This may be The World’s Largest Tuba

The world’s largest tuba, if it is indeed the largest and if you consider it a tuba, sounds like “a jackhammer” or “a helicopter.” Listen as Derek Fenstermacher, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra‘s principal tuba player, tries to play Big Carl, a tuba-like instrument owned by Carl Fischer Music. From The New York Times:

A typical tuba is about 3 1/2 -feet high, has about 18 feet of tubing and weighs about 20 pounds. Big Carl stands nearly 8 feet tall, contains 60 feet of tubing, weighs about 100 pounds and registers a subcontrabass BBBb pitch. His bell, the widest part, has a diameter just over 40 inches.

In the archives, more instruments, including Tiger Rag on a homemade Emphatic Chromatic Callioforte, Sesame Street: How a saxophone is made, and Dizzy Gillespie live on stage: Salt Peanuts.

via MentalFloss.