gsmonks

Since this subject keeps coming up, and since there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about trumpets and cornets, I've been trying to think of a simple way to communicate the difference between trumpets and cornets, and what I've come up with is a little show-and-tell:

Here's the cornet ordinaire, aka valved French post horn. This is what cornet players used to call a "cornet". It is the ancestor of the cornopean (cornet a pistons) and the modern cornet (the modele anglaise cornet patented by Antoine Courtois in 1855:

http://www.horncollector.com/Trumpet...rumpet%201.jpg

Here's the Eb natural trumpet:

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/740/97390.JPG

gsmonks

The valved post horn evolved into this:

http://www.tadleyband.org/gallery/lb-cornet.jpg

The natural trumpet evolved into this:

http://www.horn-u-copia.net/instrume...er-trumpet.jpg

What confuses the matter is the modern Bb "trumpet":

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/1108393...Water_Keys.jpg

Which began life as this:

Image View

Evolved into this (long-model cornet: uses a cornet mouthpiece):

Image View

And circa 1910 lost the cornet mouthpiece and looked about the same:

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/1108393...Water_Keys.jpg

MFfan

Thanks, that does the trick for me. Can we make all this a "Sticky"?

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rowuk

You are off on the trumpet. The first valved trumpets in Germany were pitched in low F and had a similar proportion of cylindrical to conical tubing as the natural trumpet. This gave it a very "regal" tone, similar to the nat. Later developments were shorter up to Bb and C, keeping the same bell, but then with much less cylindrical tubing. The horns got shorter to increase security, with a considerable "loss" of tone according to players of the time. Parallel to the developments in Germany, was France that moved more quickly to the higher pitched instruments.

The modern Bb or C trumpet actually has less than 50% cylindrical tubing, making it more of a mega cornet than a member of the trumpet family.

Check this link out:
Musical instruments: history ... - Google Buchsuche

and this:


I own an instrument like this and can appreciate the different tone quality!

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Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

ChopsGone

We've come a long way from the instruments' ancestors, an old animal horn and a hollow stick. While it's interesting to consider the trumpet and cornet "begats", some of the spurious offspring are even more interesting - the keyed bugle (now there's a cornet ancestor for you), the ophicleide, and all of Sax's misbegotten creations. Work in the successful ones, the saxhorns best known as flugelhorns, and you've got mostly a whole lot of engineering ideas which can be, and have been, applied to many instruments.

Whether a specific modern trumpet has more or less than 50% cylindrical tubing doesn't work for me as an identifying mark of cornet or trumpet. Not when there are so many horns out there with step bores. And a good many of my vintage but definitely modern trumpets do indeed have mostly cylindrical tubing. A modern trumpet doesn't have the sound of a natural trumpet, although when you compare similar pipe lengths, they're a lot closer. My high F natural trumpet sounds a lot like a modern trumpet to me on the same tones, but it's only a bit over 25" long, traditional 3-pipe/2 bend construction. The last 16" of bell section are conical, the rest of the horn cylindrical. If I were to graft a modern valve section into this thing, it would still sound like a trumpet.

And while many people keep telling us how a modern trumpet is really a sort of cornet, I'm sorry, but it doesn't look or sound like a cornet (regrettably, neither do all too many modern cornets), so it fails two of the three is-it-a-duck tests. It's evolved. Both of them have. Long cornets and conical-bore trumpets are just more variations serving someone's perceived needs. Oversimplifying the complex mechanics of a modern trumpet simply to be able to call it cornet-like or trumpet-like doesn't really help anything. If it has adopted some characteristics of a cornet over the centuries, that doesn't keep it from being today's trumpet. As much as I might admire the sound of the old big trumpets, they're not likely to make much of a comeback.

I think I'll shut up and go play my Kuhlohorn.

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Vintage Olds and Reynolds, yes sir, yes sir, one gazoo full.

Calicchios, Besson, Kanstul Bessons, Selmers, etc.

F.E. forgive me, even a Bach Strad (but I like the others much better)

zentrails

I'll just keep happily playing my 1931 Martin Handcraft "concert" trumpet.

Is that an "old big trumpet"?

ComeBackKid

Rowuk - thanks for the photo and the link to the book. Not only was the history section instructional (what was shown of it) but the first section on acoustical theory was absolutely fascinating. It tied to the other thread on 'hidden slot' and it raised a question that I am adding to that thread if you care to read and comment on it.

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(+Revelle, Bundy, Alcazar, & ?)

oldlou

In addition to all of the above, I have been fascinated by and have collected those instruments devised by E.A. Couturier. All of which are known for their conicality and impossibility to readily keep clean internally. In their piston valved instruments, even the through ports of the valves are conical. There are no tuning slides for any of the valves, making the player 'lip into tune' any of the problem notes that many modern musicians extend slides to maintain proper intonation. Old E.A.C. even made a conical bore slide trombone. That thing was a real trip. He made every thing from cornet to tuba, all of the same conicality. Fine quality in all cases.


OLDLOU>>

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B&H Sovereign cornet
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Getzen Super Deluxe trumpet and cornet
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Many others no room to list

ChopsGone

zentrails: Nope, that's a modern trumpet. What I meant by "old, big trumpets" was the orchestral valved trumpets which preceded the modern Bb and C - an F trumpet, for example, was noticeably larger and significantly heavier than a modern instrument.

__________________
Vintage Olds and Reynolds, yes sir, yes sir, one gazoo full.

Calicchios, Besson, Kanstul Bessons, Selmers, etc.

F.E. forgive me, even a Bach Strad (but I like the others much better)

gsmonks

I'm probably showing my computer-illiteracy here, but what the heck is a "Sticky"?