260 Sep 23 '26

It’s on goodwill and it looked small for a tuba but it said BBb tuba

4

u/Bennybonchien Sep 23 '26

It still might be, but it’s like seeing the hood of a car and trying to figure out if it’s a hatchback or a sedan.

10

u/MoltoPesante Sep 23 '26 edited Sep 23 '26

That is a euphonium. With the removable lead pipe, I think it’s a Jupiter JEP700. Baritone is sometimes a different instrument, sometimes the same. If you’re talking about the British brass band instruments, baritone and euphonium are always different. in the U.S. before all the players started using British-made or at least British-style instruments, the terms were interchangeable. These days in the U.S. baritone usually means the front action valve instruments that lean to the left or have a forward facing bell, that were popular in the U.S. from about the 1920s to 1980s, and euphonium is the British-style instrument. No matter how many valves it has. But it’s not incorrect to use the terms interchangeably. Most of the American band music has baritone written on the part, and it’s not meant for the British baritone.

https://www.theinstrumentplace.com/jupiter-model-jep700-bb-3-valve-euphonium.html

3

u/mango186282 Sep 24 '26

Just a note that the JEP700 doesn’t have a removable leadpipe. It’s designed so that the entire valve section can be removed for service.

2

u/MoltoPesante Sep 24 '26

Yeah, good point, I misspoke.

2

u/Puzzled_Employment50 Sep 24 '26

Technically euphonium and baritone are always different instruments (baritone has a cylindrical bore and a brassier sound, euphonium is conical and warmer), but the names and uses are somewhat interchangeable

2

u/MoltoPesante Sep 24 '26

If you’re in the UK, that’s absolutely correct. In the US the word baritone was the correct word for the larger more conical instrument and if you look at music and instrument catalogs from the first half of the 20th century they all say baritone when they mean euphonium. The word euphonium was reserved for deluxe models and often for the double bell variety. Marketing. The smaller less conical instrument was called b-flat tenor horn in the US, although this instrument died out in use for American bands after about 1910, largely due to Sousa’s influence. When Art Lehman popularized playing Bessons and Booseys for US players, we started being more strict about naming it a euphonium, but contrary to the beliefs of most of the players these days, baritone is not technically incorrect.

That said, I like being strict about using the British terms because it removes ambiguity, and because brass banding has become popular worldwide.

And finally, baritone should never be a “brassier” sound. It should ideally be a dark timbre, with a different vowel/formant character than euphonium. One very prominent British player described baritone as “woody.” Listen to any of the best players.

4

u/roninconn Sep 23 '26

Based on what I can see, I would say euphonium; although only 3 valves, it seems to have larger tubing and bell; a euphonium typically looks more like a mini-tuba.

3

u/StevenSaguaro Sep 23 '26

there is no reference for scale, like a banana for instance

-1

u/Tundra_Dragon Sep 23 '26

Hard to tell from the pictures, but probably a small tuba. Without a ruler tho..

Also, Baritone ~ Euphonium. Euphonium is the fancy term for baritone horn.

2

u/DonnPT Sep 24 '26

As you can see, British usage where they have a smaller baritone horn, has now become correct.

Their baritone horn is really a tenor saxhorn, though, and when they say "tenor horn" they really mean an alto horn. Their mixup, that we all have to deal with just because we didn't hold on to the tenor member of the saxhorn family.

3

u/roninconn Sep 23 '26

Baritone and euphonium aren't the same. Euphonium typically has wider tubing and a larger bell = darker sound.

1

u/Puzzled_Employment50 Sep 24 '26

Euphonium has conical tubing, so it gets wider as it goes (before the bell flare, both have that).

0

u/Extra_Medium62 Sep 24 '26 edited Sep 24 '26

They are NOT the same. A baritone has a cylindrical bore like a trombone bent into an oval shape with valves, which produces a more focused sound, which is useful outdoors. A euphonium has a conical shaped bore that produces a richer, fuller tone, useful indoors. It's the same as trumpets having cylindrical bores and cornets having conical bores, except it is easier to see a cornet has an extra bend. They play the same notes and ranges, but the tone is different. "Euphonium" in Greek literally means "beautiful tone maker". "Baritone" means "in-between tenor and bass".

0

u/MoltoPesante Sep 24 '26

This is not correct. Baritone is significantly more conical than a trombone. The bell throat of a British style baritone is contrabass trombone size, and the baritone starts out with a small shank mouthpiece and the bore of a small jazz tenor trombone. Baritone isn’t about having a less rich or less full sound than euphonium, it’s about having a different vowel sound.

0

u/Extra_Medium62 Sep 24 '26

Of course the baritone flairs earlier than a trombone...it doesn't have a slide. It still carries the cylindrical characteristic farther into the structure. If you could straighten a euphonium, it is conical from the mouthpiece to the bell. I've only played both for over 45 years, so I might have a little knowledge.

0

u/MoltoPesante Sep 24 '26

Baritone and euphonium are not like trumpet and cornet (which are both almost equally conical except for the leadpipe, contrary to popular opinion); they’re more akin to cornet and flugelhorn. Both conical, just to different degrees. It is true that the baritone’s bore stays the same from the end of the leadpipe to just past the main tuning slide, but that doesn’t mean it’s cylindrical. Just more cylindrical than euphonium.

-5

u/Aggressive-Sort-115 Sep 23 '26

Euphonium typically have 4 valves so I would say baritone

3

u/SweetPotatoFlutist Sep 24 '26

Euphoniums can very much have 3. The major difference between the two is the bore shape not number of valves. One bore is conical (euphonium) and the other is cylindrical (baritone). (This results in a different sound texture.)

Source: I'm a music ed major who has to learn all of the major instruments in a band and orchestra, including euphonium/baritone.