The family of brass instruments includes all those that are sounded by the vibrations of a player’s lips. Though not all are actually made of brass, the majority of instruments in the family are made from metal alloys coated with a shiny lacquer. Brass instruments differ less in their construction than the woodwind family. Like their cousins, they make use of both conical and cylindrical bores but very often both are ...
Bugle Best known in its military guise, the bugle is one of the simplest of brass instruments in terms of construction, but it is very difficult to play. The single tube of metal has no valves to help create different notes, so players have to do all the work by changing their embouchure – a combination of the tightness of the lips and the amount of air pushed through them. Although simple ...
The history of musical instruments has always been very closely linked to the history of music itself. New musical styles often come about because new instruments become available, or improvements to existing ones are made. Improvements to the design of the piano in the 1770s, for instance, led to its adoption by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91), who quickly developed a new, individual style of keyboard writing. On the ...
The cornet is very similar to the trumpet in looks and playing technique. It is thought to have been invented by the instrument maker Jean-Louis Antoine in the 1820s. Antoine, who worked for the Parisian firm Halary, was one of a number of makers experimenting with the new valve technology that was revolutionizing brass instruments at the time. His idea of adding valves to the post horn rapidly caught on, and ...
The cornett of European Renaissance art music is a longer finger-hole horn made of wood. A precursor to the modern brass horns, it should not be confused with the valved – and much later developed – cornet. Construction and Playing Technique The cornett is a long tube, usually around 60 cm (20 in) in length. It is normally curved, like an animal horn, so that the player’s hands can reach the finger ...
The flugelhorn developed from the bugle, a signalling horn used in the Middle Ages and made out of bull or ox horn. This developed into a large, semicircular hunting horn made of brass or silver that was used by the military during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). History Wrapping the horn around itself once, so the bell pointed directly away from the player, enabled keys to be added, and the resulting instrument ...
The term ‘horn’ is generally used to refer to the orchestral horn, also known as the French horn. Although it is used in jazz slang to indicate any wind instrument played by a soloist, the name here refers to the orchestral horn. History The early history of the horn is bound intimately to that of the trumpet. Both instruments were made of brass, both were sounded by buzzing lips, both were ...
The post horn is a small, valveless brass instrument once used by guards on mail coaches to announce arrivals and departures. Originally bow shaped, in the seventeenth century post horns were bent in a single loop to play the fundamental pitch bb'. Clearly these were small instruments, perhaps only 7 cm (3 in) across; nevertheless they appear in the music of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767), George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) and Johann ...
The early part of the nineteenth century was a rich period for the development of instruments; many designs dating from this period are now established as the standard forms. The brass world was no exception. Adolphe Sax A man with business acumen and a fascination with design, Adolphe Sax was quick to seize on these developments. Having found major success with his patented saxophone family in the early 1840s, Sax had ...
A conically bored baritone instrument, the serpent is supposed to have been invented by Edmé Guillaume in 1590. Like its close relative, the cornett, it is sounded by buzzing the lips into an ivory-, horn- or metal-cup mouthpiece which, in turn, agitates the air column. Its 213-cm (84-in) length is undulating in appearance, giving it its name. It is normally made out of walnut wood, although it can also be ...
The shofar is a ram’s horn used as a musical instrument in Judaism. Broadly speaking, it was sounded at times of ceremony, such as the celebration of the new moon, at times of great significance, such as a drought or famine, and as a signal for war. Today, its use in secular contexts has largely been abandoned, though it was sounded in celebration of the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. It ...
A trombone is a brass instrument sounded by buzzing the lips into a mouthpiece. It is peculiar amongst brass instruments in using a double ‘U’-shaped slide to alter its pitch. The early history of the trombone is confused, mostly due to a lack of clarity in naming instruments. It is generally accepted that the immediate precursor to the trombone was the sackbut. This term was used from the fifteenth to ...
The trumpet is one of the most ancient instruments still played today. Clear depictions of trumpets survive in Egyptian paintings and two trumpets – one of silver, the other of gold and brass – found in the tomb of Tutankhamun date back to at least 1350 BC. There are many examples of Roman and Greek trumpets which, like the Egyptian instruments, were made from a straight, conical tube flaring to ...
The tuba is essentially a large, valved bugle, designed to take the bass part in an orchestra or band. Like the trumpet, it is sounded by buzzing the lips into a mouthpiece. It is conically bored, like the horn, and consequently has a smooth, velvety sound. History The tuba is a youngster among brass instruments; it is one of a number of instruments developed in the furiously inventive atmosphere of the ...
Virtually any tube, even without any modification as a musical instrument, can be sounded as a horn, producing a series of notes from the harmonic series. Conches Many of the world’s horns are found objects: an animal horn with the tip cut off, or a large spiral-type shell, usually a conch, with the point cut off to give access to the tube within. Separate cup-shaped mouthpieces are often fit. Blown conches aren’t ...
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