As a musician one of the most frequent questions I receive is: "What instrument do you play?" When I answer, the look on the person's face is confused. “What is a euphonium?” they ask. This happens not only to me, but to every euphonist who is asked this same question. Although the word euphonium is foreign to most people, the instrument is not. The euphonium, with its beautiful rich tone, is the leading tenor soloist in military and concert band. The euphonium is a brass instrument with a conical barrel, with a baritone voice, which derives its name from the Greek word euphonos. When separated, eu means good or good, and phonos means good sound. So euphonos means well sounding. In this article I will discuss the history of the euphonium and its use in the music world today. The earliest ancestor of the euphonium as a tenor voice of the lip and reed family is most likely thought to be the serpent, from which its name is derived. by its serpent-like appearance. The snake is the shortest member of the hornet family. The Cornett is an early wind instrument popular between 1500 and 1650. It is not to be confused with the brass cornet. The serpent was built in 1590 by Edme Guillaume, canon of Auxerre. It was used in sacred music to support the low voices of men because the low frequency of their voices had difficulty projecting. The serpent was constructed of wood, while newer models today are made of brass, fiberglass, or silver. It was played with a deep-cup mouthpiece made of horn or ivory. When the Serpent was invented, there weren't many ways to play brass instruments. Brass instruments could only be played with the lips, with the aid of a slide or with the use of finger holes. A brass instrument that relies only on the player's lips to determine musical pitch makes it nearly impossible to play every note in the scale. Brass instruments such as the modern trombone, which uses a slide, can produce the full scale but must have the same tube diameter, which results in a bright tone color. The Serpent plays all the notes of the scale and has the soft tone color resulting from a tapered or tapered hole. It can achieve this thanks to its finger holes.