The Trumpet Over The Years
The first known mouthpiece was smooth with a round opening at the small end of the horn. Later when the horn was redesigned it was fitted with an actual mouthpiece made from, wood, bone ivory and later copper, silver, gold, bronze and brass.
The original horn was created to communicate through distance, conversations could be carried up to half a mile! When mankind learned to work with soft metal such as copper, zinc, lead , tin, silver and gold, at first the horns were decorated with them , then eventually created entirely out of these metals.
When it was possible to bend metal tubing, three shapes became well-known; the circular horn design, the trumpet design and the bugle design. The horn had a funnel-type mouthpiece, circular shape,and a mellow tone. The trumpet had a cup shaped mouthpiece, forward-facing configuration, and a blaring tone. The bugle had a deep cup mouthpiece, forward facing configuration and a more mellow tone than the trumpet.
The next stage of the trumpets history was more of a solution. During the time that the natural trumpets were mainly used musicians had to perform with all different sizes of horns all tuned to different keys . Each horn only being able to produce one harmonic series. The music got more complex , requiring more tones it became a problem. The instrument would have to change to keep up with demands.
Jean Hilaire Aste invented a version of the trumpet valves in 1828. The valves were first seen on a horn called the cornet ordinaire, With the new valves the horn had the ability to play all the notes it possibly needed to. The invention of the valves made it possible for a large number of horns to be produced including the trumpet we now use today!