Even though the tone of the trumpet is very brilliant, it is capable of playing beautiful melodies. When its sound is blended with that of other instruments, new and exciting sounds are created. As with all brass instruments, the tone of the trumpet can be altered by placing a mute in the bell. This is a cone-shaped device usually made of metal or fibreboard. A muted trumpet has a soft, faraway sound and is often used to represent an echo of the sounds of other instruments.

The hunting horn, ancestor of the French horn, was usually coiled in a circle so that the player could carry it over his shoulder while “riding to the hounds” on horseback. Although the French horn is no longer carried in this manner, it is still coiled in much the same way. If it were stretched out straight, the French horn would be approximately twelve to sixteen feet long and shaped like a cone, being very small at the end the player buzzes into and very large at the bell end.

The player rests the large end of the French horn on his right leg while playing and holds his hand partway inside the bell. Before the invention of valves, the player would adjust his hand inside the bell to produce different notes. This can still be done, but since the valve has made it possible for the player to produce every note of the chromatic scale, the right hand is only used as a type of mute.

When the player’s hand is in its normal position partway inside the bell, it softens the tone of the French horn and makes it very mellow. Placed all the way inside the bell, the hand “stops” the sound and makes it very nasal and brassy. Sometimes the player is instructed to remove his hand from the bell altogether and hold the bell pointing upwards. When played this way, the tone is louder and more brilliant, just right for imitating the shrieks of trumpeting elephants.

The French horn has many personalities. Tchaikovsky wrote a beautiful solo for the mellow sound of the French horn in his Symphony No. 5. It’s one of the most famous melodies in music. The wide range of the instrument is called for in Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks by Richard Strauss. Although the solo is rather short, the player must produce a rapid series of notes that go as high as a trumpet and as low as a tuba.

The trombone has changed very little throughout its history and would have been as easy to spot three hundred years ago as it is today. Instead of having valves like other brasses, it has a U-shaped section of movable tubing that the player slides in and out to change pitches. ‘This section of tubing is called a slide. By moving the slide out, the length of the trombone tubing is made longer and the pitch lower. As the slide is moved in, the tubing length is shortened, and the pitch gets higher. There is nothing to tell the player where to put the slide for exactly the right note. The trombonist must practise hard and listen carefully to learn where these spots are.

When the slide is moved in and out without stopping, the trombone makes a comical sound called a glissando. Although beginners often make this sound by accident as they try to find the right note, a skilful player plays the glissando on purpose. It is most often heard in jazz and dixieland music, but it is also employed as a special effect in band and orchestra music. An example of the latter may be heard in the finale of Maurice Ravel’sBolero.

The tuba, largest and lowest-sounding of the brasses, has eighteen feet of tubing coiled so that the player can hold it on his lap as he plays. In order to make the tuba easier for the players in a marching band to carry, the sousaphone was developed in the early 1900s. Named after bandmaster John Philip Sousa, the sousaphone is a tuba coiled in a big circle. The player gets inside the circle and rests the weight of the instrument on his shoulder as he marches. A metal sousaphone might weigh as much as fifty pounds, but many are now being made of fibreglass and are much lighter.

The sound of the tuba is very low. Played alone, it doesn’t seem to have much power, but as the bass of the brass section, one tuba can balance the powerful sounds of several trumpets, French horns, and trombones. When just the brass section plays, it is called a brass choir, and the sound is very impressive.

In a symphony orchestra there are usually three trumpets, four French horns, three trombones, and one tuba. In a band, there are generally two or three times as many of these instruments as well as some others not used in the orchestra. The most common of these are the cornet and euphonium.

The cornet is another cousin of the trumpet. It plays in the same range, looks much like the trumpet, and often completely replaces the trumpet as the soprano of the brass section in a band. The chief differences are that the cornet is coiled a little differently, and the tubing is more like a cone. These differences make the cornet shorter and easier to handle, and less brilliant sounding than the trumpet.

The euphonium looks like a small tuba. It is half as big as the tuba and plays in the same range as the trombone. The sound of the euphonium is more mellow than the trombone, and because it uses valves rather than a slide, plays its own separate part. The euphonium is sometimes called the cello of the band because of its mellow tone.

Whether you are listening to a marching band, a symphony orchestra, or the background music on a television show, the instruments of the brass family provide some of the most exciting sounds you will hear.

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dodoBrass, Jazz, Music Equipments, Trumpet3 Oct, 2008