Trumpets

[J Larsen]

My understanding is that one key on a trumpet raises the pitch by a half step, another by a whole step, and the third raises it by 3/2 steps. That gives a total of six half steps that can be played. But to fill out the chromatic scale, you need 12 half steps. What am I missing?

[Aggie87]

I played trumpet in high school (a LONG time ago). I believe a combination of valve positions (single and combinations) plus changing your embouchure will result in being able to play all possible pitches.

Low C - no valves pressed

C#/Db - 1,2,3

D - 1,3

D#/Eb - 2,3

E - 1,2

F - 1

F#/Gb - 2

G - no valves pressed

G#/Ab - 2,3

A -1,2

A#/Bb - 1

B - 2

High C - no valves pressed

You tighten your embouchure as you go up the scale, pitch by pitch.

[J Larsen]

Aha - it was the embrochure part that I was missing. That sounds really tricky!

Just going by memory, it seems to me that Dizzy Gillespie covered more than one octave in a lot of his playing. Was he just getting his embrochure REALLY tight?

[Aggie87]

I just gave you a C-scale example, but you can keep going (both lower and higher):

Playing significantly higher than a high C is difficult from a technical perspective (to me), and requires alot of work on your embouchure. Getting a consistent, solid tone at those levels is very tough. And getting MUSIC to come out of your horn at those higher registers is even more than just embouchure.

[JSngry]

It's all about the overtone series, as it is with all brass instruments. You get a different note from the same finguring by hitting another partial of the fundamental. Actually, you can do the same thing on a woodwind instrument, but since they all come with enough keys to make the notes w/o doing so, it's not the normal way of playing. But it can be done, and quite often is.

"Tightening" the embrochure is not exactly it for a brass instrument, though. It's more a question of airstream. Yes, there is some "tightening" involved, but if you teach it like that, you're going to get a lot of bad habits (and pinched tones), since the throat and diaphragm are just as involved and as important.

[(BB)]

You just put your lips together and blow, or is that whistling?

[7/4]

It's about the harmonic series!

[J Larsen]

Got it. From a physics perspective, you blow into the horn the right way and generate a standing wave - that produces a note equal to the key of the trumpet. You have keys to fill out the next 6 half steps. To go seven half steps above hte fundamental, you blow in such a way as to create 1.5 wavelenghts of a standing wave. To hit the next harmonic, you blow (harder and with tighter lips?) to create to full wavelengths of a standing wave - this wave has half the wavelength and hence twice the frequency as your fundamental, so it is the first overtone/harmonic.

Thanks.

[Rooster_Ties]

It's all about the overtone series, as it is with all brass instruments. You get a different note from the same finguring by hitting another partial of the fundamental. Actually, you can do the same thing on a woodwind instrument, but since they all come with enough keys to make the notes w/o doing so, it's not the normal way of playing. But it can be done, and quite often is.

"Tightening" the embrochure is not exactly it for a brass instrument, though. It's more a question of airstream. Yes, there is some "tightening" involved, but if you teach it like that, you're going to get a lot of bad habits (and pinched tones), since the throat and diaphragm are just as involved and as important.

Jim, you sound like someone who's played some brass instruments in his day, and more than just a time or two.

We want details!!

[JSngry]

Not really. I 've got a degree in music education and had to take a brass class - trumpet, trombone, french horn (diabolical!) & baritone horn - in preparation to be a band director (which I've never become). Plus, you just pick all this stuff up being involved in music/band as more than just a social activity.

[JSngry]

Got it. From a physics perspective, you blow into the horn the right way and generate a standing wave - that produces a note equal to the key of the trumpet. You have keys to fill out the next 6 half steps. To go seven half steps above hte fundamental, you blow in such a way as to create 1.5 wavelenghts of a standing wave. To hit the next harmonic, you blow (harder and with tighter lips?) to create to full wavelengths of a standing wave - this wave has half the wavelength and hence twice the frequency as your fundamental, so it is the first overtone/harmonic.

Thanks.

That's pretty much it. But remember - you can get the same note out of different fundamentals. Thus the existence of differnt fingerings for the same note, each with slightly different "colorations". And if you either really know your shit or else just flat-out suck, you can mess the wave up enough through airflow/fingering manipulation that you get notes/sounds that "shouldn't" be possible.

[catesta]

I 've got a degree in music education

I never would have guessed.

[JSngry]

You're not the only one...

[J Larsen]

Got it. From a physics perspective, you blow into the horn the right way and generate a standing wave - that produces a note equal to the key of the trumpet. You have keys to fill out the next 6 half steps. To go seven half steps above hte fundamental, you blow in such a way as to create 1.5 wavelenghts of a standing wave. To hit the next harmonic, you blow (harder and with tighter lips?) to create to full wavelengths of a standing wave - this wave has half the wavelength and hence twice the frequency as your fundamental, so it is the first overtone/harmonic.

Thanks.

That's pretty much it. But remember - you can get the same note out of different fundamentals.

Now you are talking about chords (ie from a physics persective, superpositions of standing waves), right?

[JSngry]

Got it. From a physics perspective, you blow into the horn the right way and generate a standing wave - that produces a note equal to the key of the trumpet. You have keys to fill out the next 6 half steps. To go seven half steps above hte fundamental, you blow in such a way as to create 1.5 wavelenghts of a standing wave. To hit the next harmonic, you blow (harder and with tighter lips?) to create to full wavelengths of a standing wave - this wave has half the wavelength and hence twice the frequency as your fundamental, so it is the first overtone/harmonic.

Thanks.

That's pretty much it. But remember - you can get the same note out of different fundamentals.

Now you are talking about chords (ie from a physics persective, superpositions of standing waves), right?

Well, components of a chord, yeah. And multiphonics. But basically I mean that the same pitch can end up being a different partial of a different fundamental, so that's why/how you can produce the same pitch w/different fingerings. Check the fingeriing chart above.

[J Larsen]

I follow you. Thanks.

[JSngry]

You might want to look at a bugle for comparison. Essentially it's a valveless trumpet. And all it can play is melodies that have notes that fall in the overtone series of whatever fundamental pitch it's built in.

Now, a trumpet adds valves that turn the instrument into a bugle with, what, 8 different fundamentals. Of course, that complicates things/opens up a helluva lot more options, but the basic acoutic principals remain in play.

What I don't have a good grasp on yet is pedal tones. These are either true fundamentals below the "normal" playing range of the horn, or else some sort of "sub-fundamental". Pretty sure it's the former, but I'm not sure enough to speak with authority.

But when you hear, say, Nat Adderly playing those super-low "farting sounds" in his solos, that's what he's doing - hitting pedal tones. Learning to control/manipulate those is part of a good embrochure-building regimen, and they do have use as an "effect".

[J Larsen]

I'm guessing here, but it sounds to me like pedal tones are unstable partial waves in the horn.

[Hot Ptah]

The trumpet is a harsh mistress, requiring constant attention and daily long practice to stay any good at it. I played trumpet for eight years, throughout high school, in the school band, stage band, school play pit band, and marching band. I was not very good on a professional level, just one of the guys in the ensemble. I had a certain level of proficiency and ability to read music, but could not solo well in the stage band, for example.

For someone like me, I found that using the alternate fingerings for common notes in the treble clef tended to give you slightly different pitches, subtle but unmistakeable. The notes sounded slightly out of pitch to me, with the alternate fingerings. It was not like you could just switch around casually with the fingerings.

It was not difficult to make all of the pitches on the treble clef with a combination of fingerings and changes in embrochure. That is an elementary part of learning trumpet playing.

However, high register playing was quite difficult for me. It took a huge amount of daily practice time to keep my chops together enough to be able to hit the high notes. If I took any time off from practicing, like a family vacation trip, it took a long time to recover and get the high register back. Since I knew I was not going to be a professional musician, I did not have Prussian-like discipline about practicing.

In college, there was a recreational band for non-music majors, just for fun. Everyone who took it and came to all of the rehearsals and our one annual concert performance got a one credit "A" automatically. So many people took it to boost their GPA a little. It was not meant to be a serious musical ensemble, but there was a regular Music School faculty member in charge of it, and there was a certain pride in not making it sound terrible. I took this band class my first semester in college. The band had about 50 flute players, all female, and two trumpet players, together with a regular number of players on the other instruments. I was one of the two trumpet players.

I was studying hard and otherwise enjoying the undergrad experience that first semester, and was not practicing my trumpet a lot. I knew that I was in trouble one day about a month into the semester. I was practicing in a small music practice room in the basement of our high rise dorm. After I played for a while, a woman came down the hall and stared intently through the window in the door, a horrified, disgusted look on her face, like she had just heard one of the worst noises she had ever heard in her life.

Soon after that, in our band rehearsal, I was unable to hit the high notes in a section in which the trumpets were prominent. As there were only two of us, you could not hide. The band director asked me what the problem was. All 50 female flute players turned and stared at me in unison. All I could do was stammer that I was trying. I dropped the course the next day and never played again.

If you can't or won't devote a lot of time to the trumpet always, your chops don't go to 80 per cent, they go to near zero quickly. That was my experience at least.

[DukeCity]

Soon after that, in our band rehearsal, I was unable to hit the high notes in a section in which the trumpets were prominent. As there were only two of us, you could not hide. The band director asked me what the problem was. All 50 female flute players turned and stared at me in unison. All I could do was stammer that I was trying. I dropped the course the next day and never played again.

I guess a lot of trumpet players have to deal with "the looks", and as a result some of them get kinda sensitive about it. I was playing (in the sax section) in a band with a guy who is regarded by many as a state-of-the-art lead trumpet player. We were playing a tune and he played something really amazing. I was turning to look back at him for an "atta boy" and before I could even turn enough to see him, he shouted at me, "Fuck you! Turn around!"

Edited April 10, 2007 by DukeCity

[Hot Ptah]

Soon after that, in our band rehearsal, I was unable to hit the high notes in a section in which the trumpets were prominent. As there were only two of us, you could not hide. The band director asked me what the problem was. All 50 female flute players turned and stared at me in unison. All I could do was stammer that I was trying. I dropped the course the next day and never played again.

I guess a lot of trumpet players have to deal with "the looks", and as a result some of them get kinda sensitive about it. I was playing (in the sax section) in a band with a guy who is regarded by many as a state-of-the-art lead trumpet player. We were playing a tune and he played something really amazing. I was turning to look back at him for an "atta boy" and before I could even turn enough to see him, he shouted at me, "Fuck you! Turn around!"

That actually makes me feel better, after all of these years, to hear that a successful professional trumpet player did not like it when someone turned around and stared at him.

[flat5]

What the valves do:

When you push down a valve the pitch goes down. You are adding tubing, making the pipe longer.

First valve adds a whole step (valve closest to your head)

Second valve adds a half step

Third valve adds a step and a half.

So "closing" all valves adds 1+1/2+1 1/2 = 3 whole steps

[Jim Alfredson]

I guess a lot of trumpet players have to deal with "the looks", and as a result some of them get kinda sensitive about it. I was playing (in the sax section) in a band with a guy who is regarded by many as a state-of-the-art lead trumpet player. We were playing a tune and he played something really amazing. I was turning to look back at him for an "atta boy" and before I could even turn enough to see him, he shouted at me, "Fuck you! Turn around!"

I say that to the audience all the time.

But seriously, what a dick.

[DukeCity]

I guess a lot of trumpet players have to deal with "the looks", and as a result some of them get kinda sensitive about it. I was playing (in the sax section) in a band with a guy who is regarded by many as a state-of-the-art lead trumpet player. We were playing a tune and he played something really amazing. I was turning to look back at him for an "atta boy" and before I could even turn enough to see him, he shouted at me, "Fuck you! Turn around!"

I say that to the audience all the time.

But seriously, what a dick.

It was said with a certain amount of shock-value-twisted-humor, but it certainly got his point across.

And gosh, a trumpet player being a dick; imagine that...

[JSngry]

Yeah, really. Next thing you know you'll be telling me about an alto player who's a clotheshound.