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Sound the Trumpets!
The Trumpet, a Brief History
by Douglas Wilson
The trumpet can paint a glorious canvas of sound, from the powerful apocalyptic declarations of Mahler and Shostakovich, to the lyricism of Hummel’s Andante in his Concerto in E, or the playful delight of Clifford Brown’s Joy Spring,
Through the ages, the trumpet has heralded the arrival of royalty, advancing armies, and rescuing heroines. No wonder trumpeters are a cocky bunch; we have a large pedigree to live up to!
Construction and Historical Use
The trumpet is among the loudest of instruments, so it is not surprising that composers use it to make musical proclamations. The modern instrument is approximately four to four and one-half feet long and it is made of brass tubing with a flared bell on one end and a cupped mouthpiece on the other. Three valves enable the player to sound all twelve chromatic tones in the octave. It is usually constructed in the key of B-flat or C, although there are trumpets in almost every key.
Trumpets are often confused with their cousins, the cornet and flugelhorn. Those instruments are fundamentally conical in design and posses warmth and lyricism. The trumpet, which is cylindrical, yields a more penetrating sound.
In man’s earliest history, the trumpet was used for signaling. It was made of everyday items found lying on the ground, a hollow branch of wood, a seashell, or an animal horn. The Egyptians followed by the Romans, constructed the first trumpets using long brass tubes. They would announce the arrival of royalty and conquering armies. The instrument remained essentially unchanged until the emergence of modern music.
Up until this time, trumpets were limited to the notes of the harmonic series, much like the notes one hears when listening to a bugle call. Playing a simple melody was not possible on the instrument unless it was written for the clarino (high) register. Baroque composers wrote remarkably heroic (and difficult) music for the trumpet such as J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2.
With the advent of political revolutions sweeping across Europe in the eighteenth century and the emergence of the nation state, musical changes followed suit. European royalty began to depart and a new style refined music emerged. The Classical composers Handel and Haydn used the trumpet in a more subtle and delicate manner. The andante movement of Haydn’s Concerto in E flat and Handel’s trumpet obbligato in the Trumpet Shall Sound from the oratorio The Messiah are beautiful examples of this new style. Nevertheless, in the repertoire of the Classical period, the trumpet primarily punctuates the music for dynamic contrast and was often paired with timpani.
Makers of instruments began to experiment with design. Previously, slides and keys had been used with limited success but with the construction of valve, the trumpet became a truly chromatic instrument capable of playing all the notes in an octave.
The harmonic expansion of the nineteenth century made for a richer musical palette. Elgar, Mahler, Strauss, and Verdi are excellent examples of composers who understood the musical possibilities for modern brass writing and the brass family came to the fore to demonstrate their soloistic prowess beyond the accompaniment style of the Classical period.
Continued musical development in the twentieth century foreshadowed the development of the modern instrument and modern musical tastes. Players of the instrument have become specialists in specific areas of music (classical, jazz, pop, etc) due to the shear volume of music composed since the late nineteenth century. As a result, players tended to gravitate to a musical style where one could possibly make a living.
Nowhere in music has the trumpet been more exploited than in Jazz. With its rich heritage from Africa and the Middle East, Jazz developed in America starting in the late nineteenth century in New Orleans. In addition, with the advent of recording technology in the twentieth century, jazz became accessible worldwide. Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Pat Harbison, Japan’s Toru “Tiger” Okoshi, and England’s own Kenny Wheeler and Eddie Severn are just but a few of the hundreds of well established and recorded jazz trumpet players.
How is sound made?
A trumpet player blows a steady stream of air into the instrument, which “agitates” the existing air column inside the horn and produces a “tone.” A cupped mouthpiece at the beginning of the tube helps facilitate the sound by allowing the player to adjust the tension on their lips to produce the required pitch. Valves, which effectively lengthen the instrument, allow the performer to play all the chromatic notes in about a three-octave range.
Today, audiences are exposed to a plethora of musical choices; classical, jazz, pop, rock; the choices se
em to be endless. As a trumpet player, that’s all right with me!
Douglas Wilson is an American classical trumpet player with several degrees in music, who also excels in a variety of other styles, including jazz, big band, and church music. He is an artist/clinician for Yamaha Trumpets, and is the moderator for the online forum "Ask the Teacher" at www.trumpetguild.org. In addition, he is editor of the itg journal, jr., a publication of the International Trumpet Guild for trumpeters both young and young-at-heart. Douglas can be contacted at doug@dougwilsonmusic.com.
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