Six Little Tuba Pieces was written in late 1977 or early 1978 at the request of a talented student, Emma Parkinson, then aged 15. She had rightly complained that after a girl had made the effort and got her Grade 5 with distinction (in less than a year from taking up the instrument) there was precious little music available that was worth playing.

Gordon Jacob was born in Upper Norwood, South London, in 1895, a tenth child and a seventh son. He was educated at Dulwich College, which was an unusually musical school, and he wrote his first orchestral pieces there. During the First World War he was captured by the Germans near Arras, and in his prison camp organised a small orchestra whose entire repertoire he arranged or composed. This early practical approach to music was to remain a hallmark, and his music is always eminently 'playable'. After the war, having decided against a career in journalism, he entered the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with Stanford,