B♭1 Tuba Fingering
How to play B♭1 on the tuba: Open — no valves pressed at all. — on the 2nd partial, in bass clef, sounding exactly as written.
Filled valves in the diagram are the ones you press. Valve 1 is nearest you and is worked by your right index finger, valve 2 by the middle finger, and valve 3 — nearest the bell — by the ring finger. These are three-valve fingerings for the BB♭ tuba; the staff is in bass clef, and in bass clef the tuba sounds exactly as written. The same fingering serves the sousaphone.
Hear B♭1 and try the fingering
Pick an instrument and a note and the diagram updates instantly — filled keys are the ones you press. The same finder sits on every note page, pre-set to that note.
The B♭1 fingering, step by step
- Leave all three valves up — this is an open note. On a tuba the pitch comes from a big, slow column of air and a relaxed buzz: hear the note in your head before you play it, because the open horn alone can speak six different notes.
In short: open — no valves pressed at all.
About B♭1 on the tuba
The low register runs from the 2nd partial (B♭1, open) through the 3rd partial’s ladder (B1 up to F2). These notes want a large, slow, warm column of air and a relaxed, wide buzz — a tuba is not blown harder down here, it is blown bigger. The two longest combinations, C2 and B1, play sharp and need the slide pull or the lip to bring them home.
B♭1 is the tuba’s tuning note — the 2nd partial, the first rung of the open ladder above the pedal, and the note the whole band tunes to. It sounds at about 58 vibrations per second: on small laptop or phone speakers the Finder’s playback of this note may be barely audible even at true pitch, because the speakers physically cannot move enough air. The note itself is real enough — you feel it as much as hear it.
B♭1 is note 1 of the 25 in the full tuba fingering chartB1 above it. Like every fingering on this site, it was checked against Yamaha’s official chart and the NoteAtlas tuba chart before publishing.
Practising B♭1
Low notes speak with slow air and an open throat — think of fogging a window on a huge scale. If this note cracks upward, your lips found the partial above: drop your jaw, slow the air down, and let the note settle rather than pushing it.
Questions about B♭1
What is the fingering for B♭1 on tuba?
Open — no valves pressed at all. B♭1 is played on the 2nd partial (harmonic) of the BB♭ tuba in the low register, with the three-valve fingerings this site charts. The full step-by-step is on this page, and you can hear the note with the Fingering Finder.
Does B♭1 sound as written on tuba?
Yes. In bass clef the tuba is a non-transposing instrument, so written B♭1 sounds as concert B♭1 — the same pitch a piano plays. The same fingering also serves the sousaphone, which is a BB♭ tuba wrapped for marching.
Is there an alternate fingering for B♭1?
For B♭1, the fingering above is the one to learn. It is the basic fingering both reference charts give for this note, and the one teachers expect to see.
Think this fingering is wrong? Report it — every report is checked against the source charts.