The baroque trumpet is a musical instrument in the brass family. [1] Its designed to allow modern performers to imitate the natural trumpet when playing music of that time, so it is often associated with it. The term 'baroque trumpet' is often used to differentiate an instrument which has added vent holes and other modern compromises, from an original or replica natural trumpet which does not. [2] Notable baroque trumpet players include Alison Balsom, Niklas Eklund, Brian Shaw, and Justin Bland.
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The Baroque trumpet was invented in the middle of the 20th century, it is based on the natural trumpet of the 16th to 18th centuries.
The term "baroque trumpet" has come to mean a version of the original natural trumpet, with changes to suit modern players, who tend to play both the modern trumpet and this hybrid. The hybrid instrument is most often employed by period instrument ensembles when choosing historically informed performance practice. Originals are seldom used, because they are too valuable.
Some modern performers use natural trumpets unchanged in design since the Baroque era. However, the majority now choose baroque trumpets constructed with vents, which were not used in the Baroque. [3] The use of natural versus baroque trumpets is controversial. In general, however, most professional trumpeters regard the modern baroque trumpet, with at least one vent hole, as a necessary compromise to ensure acceptable intonation and secure attack for players of modern trumpets, while still providing an approximation of the original sound.
The most important reason for using a baroque trumpet is to allow alternative tunings for problematic notes. The harmonic series is mostly "in tune" but there are a few notes which are "off-centre". It is normal for natural trumpet players to lip notes into tune (see natural trumpet), but players moving from the modern trumpet are not accustomed to lipping notes to that extent, which leads them to use the baroque trumpet.
Temperaments of the period centre on just intonation and meantone temperament. The harmonic series of the trumpet requires less lipping for these period temperaments than when playing in the equal temperament that modern players are used to.
The out-of-tune f2 and a2 (written, relative to a fundamental of C) are usually sounded only briefly in passing. Baroque composers such as Bach and Handel were careful not to ask their trumpeters to "dwell" on the f2 and a2 for any length of time. The other out-of-tune notes (B♭ in both octaves) are even less frequently used, while the 11th harmonic is closer to an F# and usually played as such. Within the context of meantone temperament, the 11th harmonic is very nearly in tune.
With twice the length of tubing of a modern trumpet, the natural trumpet has harmonics much closer together, meaning that the risk of a performer hitting the wrong harmonic is higher. But also it is almost impossible to hit a harmonic that conflicts with the harmony, and the effect is a direct parallel of an expressive ornament.
Lipping notes into tune increases the chance of a missed note, but the improved acoustics of a trumpet constructed without the need for vents somewhat makes up for the difference.
A common view is that in an era of recordings, conductors usually prefer trumpet players to have accuracy in pitch and tuning rather than the authentic sound, with the result that players use the baroque trumpet, a compromise between the natural trumpet and the modern trumpet.
Some baroque trumpets have been made using modern manufacturing methods, not the hand-hammered technique employed by master craftsmen such as Schnitzer, Haas, Hainlein, Ehe, and others. There is evidence, for example, that the bore anomalies of museum originals may favor certain notes, making it possible to "lip" the out-of-tune notes with greater ease. This characteristic is absent in factory-made instruments, with their geometrically perfect bore. Or made from gold and silver.
Bore anomalies include (but are not limited to) imperfectly soldered seam tubing and telescoping joints. Each of the five joints — crook or bit to 1st yard; 1st yard to distal bow; distal bow to 2nd yard; 2nd yard to proximal bow; and proximal bow to bell section — represents a "choke-point", the upstream tubing being shrunk to telescope into the expanded downstream ferrule. The slight acoustical perturbations so produced suggest a further eroding of the harmonic series' rigidity, and a consequently greater flexibility is available to the player. As a side note, these joints are a friction fit without the use of solder. [4]
A natural trumpet is audibly different from a baroque one constructed with vents, even if the holes are covered, and when a vent is uncovered it is noticeably weaker and less resonant. Modern performers who choose to play vented instruments avoid the difficulty of vented notes being heard clearly, since baroque scores generally only use the particular out-of-tune notes in passing.[ clarification needed ]
Pictures of natural trumpet players show the instrument nobly pointing upwards, held in one hand. Baroque trumpets usually require two hands, with the instrument pointing downwards. The breathing space of the player is less open.[ citation needed ]
When opened, the vent hole creates a node, or a position along the vibrating air column, where the pressure variations are at a minimum. This creates a transposition — in the case of a single thumb vent hole, the entire harmonic series of the trumpet is shifted up by a fourth.
Players in continental Europe most commonly use modern replicas built with one hole, such as with the "Modell Tarr" made by Ewald Meinl Musikinstrumentenbau GmbH of Germany, [6] the hole of which is usually covered by the right thumb. Most of the time, the hole remains covered, allowing the instrument to sound in its original key, whether B♭, C, D, E♭, or F. In order to play the out-of-tune 11th and 13th harmonics (notated f2, and a2), for example, the player opens the thumb vent hole and plays the f2 and a2 as the 8th and 10th harmonics of the new series.
British players tend to prefer baroque trumpets with three or four holes, allowing the player to make half-step transpositions and blow a relatively easy high C. [7]
An example of a multi-hole baroque trumpet is the coiled Jägertrompete made by Helmut Finke, [8] used by the Concentus Musicus Wien on many of their early recordings. However, this model has fallen out of favor with period instrument groups, and is seldom used nowadays.
The mouthpiece plays a role in re-creating an "authentic" performance. Many trumpeters continue to use a version of their modern mouthpiece on the baroque trumpet, fitted with a larger shank. This is unfortunate, since the art of playing in the highest clarino (clear) register depended to a great extent on the typical shallow-cupped mouthpiece of the period. When using the shallow-cupped mouthpiece, there is not only a greater ease in the upper register but also a lighter, less forceful sound. The latter blends better, is less tiring to the player, and is far more appropriate when performing with other baroque-style instruments.[ citation needed ]
A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones or labrophones, from Latin and Greek elements meaning 'lip' and 'sound'.
The clarinet is a single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell.
The cornet is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B♭. There is also a soprano cornet in E♭ and cornets in A and C. All are unrelated to the Renaissance and early Baroque cornett.
The French horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B♭ is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular. A musician who plays a horn is known as a horn player or hornist.
The pitch of a brass instrument corresponds to the lowest playable resonance frequency of the open instrument. The combined resonances resemble a harmonic series. The fundamental frequency of the harmonic series can be varied by adjusting the length of the tubing using the instrument's valve, slide, key or crook system, while the player's embouchure, lip tension and air flow serve to select a specific harmonic from the available series for playing. The fundamental is essentially missing from the resonances and is impractical to play on most brass instruments, but the overtones account for most pitches.
A sackbut is an early form of the trombone used during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. A sackbut has the characteristic telescopic slide of a trombone, used to vary the length of the tube to change pitch, but is distinct from later trombones by its smaller, more cylindrically-proportioned bore, and its less-flared bell. Unlike the earlier slide trumpet from which it evolved, the sackbut possesses a U-shaped slide with two parallel sliding tubes, rather than just one.
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate. Nearly all trombones use a telescoping slide mechanism to alter the pitch instead of the valves used by other brass instruments. The valve trombone is an exception, using three valves similar to those on a trumpet, and the superbone has valves and a slide.
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B♭ or C trumpet.
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibration – a buzz – into a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the newer instruments in the modern orchestra and concert band, and largely replaced the ophicleide. Tuba is Latin for "trumpet".
A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which music notation is not written at concert pitch. For example, playing a written middle C on a transposing instrument produces a pitch other than middle C; that sounding pitch identifies the interval of transposition when describing the instrument. Playing a written C on clarinet or soprano saxophone produces a concert B♭, so these are referred to as B♭ instruments. Providing transposed music for these instruments is a convention of musical notation. The instruments do not transpose the music; rather, their music is written at a transposed pitch. Where chords are indicated for improvisation they are also written in the appropriate transposed form.
In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a musical composition in Western classical music, art music, and pop music.
Tonality or key: Music which uses the notes of a particular scale is said to be "in the key of" that scale or in the tonality of that scale.
The keyed trumpet is a cylindrical-bore brass instrument in the trumpet family that makes use of tone holes operated by keys to alter pitch and provide a full chromatic scale, rather than extending the length of tubing with a slide or valves. It was developed from the natural trumpet in the 18th century and reached its high-point in popularity c. 1800 when two important trumpet concertos were written for it by Austrian composers Joseph Haydn and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, but waned with the invention of valves in the 1820s and the subsequent emergence of the modern valved trumpet. It is rarely seen in modern performances.
A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series.
A crook, also sometimes called a shank, is an exchangeable segment of tubing in a natural horn which is used to change the length of the pipe, altering the fundamental pitch and harmonic series which the instrument can sound, and thus the key in which it plays.
A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in a double reed instrument, there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Reeds are traditionally made of cane and produce sound when air is blown across or through them. The type of instruments that use a single reed are clarinets and saxophone. The timbre of a single and double reed instrument is related to the harmonic series caused by the shape of the corpus. E.g. the clarinet is only including the odd harmonics due to air column modes canceling out the even harmonics. This may be compared to the timbre of a square wave.
The saxotromba is a valved brass instrument invented by the Belgian instrument-maker Adolphe Sax around 1844. It was designed for the mounted bands of the French military, probably as a substitute for the French horn. The saxotrombas comprised a family of half-tube instruments of different pitches. By about 1867 the saxotromba was no longer being used by the French military, but specimens of various sizes continued to be manufactured until the early decades of the twentieth century, during which time the instrument made sporadic appearances in the opera house, both in the pit and on stage. The instrument is often confused with the closely related saxhorn.
A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air. In the case of some wind instruments, sound is produced by blowing through a reed; others require buzzing into a metal mouthpiece, while yet others require the player to blow into a hole at an edge, which splits the air column and creates the sound.
A horn is any of a family of musical instruments made of a tube, usually made of metal and often curved in various ways, with one narrow end into which the musician blows, and a wide end from which sound emerges. In horns, unlike some other brass instruments such as the trumpet, the bore gradually increases in width through most of its length—that is to say, it is conical rather than cylindrical. In jazz and popular-music contexts, the word may be used loosely to refer to any wind instrument, and a section of brass or woodwind instruments, or a mixture of the two, is called a horn section in these contexts.
The German horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell, and in bands and orchestras is the most widely used of three types of horn, the other two being the French horn and the Vienna horn. Its use among professional players has become so universal that it is only in France and Vienna that any other kind of horn is used today. A musician who plays the German horn is called a horn player. The word "German" is used only to distinguish this instrument from the now-rare French and Viennese instruments. Although the expression "French horn" is still used colloquially in English for any orchestral horn, since the 1930s professional musicians and scholars have generally avoided this term in favour of just "horn". Vienna horns today are played only in Vienna, and are made only by Austrian firms. German horns, by contrast, are not all made by German manufacturers, nor are all French-style instruments made in France.