Bb Tuba and Tuba are both in same concert pitch. Why not handling Bb Tuba as Bb?
Type
Functional
Frequency
Many
Severity
S4 - Minor
Reproducibility
Always
Status
by design
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project
Hi dear MusesScore team. We have seen this problem since the very beginning of Musescore (so present in version 1.x 2.x and 3.x, sorry for not reporting it earlier). The Tuba in B flat (Sib) is actually in C, by mistake. I mean, there is actually no difference between a simple tuba and a tuba in B flat (same note, same pitch, same number of flat and sharp at the key).
To reproduce, add both Tuba and Tuba in b Flat, copy some music from one line to the other. You will end up with the same note and same pitch. I you copy the music to a Trumpet in B flat, then you get the expected behaviour with shifted notes
Our current work around is to use a Wargnerian Tuba in B flat (Tuba Wagnerien Si b) instead that is indeed in B flat.
Kind regards
Comments
This is correct - tubas are not normally considered transposing instruments even though they are pitched differently. That is, tuba players are expected to transpose themselves. There are few very specific situations where this is not true - the British brass band tradition of writing Bb and Eb tuba parts transposed and in treble clef is one such example, and we do provide a special "Tuba (treble clef)" for that case. If you are working in some other non-standard situation in which you need transposed tuba parts, you can right click the staff, Staff Properties, and set the desired transposition manually.
For more on the very unusual nature of tuba transposition (and lack thereof), see for instance https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/7332/why-is-it-common-to-writ…, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuba#Types_and_construction
In reply to This is correct - tubas are… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you for your prompt reply Marc. I believe the French tradition is indeed conform to the European tradition. Here Children learn Tuba as a Bb transposed instrument, with simple treble clef** at first, then with a bass clef as they grow up but still in Bb. Yes, big boys know how to transpose on the fly by themself, but with the outcome of a great piece of software like MuseScore, we might prefer to keep things simple and not make the Babylon syndrome spread into neat technology.
** not the sub-octave Treble (with the writen 8 at the bottom) although they should for consistency sake, but I suppose this octave issue is implied because Tuba is known as a bass instrument.
I was told Trombone was also taught as a Bb instrument a long time ago, because its sounds Bb when the slide is collapsed (but people used to want to call it a C), but they finally decided to teach Trombone with concert pitch, which makes it easier to play with non Bb brassed instruments, plus keeping it as Bb was not really making sense since Trombone has issue about reusing fingering with various types of trombone.
I have tried to use the "Bb Tuba treble clef" and dropped a bass clef on the score, but it does not work as wanted because things are shifted by one or two octaves (as said earlier, consistency does not seem to be a big concern for the Tuba word). So out of the box, the best work around is still to pick up Bb Wagnerian Tuba, then rename it as "Bb Tuba" on the score. I will try to play with the properties you said.
At last, I have read the article you have referred. So it seems they are teaching Tuba in C in the US, like for Trombone. Fine. My point is not to say it is good or wrong -well I'd say it is a bit wrong if they want to share fingering with Trumpet players that are more numerous, but I am a C-Cellist so I do not care. The real question is if there is any point of having this confusing "Bb Tuba" item as it is in Musescore with its current behaviour.
1) it provides exactly the same result as a simple "Tuba", implied in concert pitch. As said earlier both "Bb Tuba" and "Tuba" sound the same, are written the same, both in concert pitch. American people are still free to just pick up "Tuba" if they want their so called "Bb Flat" to be concert pitch as they do***.
2) it is called "Bb" but is actually not handled as a Bb flat instrument by Musescore. To my knowledge, the Tuba seems to be the only popular classical instrument with this exceptional confusing behaviour in Musescore Just to name a few other popular wind Bb instruments : Bb Trumpet, Bb Clarinet, Bb Tenor Saxophone or Bb Soprano Saxophone are indeed handled as Bb transposed instruments.
*** now if Americans want to rule for this issue, as long as we do not end up with inches, miles and Fahrenheit degrees in music sheets... ;)
MuseScore is designed to produce standard notation as used in most of the world - not just the US, but everywhere classical orchestra or brass band scores are published. The information in those articles are not specific to the US but apply to something like 95% of the world.
So, if you want Bb tuba untransposed as per the worldwide standard for published classical orchestra music, just select the regular tuba. This isn't some unique MuseScore thing and will not be confusing to 95% of the world - it is just how things are usually done, in MuseScore, in other notation programs, and in published classical orchestra music.
If you want Bb tuba transposed and in treble clef as per the worldwide standard for published brass band music, simply select that from the list.
If you want Bb tuba transposed but it in bass clef to conform to your own unique local tradition, select the regular tuba and change the transposition setting. We provide that setting specifically to allow for such non-standard usage. Using a different instrument and changing the name works too, although the range settings might not be correct, so I think you are better off using the method I described.
In reply to MuseScore is designed to… by Marc Sabatella
We found another trick recently that is a bit better than using a fake "Wagnerian Tuba in Bb" : simply use the Euphonium instrument. This one is simply called "Euphonium" and not "Euphonium in something" and it happens to be in Bb, which is fine.
Reminder : the trouble I was reporting was about the confusing "Tuba in Bb" that claims to "in Bb" with its name although it happens to be actually pitched in C. The Euphonium instrument brings the advantage to be more straight (it does not pretend to be in something and be in something else).
As a last little anecdote : in our place in Europe, the word Euphonium is often considered as an implicit synonymous of Tuba, but people keep talking Tuba. I mean every body say their kid "plays the Tuba" or refer to the "Tuba Teacher" although they mainly all deal with Euphoniums. So Musescore somehow contributes in using the right word of Euphonium.
Workaround: use Euphonium instead
FWIW, therre is no "pretending" here. A tuba in Bb really is pitched in Bb - meaning the fundamental frequency of the instrument is Bb. It's just that accordingly the convention in most of the world, music isn't actually transposed for it. Same with euphonium and with trombone, BTW - both are pitched in Bb but music is traditionally not transposed.
But as noted, you can change the name of any instrument, or change its transposition, so for those countries that use different conventions, you can have it without resorting to tricks like picking the wrong instrument (which will mess up things like MusicXML export).
Perhaps an easier workaround is to the the treble clef Bb tuba (which is transposing) and then manually add a bass clef to it.
In reply to Perhaps an easier workaround… by shoogle
We cannot however not ignore this fact. It can be confusing.
The French (and Belgian) tradition for Concert Band (Harmonie) and Fanfare orchestras: write Tuba in Bb as Bb, and use the same fingering as all other valved Brass instruments (probably a heritage from Belgian Adolphe Sax) Perhaps this is also the case in other European regions.
Elsewhere (America/UK ... ) one learns an different fingering. The USA published Arban book for Euphonium uses this fingering, but the Clodomir "Methode Complète" (Leduc, Paris) uses the normal (Sax) fingering.
Publishers (even American) all provide 'alternative parts' (e.g. Reift, Molenaars, ... but also Alfred)
see this example: https://content.alfred.com/catpages/00-50117.pdf
=> supplemental and world parts.
Note that in the instrumentation list and score, they just use "Euphonium" and "Tuba" (without the Bb).
Couldn't there be way in MuseScore to make those 'world parts' parts possible 'out of the box'?
Isn't this just a new entry in the instruments.xml file?
See also: https://musescore.org/nl/node/268254
It seems this is also the case in the Netherlands, Spain, and the nl/be/de/cz/sk blaskapellen world.
Feel free to request those instrument variants on GitHub (and mention @shoogle): https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/new/choose
In reply to Feel free to request thos… by Jojo-Schmitz
@jojo, see https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/12705#issuecomment-167481…