 Generally, the primary differences between pure concert tubas and contrabass bugles are

Although historically (see below) drum and bugle corps contras were pitched in G, the construction was nearly identical to modern B♭ and C instruments, the only differences being the length and diameter of the tubing and (at one time) the valve section.In fact, modern drum corps now use multi-key instruments originally developed several years ago for marching bands who wished to emulate the sound of contemporary (G-instrumented) drum corps hornlines.In a drum and bugle corps, the marching style for contrabass bugles are the same as for the rest of the hornline.