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| fre3d0m | Nov 21 2005, 09:46 PM |
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Joseph Haydn, a prominent composer in the classical era, contributed much to the repertiore of the modern-day trumpet with his Trumpet Concerto in Eb, one of the best-loved and famous concerto for Trumpet. He wrote it for an experimental trumpet, one with keys. This development of the keyed trumpet was a reaction against the valve-less or natural trumpet which could only play notes on a single harmonic series, which seriously limits the trumpet's playability. Keyed trumpet allows different fundamental notes to be played on the trumpet by changing the different length of tube (shorter tube produces higher pitch, longer tube.. vice versa). Hence allows many different harmonic notes to the played. This forms the basis of how valved-brass instruments work. Trombone is a very special brass instrument which effectively uses the concept of shorter-tube-higher-pitch-longer-tube-lower-pitch in its slide mechanism. In fact all musical instrument employs this law of physics of sound but trombone is slightly direct as it literally requires the player to lengthen the slide to lower the pitch and vice versa. But it too uses the concept of harmonic notes and overblowing to obtain notes on the harmonic series. This allows the trombone to have a range beyond what it's size and slide allows it to have. Well.. It exists in all wind instruments in fact......... What am I talking.... haha... If there is any error in the infomation do correct me, or even feed us with more interesting infomation. In Haydn's Trumpet Concerto, he wrote parts in the middle register for the newly invented keyed trumpet, which have beautiful melodies etc...This is previously not possible with the natural trumpet. Before the valve trumpets, there were only natural trumpets. The only way for trumpets to hold melodies, play scales etc was to play in the higher harmonic notes. Brass players know that when they overblow the fundamental note, they are in fact playing the harmonic notes. The 1st harmonic note being the octave above the fundamental, 2nd harmonic note being an octave and a fifth, 3rd harmonic note being 2 octaves above, 4th being 2 octave and a 3rd, 5th being 2 octave and a fifth and so on and so on. This is caused because each time you overblow, you shorten the effective vibrating tube by half. So if say, a trumpet were to play to extremes of the harmonic series, they can play a scale and even chromatic notes. This is being exploited by Bach in his scoring of very high trumpet parts in his Brandenburg Concerti. Trumpets hold melodies here and there throughout the concerto, but in the extreme registers. Clarino playing as it is called, requires tremendous lip and breath control of the trumpeter, which was perfected by many 18th centuries trumpeters. Interesting to note too is the very high horn parts in Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, probably scored for natural horns as well. Also in the past there were only trumpets in D (or is it?), and many music written in the baroque era with prominent trumpet parts were in D maj or its relative minor. Take for example Jemeiah Clarke's Trumpet Voluntary. Okay, I am not really sure about this, BUT definitely there is a link between the writing of music by Composers and the playability of the instrument they are writting for. Well, here's my take. Any error do say.... Lol... So conclusion, Haydn has made contributions to the modern-day trumpet we see today. |
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12:24 PM Nov 25
