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Originally Posted by ecarroll Brian,
Our new Swedish friend (welcome!) is right. Have you heard Jean-François Madeuf (Schola Cantorum, Basel) play the holeless natural trumpet? Trust me. . . he can play the Bach Cantatas in tune on the tailpipe of a Buick.
Two suggestions: an authentic (flat rim, no throat) mouthpiece, as suggested above, helps tremendously, and don't expect the nat to slot the notes for you like a modern trumpet. It doesn't (and shouldn't)
Good luck,
EC |
Thanks for the welcome!
There is a german instrument maker, Thein in Bremen, germany who makes an exact copy of a baroque trumpet (don't know which one). When they examined the original, they noted that the mouthpiece reciever was wery "far in" in the instrument. When playing it with a mouthpiece of a normal baroque length, you actually hit the back bow ow the bell with your cheek. Inside the mouth-pipe they disovered length-going scrathes from the beginning of the tube and about 10cm's down. This led them to believe that the instrument used to háve a short correction-slide in the mouthpiece-end of it. This is not to be confused with the "tromba da tirarsi" (slide trumpet) wich have a much longer slide.
I've tried the trumpet, and I have to say that it felt a bit awkward in the beginning, but if one can learn the quite irrational fingerings of a three or four hole trumpet I'm sure that one can learn this too!
I've seen paintings of trumpeters from the baroque era where they hold the trumpet with their right hand, and the left hand fingers grabs the mouthpiece suggesting that Theins theory can be right!
One also must remember that Europe was HUGE at the time (traveling took a LONG time), so maybe this was done in one area of Europe while not in another part.
In those days the note "a" could differ up to a minor third from region to region!
Food for thought, I think!
All the best!
