Catholic Schoolhouse Year 3 - Rhetoric Level - Music Quarter 4 – Brass Instruments Class Opener: Brainstorm all the places and genres that you recall in which brass instruments commonly perform. Which are your favorites? Can you easily tell when you are hearing a brass instrument versus another kind of instrument? How can you tell? Brass Instruments The brass family of instruments are wind instruments usually made of brass or other metal through which a sound is produced by buzzing the lips into a mouthpiece and using the lips, chin and tongue to alter the pitch. Brass instruments are aerophones, or wind instruments, and though they may appear fairly complicated, they are really just a long metal tube through which air travels. These metal tubes are typically bent into S-curves or loops to make them more compact and easy to handle, but if they were each to be stretched to their maximum length, it would be evident that the shorter instruments produce higher sounds than the longer ones. That is because the column of air in the instrument, like the length of the string on a violin or cello, is what vibrates and determines the pitch. The pitch of a brass instrument can be altered by using the lips alone to reach the octaves, fifths and fourths, but the remaining notes are produced by means of valves, which redirect the air through the metal tube in various directions, or slides, which lengthen the metal tube to various degrees. Brass mouthpiece image credit Basic brass instruments include the trumpet, French horn, trombone, and tuba. Like the woodwinds, each of these basic orchestral instruments belongs to a family of its own, providing a greater variety of sound, color and texture to the orchestra or band. While brass instruments can be played softly, they are naturally among the louder instruments. They are usually used to some degree in any kind of band or orchestra, and they can be featured as soloists or participate in smaller chamber groups so long as their sound does not overpower the other instruments. The brass instrument most commonly used in woodwind quintets, for example, is the French horn, which has a bell facing away from the audience and is muted by the player's hand which is placed inside the bell to control volume and, historically, pitch. Brass instruments may also use mutes to soften their sound and create various kinds of tones. Brass instruments of course also commonly have ensembles of their own, where their sounds blend more than compete with one another. Listen: Canadian Brass Ensemble plays Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZO5KTJTwhE “Jupiter” from Gustav Holst's The Planets, performed by the Black Dyke Brass Band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvDZXUbljuM Discuss: • How does the overall sound of the group change when there are no woodwinds or strings? How would you describe the sound of brass instruments as compared to woodwinds? (Besides quieter) • What is an aerophone? Can you name some other aerophones besides the four mentioned in this lesson? • Do the two pieces above sound at all familiar to you? Which do you like better? Trumpet image credit (size altered) Trumpets are among the most ancient of brass instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC. In ancient times, because they were so easily heard from a distance, they were used for calling people's attention to something important, like the arrival of a king, or the beginning of a battle, or they might have functioned as a signal that worship would soon begin. Indeed, the trumpet is referenced in the Bible far more than any other instrument, and the ancient Hebrews even had a liturgical feast every year which was often called the Feast of Trumpets, but is now known as Rosh Hashanah. The feast was essentially a trumpet-call to repentance in preparation for the New Year according to the Hebrew calendar. A priest would blow a shofar, which is a ram's horn, and its sound could be heard far and wide. Shofars are still commonly used in Jewish worship today. There are several types of trumpets but the most commonly used one is the B-flat trumpet. Early trumpets were not really trumpets but bugles, and did not have valves but were simply long metal tubes that flared to a bell shape at the end. This meant that the notes that the instruments could play were very limited; that is, only the octaves, fifths and some others. Military songs such as “Reveille” and “Taps” were derived from this limitation, and many early regal fanfares likewise were also produced using these simple types of trumpets. Fanfares are short tunes or flourishes played by brass instruments that serve to introduce someone or something important. Valves were invented in the early 19th century and essentially filled in all the gaps of the scale, allowing these instruments to play all the chromatic notes in their range. This is what eventually gave way to the modern trumpet. Trumpets typically are fashioned with piston valves, as in the diagram below. A piston valve works by depressing a key which then redirects the airflow through a different tube, making the overall tube slightly longer and thereby lowering the sound. Most trumpets have at least three piston valves. The first one lowers the pitch by a whole tone, the second by a semitone, and the third lowers it by a minor third. Trumpets serve as the soprano voice of the brass section in the band or orchestra, typically playing the higher and more melodious parts of the music, along with violins, flutes, oboes and clarinets. Owing to their power of volume, trumpet sections tend to be larger in bands than they are in orchestras, where there are usually only two to four players. Some famous composers of well-known trumpet music include J.S. Bach, Haydn, and scores of modern era composers. Other instruments related to the trumpet are the cornet, flugelhorn, and piccolo trumpet. There are also trumpets suited to various keys (A, C, D, E-flat, E, F and G) which increase in size to create a fuller lower range. image credit Listen: Introductory material: Introduction to the Trumpet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcIp7K2UFgE Comparison of different trumpet sounds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UxaeYoDtdA Sound of the Hebrew shofar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8t1r2DSxsg Noteworthy musical works: J.S. Bach's Rondeau (known as the theme for Masterpiece Theater), a good example of baroque trumpet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NhqwAbV-a4 Wynton Marsalis plays Carnival of Venice, an excellent example of virtuosic solo trumpet playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inED9IicIpc Examples of fanfare: U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps Trumpet Ensemble playing Cavalry Fanfare by Jan Dismas Zelenka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UhERt4dDLU Olympic Fanfare by John Williams, performed by Cyprus Brass Ensemble https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gsCxvrZoCM Discuss: • Have you ever heard a fanfare before? Where and when? What do all fanfares seem to have in common? When else are they used? • How is the shofar similar and different from a modern trumpet, not just in appearance but also in sound? • Do you think it is appropriate to bring trumpets into the worship space for Mass or not? French Horn image credit French horns are recognized by their signature hoop shape and large flaring bell, reminiscent of historic hunting horns used to call hounds to a fox chase. French horns and trombones are, among all the brass instruments, the ones which probably best simulate the sound and range of the human voice, and that's why they were often included in church services in classical times while trumpets were usually considered too loud for worship. Some French horns have piston valves like the trumpet, but most modern French horns have rotary valves, as seen in the diagram below. Rotary valves were first applied to brass instruments in 1818 by two German men named Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blümel and replaced the older system of crooks. Crooks were segments of tubing in various lengths which were attached or unattached to the horn according to what pitches were needed. Rotary valves are far more efficient and easier to use than crooks. They work by rotating 90 degrees when a corresponding key is pressed, redirecting the air through different channels to produce different tones. image credit The first French horn was called a single horn. You could play either an F horn or a B-flat horn at one time, but both were often needed in a typical orchestral performance in order to be able to reach notes in various ranges while still maintaining a nice tone quality. F horns worked better in the lower range, and B-flat horns were better for the higher range. But in 1897 a double horn was invented that combined the best of both worlds into one instrument. A double horn is essentially what it sounds like: two horns in one. More recently, a triple horn was also developed. Some other similar types of horns include the natural horn, which, like the bugle, has no valves and is most like what we think of when we see or hear about an old-fashioned British fox chase. There is also the Vienna horn, which is primarily used in Vienna, Austria, and has piston valves and crooks, and the mellophone, which is a horn that looks like a large version of a trumpet or flugelhorn, and is often used in place of the French horn in marching bands since it is easier to carry and has a similar range.