Trumpet fingering chart (valve chart)

History

The earliest trumpets date back to 2000 BC and earlier, including Tutankhamun's bronze and silver trumpets from his grave in Egypt, bronze lurs from Scandinavia, and metal trumpets from China. The Oxus civilization in the 3rd millennium BC in Central Asia had trumpets with decorated swellings in the middle, made out of one sheet of metal, which is considered a technical wonder for its time.

The Salpinx was a straight trumpet 62 in long, made of bone or bronze. Homer's Iliad (9th or 8th century BC) contains the earliest reference to its sound, and frequent descriptions are found throughout the Classical Period. Salpinx contests were a part of the original Olympic Games. The Shofar, made from a ram's horn, and the chazozra, made of metal, are both mentioned in the Bible. They were said to have been played in Solomon's Temple around 3,000 years ago, and are still used on certain religious days.

The Moche people of ancient Peru depicted trumpets in their art going back to AD 300. The earliest trumpets were signaling instruments used in military or religious contexts, rather than in music. The modern bugle continues this signaling tradition.

Improvements to instrument design and metal making in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance led to an increase in the trumpet's utility as a musical instrument. The natural trumpets of this era consisted of a coiled tube without valves which could only produce the notes of a single overtone series. Changing keys required the player to change crooks of the instrument. The development of the upper, "clarino" register by specialist trumpeters—notably Cesare Bendinelli—would lend itself well to music of the Baroque era. This was known as the "Golden Age of the natural trumpet," during which a vast body of music was written for virtuoso trumpeters. Interest in the natural trumpet was revived in the mid-20th century, and its use has become more common. Many modern players in Germany and the UK who perform Baroque music use a version of the natural trumpet fitted with three or four vent holes to aid in correcting out-of-tune notes in the harmonic series.

Construction

Trumpets are generally constructed of brass tubing, bent twice into a rounded oblong shape. They may be made from other materials, including plastic. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced by blowing air through slightly separated lips, producing a "buzzing" sound into the mouthpiece and starting a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the trumpet. The player can select the pitch from a range of overtones or harmonics by changing the lip aperture and tension (known as the embouchure).

The mouthpiece has a circular rim, which provides an environment for the lips' vibration. Directly behind the rim is the cup, which channels the air into a much smaller opening (the back bore or shank) that tapers out slightly to match the diameter of the trumpet's lead pipe. The dimensions of these parts of the mouthpiece affect the timbre or quality of sound, the ease of playability, and player comfort. Generally, the wider and deeper the cup, the darker the sound and timbre.

Modern trumpets have three (or, infrequently, four) valves, each of which increases the length of tubing when engaged, thereby lowering the pitch. Most trumpets use piston valves but some use rotary valves. The first valve lowers the instrument's pitch by a whole step (two semitones), the second valve by a half step (one semitone), and the third valve by one and a half steps (three semitones). These three valves provide eight possible valve combinations (including "none"), but only seven different tubing lengths, because the third valve alone gives the same tubing length as the 1–2 combination (there is often a deliberate difference between "1–2" and "3", allowing the player to select whichever gives the best tuning for any particular note). Used singly and in combination these valves make the instrument fully chromatic, i.e, able to play all twelve pitches. When a fourth valve is present, as on some piccolo trumpets, it usually lowers the pitch a perfect fourth (five semitones).

The overall pitch of the trumpet can be raised or lowered by the use of the tuning slide. Pulling the slide out lowers the pitch; pushing the slide in raises it. Pitch can be "bent" by adjusting the embouchure.

Renold Schilke designed a tuning-bell trumpet to reduce intonation problems. Removing the usual brace between the bell and a valve body allows a slide to be placed in the bell section for tuning. The regular tuning slide can remain completely, or nearly, pushed in, improving intonation and overall response.

A trumpet becomes a closed tube when the player presses it to the lips; therefore, the instrument only naturally produces every other overtone of the harmonic series. The shape of the bell makes the missing overtones audible. Most notes are slightly out of tune and modern trumpets have slide mechanisms for the first and third valves with which the player can compensate by extending one or both slides, using the left thumb and ring finger for the first and third valve slides respectively.

Overview

Brass instrument valves are valves used to change the length of tubing of a brass instrument allowing the player to reach the notes of various harmonic series. Each valve pressed diverts the air stream through additional tubing, individually or in conjunction with other valves. This lengthens the vibrating air column thus lowering the fundamental tone and associated harmonic series produced by the instrument. Valves in brass instruments require regular maintenance and lubrication to ensure fast and reliable movement.

Piston valve

The first musical instruments with piston valves were developed just after the start of the 19th century.

Stölzel valve

The first of these types was the Stölzel valve, bearing the name of its inventor Heinrich Stölzel, who first applied these valves to the French horn in 1814. Until that point, there had been no successful valve design, and horn players had to stop off the bell of the instrument, greatly compromising tone quality to achieve a partial chromatic scale.

In a Stölzel valve, the air enters through the bottom of the valve casing, up through the hollow bottom end of the piston, and through a port to the valve loop. The air is then led through an oblique port in the piston to a short tube connecting the valves where it is then directed through the second valve and out the bottom. This type of valve, however, had inherent problems. It forced the air to double back on itself and the 90 degree turns disrupted the bore, causing significant undesired back-pressure. These problems were improved upon later by the double-piston valve.

Périnet valve

The modern piston valve was invented by François Périnet and patented in 1839. They are sometimes called Périnet valves after the inventor. They work by diverting air obliquely through ports in the stock of the valve, so that a loop of tubing is included in the air stream, thus lowering the pitch. The stock of the valve is cylindrical and moves up and down through a larger cylindrical casing.

A small Périnet valve integrated into a trombone mouthpiece, perpendicular to the shank in order to change the throat diameter to facilitate the upper register, was patented by Charles E. Stacy in 1924.

Adolphe Sax invented instruments with six independent piston valves (three for each hand), but only the most dexterous musicians were able to play them. The long lengths of extra tubing used by each of the six valves also made the instruments heavy and cumbersome to play.

Modern valve brass instruments not using either rotary or Vienna valves use this type of valve in a set of three configured to lower the instrument by two, one, and three half-steps respectively, which in combination lower the instrument pitch by up to a tritone. Some instruments (e.g. the tuba and euphonium) add a fourth valve that further lowers the pitch by a perfect fourth.

Use in brass instruments

In the context of brass musical instruments, rotary valves are found on horns, trumpets, trombones, flugelhorns, and tubas. The cornet derived from the posthorn, by applying rotary valves to it in the 1820s in France. An alternative to a rotary valve instrument is the more common piston valve trumpet. However, many European trumpet players tend to favor rotary valves.

Trombone F attachment valves are usually rotary, with several variations on the basic design also in use, such as the Thayer axial flow valve and the Hagmann valve.

The rotary valve was first applied to the horn in 1824 by Nathan Adams (1783–1864) of Boston and patented in 1835 by Joseph Riedl.