of the modern British brass band. The modern E and B band tubas with top-action piston valves are little-changed from their 19th-century contrabass saxhorn ancestors, aside from a wider bore and the addition of a fourth compensating valve.

The first marching tuba, called the helicon, is thought to have first appeared in Russia in the 1840s, and was first patented in 1848 by the Vienna-based maker Stowasser. Like the Ancient Roman buccina,