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The Trumpet History Essay

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The History of The Trumpet

When people think of the trumpet, an image of a three valved, shiny brass instrument comes to mind. They hear some jazz music, or think of Louis Armstrong. However, these are only fairly modern examples of the trumpet and its use.

Many people who think of the trumpet in that Harlem Renaissance era, circa 1920’s, probably didn’t know that it could be dated back to around 1500 BC. The first models of the trumpet were found all over the world in places like King Tut’s tomb, Asia, and South America. These primary models were valveless, and barely resemble a trumpet at all. There were made mainly of wood, and its design was a single cylinder that extended into a cone at the end of the instrument. It's later use in medieval ages led to a design with metal, called “natural” or “Baroque” trumpets after the time period they were in. It still had no valves and was a continuous cylinder that extended into a cone, but was now folded, or looped. It was used mainly for military purposes, as its …show more content…

The valve, made by Heinrich David Stolzel and Friedrich Bluhmel in 1818, led to a different view of the trumpet; less as a ceremonial device and more as a musical instrument. Later on, the trumpet changed even more, with valve slides to help change the pitch of certain notes. It was mainly used in orchestral pieces, and the more popular trumpets were the trumpets in B♭, C, and E♭. The invention of the piccolo trumpet in 1890 by Victor Mahillon provided a higher range of the trumpet, and is much smaller in size. Eventually, the trumpet’s popularity skyrocketed with players such as Louis Armstrong and Dizzie Gillespie during the 1930’s. It was used in orchestras, but its use in jazz was also widely recognized. Now, the most popular form of the trumpet is the B♭ trumpet, and is used in a wide variety of music, from orchestra to jazz to marches and other band

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