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TRUMPET (Fr. trompette, clairon; Ger....
Online EncyclopediaOriginally appearing in Volume
V27,
Page 327
of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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other valve See also: instruments. The first and second of these alone give the true trumpet timbre; the tone of the valve trumpet approximates to that of the See also:cornet, nevertheless, it is now almost universally used. In the trumpet the notes of the See also:harmonic See also:series from the 3rd to the loth or 16th upper partials are produced by the varied tension of the lips and pressure of breath called overblowing. The fundamental and the second harmonic are rarely obtainable, and are therefore See also:left out of See also:consideration; the next See also:octave from the 4th to the 8th harmonics contains only the 3rd, 5th and. See also:minor 7th, and is therefore mainly suitable for fanfare figures based on the See also:common chord. The diatonic octave is the highest and its upper notes are only reached by very See also:good players on trumpets of See also:medium pitch. Examination of the scoring for the trumpet before any satisfactory means of bridging over the gaps in the compass had been found, shows how little the composers, and especially See also:Bach, allowed them-selves to be daunted by the limited resources at their disposal. A curious phenomenon has been observed 1 in connexion with the harmonic series of the trumpet, when the instrument is played by means of a See also:special clarino mouthpiece (a shallow one enabling the performer to reach the higher harmonics), in which the passage at the bottom of the cup inaugurated by the See also:sharp angle (known as the See also:grain in See also:French) is prolonged in cylindrical instead of conical bore for a distance of about TO cm. (4 in.) right into the main tube. This See also:peculiar construction of the mouthpiece, which might be considered insignificant, so upsets the acoustic properties of the tube that extra notes can be interpolated between the legitimate notes of the harmonic series thus: notes from @ 325 4 5 6 7 8 The See also:black notes represent the extra notes, which in the next octave transform the diatonic into a chromatic See also:scale. This phenomenon may perhaps furnish an explanation of some peculiarities in the scoring of Bach and other composers of his See also:day, and also in accounts of certain performances on the trumpet which have read 2 as See also:fairy tales. It is probable that the clarino mouthpiece was one of the secrets of the See also:gilds which has remained undiscovered till now. D.J. Blaikley writes 3: " I had an opportunity yesterday of trying the trumpet mouthpiece as described by Mahillon with the ' grain ' or ` See also: throat,' as we would See also:call it, ex-tended for about 10 cm. and terminating abruptly. With such a mouthpiece, used by itself without any trumpet, I could easily get glide ranging over that compass can be made, the pitch at any moment being determined by the lip-pressure, rather than by the small air-See also:column. When such a distorted mouthpiece is fitted to a 1 See V. Mahillon, La Trompette, son histoire, sa theorie, sa construction (See also:Brussels and See also:London, 1907, pp. 29-30). 2 See See also:Fetis, Biographie universelle See also:des musiciens, " Fantini." 3 See also:Letter to the See also:present writer, 6th of See also:February 1909. that is to say, that a continuous trumpet, we have a resonator whose proper tones are disturbed and all the notes sounded are capable of being much modified in pitch by the lips. For instance, we may regard the ` d ' as either No. 4 sharpened or No. 5 flattened, merely by lip-See also:action, and other notes in the same way." The compass of the three kinds of trumpets in real sounds is as follows:- -For the natural trumpet with crooks (h-^-) jj __ ,—to For the slide or double-slide trumpet with all chromatic semitones—or _21- #1 This instrument is a non-transposing one, the music being sounded as written. For the valve trumpet e.) The material of which the tube is made has nothing to do with the production of that brilliant quality of tone by which the trumpet is so easily distinguished from every other mouthpiece instrument; the difference is partly due to the distinct form given to the See also:basin of the mouthpiece, as stated above, but principally to the proportions of the column of air determined by the bore.The difference in timbre between trumpet and trombone is accounted for by the wider bore and differently shaped mouthpiece of the latter instrument. Tonguing, both double and triple, is used with See also: great effect on the trumpet: this See also:device consists in the See also:articulation with the See also:tongue of the syllables te-ke or ti-ke repeated in rapid See also:succession for See also:groups of two or four notes and of te-ke-ti for triplets. We have no precise See also:information as to the form which the See also:lituus, one of the ancestors of the See also:modern trumpet, assumed during the See also:middle ages, and it is practically unrepresented in the miniatures and other antiquities, though there is a See also:miniature in the See also:Bible, presented in 85o to See also:
But the transformation was really made much earlier, probably in the See also: Low Countries or See also:north See also:Italy; in any See also:case it had already been accomplished in the bas-reliefs of Luca della Robbia intended to See also:ornament the See also:organ chamber of the See also:cathedral of See also:Florence where a trumpet having the tube bent back as just described is very distinctly figured. From the beginning of the 16th century we have numerous See also:sources of information. Virdung2 cites three ' In the Bibliotheque Nationale at See also:Paris, reproduced in facsimile by See also:Count Auguste de See also:Bastard (Paris, 1883). 2 Musica getutscht and auszgezogen (See also:Basel, 1511).kinds of mouthpiece instruments—the Felttrumet, the Clareta, and the Thurner Horn; unfortunately he does not mention their distinctive characters, and it is impossible to make them out by examination of his engravings. Probably the Felttrumet and the Clareta closely resembled each other; but the compass of the former, destined for military signals, hardly went beyond the eighth proper tone, while the latter, reserved for high parts, was like the clarino (see below). The Thurner Horn was probably a See also:kind of clarino or clarion used by watchmen on the towers. The Trummet and the See also:Jager Trommet are the only two mouthpiece instruments of the trumpet kind cited by See also:Praetorius.3 The first was tuned in D at the chamber pitch or " Cammerton," but with the help of a shank it could be put in C, the See also:equivalent of the " chorton" D, the two differing about a tone. Sometimes the Trummet was lowered to B and even Bb. The Jager Trommet, or " trompette de See also:chasse," was composed of a tube bent several times in circles, like the posthorn, to make use of a comparison employed by Praetorius himself. His See also:drawing does not make it clear whether the column of air was like that of the trumpet; there is therefore some doubt as to the true See also:character of the instrument. The same author further cites a wooden trumpet (holzern Trommet), which is no other than the Swiss See also:Alpenhorn or the See also:Norwegian luur. The shape of the trumpet, as seen in the bas-reliefs of Luca della Robbia, was retained for more than three See also:hundred years: the first alterations destined to revolutionize the whole technique of the instrument were made about the middle of the 18th century.Notwithstanding the imperfections of the trumpet during this long See also: period, the performers upon it acquired an astonishing dexterity. The usual scale of the typical trumpet, that in D, Is --122re 2 3 4 6 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 18 Praetorius exceeds the limits of this compass in the higher range, for he says a good See also:trumpeter could produce the subjoined notes. This See also:opinion is shared by Bach, }} _-se _ who, in a trumpet See also:solo which #~ — `~- --ends the See also:cantata " Der See also:Himmel lacht," wrote up to the twentieth harmonic. So considerable a corn- e, pass could See also:net be reached by one, 17 18 19 20 21 instrumentalist : the trumpet See also:part had therefore to be divided, and each See also:division was designated by a special name." The part that was called principal went from the fifth to the tenth of these tones. The higher region, which had received the name of " clarino," was again divided into two parts: the first began at the eighth proper tone and mounted up towards the extreme high limit of the compass, according to the skill of the executant; the second, beginning at the See also:sixth proper tone, rarely went beyond the twelfth. Each of these parts was confided to a special trumpeter, who executed it by using a larger or a smaller mouthpiece. Some of the members of the harmonic series also received special names; the fundamental or first proper See also:note was called Flattergrob, the second Grobstimme, the third Faulstimme, the See also:fourth Mittelstimme. Playing the clarino differed essentially from playing the military trumpet, which corresponded in compass to that called principal. Compelled to employ very small mouthpieces to facilitate the emission of very high sounds, clarino players could not fail to alter the timbre of the instrument, and instead of getting the brilliant and energetic quality of tone of the mean See also:register they were only able to produce more or less sonorous notes without power and splendour. Apart from this inconvenience, the clarino presented numerous deviations from just intonation. Hence the players of that See also:time failed to obviate the See also:bad effects inevitably resulting from the natural imperfection of the harmonic scale of the trumpet in that extreme part of its compass; in the See also:execution, for instance, of the See also:works of Bach, where the trumpet should give sometimes __ the instrumentalist could only command the See also:eleventh proper tone, which is neither the one nor the other of these. Further, the thirteenth proper tone, for which -;r is written, is really too See also:flat, and but little can be done to remedy this defect, since it entirely depends upon the laws of resonance affecting columns of air.Organographia (Wolfenbiittel, 1619). Musicus abroStSaaror See also: oder der sick selbst informirende Musicus (Eisel, See also:Erfurt, 1738). , and sometimes Since the See also:abandonment of the clarino (about the middle of the 18th century) our orchestras have been enriched with trumpets that permit the execution of the old clarino parts, not only with perfect justness of intonation, but with a quality of tone that is not deficient in character when compared with the mean register of the old principal instrument. The introduction of the See also:clarinet or the so-called little clarino, although it is a See also:wood wind instrument played with a See also:reed, is one of the causes which led to the abandonment of the older instilment and may explain the preference given by the composers of that See also:epoch to the mean register of the trumpet. The clarino having disappeared before See also:Mozart's day, he had to See also:change the trumpet parts of See also:Handel and Bach to allow of their execution by the performers of his own time. It was now that crooks began to be frequently used. Trumpets were made in F instead of in D, furnished with a series of shanks of increasing length for the tonalities of E, Eb, D, Db, C, B, Bb, and sometimes even A. The first attempts to extend the limited resources of the instrument in its new employment arose out of Hampel's Inventions-Horn, in which, instead of fixing the shanks between the mouth-piece and the upper extremity, they were adapted to the See also:body of the instrument itself by a double slide, upon the two branches of which tubes were inserted bent in the form of a circle and gradually lengthened as required. This See also:system was applied to the trumpet by See also:Michael Woegel (See also:born at See also:Rastatt in 1748), whose " invention trumpet " had a great success, notwithstanding the unavoidable imperfection of a too great disparity in quality of tone between the open and closed sounds. It is a curious fact that the See also:sackbut or See also:early trombone was merely a trumpet with a slide, or a draw trumpet, and that it was known as such in See also:England, See also:Scotland, See also:Spain, See also:
(From the Encomium Musices.) The slide trumpet is still used in England in a somewhat modified form. The slide is a See also: short one allowing of four positions. In 1889 a trumpet was constructed by Mr W. See also:Wyatt with a double slide which gave the trumpet a See also:complete chromatic compass. This instrument, which has the true brilliant trumpet tone, requires delicate manipulation, for the shifts are necessarily very short. About 176o Kolbel, a Bohemian musician,' applied a See also:
9. La Musique aux Pays-Bas, vi. 252. Versuch einer Anleitung zur heroisch-musikalischen Trom peterund Pauker-Kunst, p. 12 (See also:
But, though the keyed trumpet was a notable improvement on the invention trumpet, the sounds obtained by means of the lateral openings of the tube did not possess the qualities which distinguish sounds caused by the resonance of the air-column vibrating in its entirety. But in 1815 Stolzel made a genuine chromatic trumpet by the invention of the Ventile or See also: piston? The natural-trumpet is now no longer employed except in cavalry regiments.' It is usually in Eb. The bass trumpet in Eb, which is an octave See also:lower, is sometimes, but rarely, used. Trumpets with pistons are generally constructed in F, with crooks in E and Eb. In See also:Germany trumpets in the FIG. 4.–Keyed high Bb with a crook in A are very often Trumpet. used in the See also:orchestra. They are easier for cornet a. piston players than the trumpet in F. A See also:quick change trumpet in Bb with combined tuning and transposing slides, for changing into the key of A, known as the " Proteano " trumpet, See also:Transom/See also:ea Slide Tunine.5/ide has been patented by Messrs Besson & Co. The transposing slide always remains at the correct length, and change of the tuning slide does not necessitate readjustment of the former. This combination slide is fitted to the See also:ordinary valve trumpet as well as to the trumpet with " enharmonic " valves. Mahillon constructed for the concerts of the See also:Conservatoire at Brussels trumpets in the high D, an octave above the old trumpet in the same key.They permit the execution of the high trumpet parts of Handel and J. S. Bach. The bass trumpet with pistons used for See also: Wagner's tetralogy is in Eb, in unison with the ordinary trumpet with crooks of D and C ; but, when constructed so as to allow of the production of the second proper tone as written by this See also:master, this instrument belongs rather to the trombones than to the trumpets. (V. M.; K.Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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