Page 3 - Info Magazine nr 16 february march 2021

History of wind instruments: The Trumpet

The origins of the trumpet can be traced back several thousand years. However, since the primi-
tive trumpets were rudimentary wind instruments that the player sounded simply by moving his
lips, they cannot clearly be distinguished from the forerunners of the horn, on which sound is
produced in the same way.
Trumpets of old were made out of various
materials, including wood, bamboo, bark,
clay, human bone, and metal. Found on
every continent, they are thought to have
been used in religious ceremonies and
sorcery.
In the ancient Greek and Roman eras,
trumpets were used for marching in war-
time, for which they were admirably sui-
ted. Subsequently, almost all European
royalty had trumpet bands that played mi-
litary music.
It was in the seventeenth century that the trumpet came to be used purely in musical ensembles.
At that time, however, this was still the so-called natural trumpet, which can only produce natural
harmonics, so the trumpet was not yet a fully functional instrument.

Early trumpets had a very simple shape,
with just a flared bell at the end. The trum-
peter could produce a number of different
notes by varying his lip movement and the
speed of his breath. These notes are known
as harmonics and are written on a score as
follows:

Melodies were played on early trumpets using the run of high-harmonic notes, as shown on the
right of the score above. When a trumpeter needed to play songs in different keys, such as C ma-
jor and G major, he would keep a C major trumpet and a G major trumpet to hand. Looking after
all these instruments and carrying them around was very troublesome, however. Accordingly, in
around 1810 the valve was invented as a means for easily changing the length of the tube.
A valve is a device that changes the path taken by the trumpeter's breath. A second tube was
added in the middle of the instrument's tube and a valve was attached at the point where they
joined. The valve controlled which tube the trumpeter's breath would pass through. It was now
easy to change the length of the tube, enabling chromatic scales to be played on the trumpet.