Brass wind musical instruments

The name “copper” historically goes back to the material from which these tools were made. Nowadays, for their manufacture, in addition to copper, brass is often used, less often silver or the material of manufacture is covered with a silver film (silver). Some of the instruments of the Middle Ages and Baroque with a similar method of sound extraction (for example, serpent ) were made of wood, but covered with sheet copper.

Brass instruments include modern ones: horn , trumpet , cornet , flugelhorn , trombone , tuba . A separate group is composed of saxhorns . Antique copper instruments: saccut (the precursor of modern trombone), serpent , etc. Some folk instruments, such as the Central Asian karnay, are also copper .

The art of blowing into the hollow horn of an animal or into a shell was already known in ancient times. Subsequently, people learned how to make metal special tools similar to horns and intended for military, hunting and religious purposes.

The ancestors of modern brass instruments were hunting horns, military signal pipes, postal horns and ancient Greek fanfares (you can also mention the pioneer horn). These instruments, which did not have a valve mechanism, made several sounds of a natural scale , extracted only with the help of the performer's lips. From here came military and hunting fanfares and signals, based on the sounds of a natural scale, firmly entrenched in musical practice.

With the improvement of metal processing technology and the production of metal products, it became possible to manufacture tubes for wind instruments of certain dimensions and the desired degree of finish. With the improvement of copper wind pipes and the development of art to extract a significant amount of sounds from a natural scale, the concept of natural instruments , that is, instruments without a mechanism capable of producing only a natural scale, has appeared.

At the beginning of the XIX century, a valve mechanism was invented, which dramatically changed the technique of execution and increased the capabilities of brass instruments.

Brass instruments are divided into several families:

• Natural instruments do not have any additional handsets and can only extract sounds from a natural scale. In the 18th century, special orchestras consisting of natural horns appeared in Russia. Until the beginning of the 19th century, natural instruments were widely used in music, then, with the invention of valve and rocker mechanisms, they became obsolete. Natural instruments are also sometimes found in the scores of composers of the 19th – 20th centuries (Wagner, R. Strauss, Ligeti) for special musical and sound effects. Natural instruments include antique trumpets and horns, as well as alpine horn , fanfare, horn , signal horns (hunting, mail) and the like.
• Backstage instruments use a special U-shaped retractable tube — a backstage — whose movement changes the length of the air stream passing through the channel, thereby lowering or increasing the sounds that are extracted. The main classic rocker brass instrument is trombone.
• Valve instruments have openings on the body that can be opened and closed by the fingers of a performer, like on woodwind instruments . Such instruments were widespread until the 18th century, however, due to some inconvenience of playing them, they later also went out of use. The main valve copper tools are cornet (zinc), serpent , oficleleid , valve pipe . They also include the Russian folk instrument - the horn ^[1] .
• Valve tools have several valves (usually three ― four), controlled by the fingers of the performer. The principle of the valve is to instantly include an additional crown in the main tube, increasing the channel length of the tool and, as a result, the length of the air flow in the tool and, thus, reducing its entire structure. Several valves connecting tubes of different lengths allow you to get a chromatic scale. Valve is the majority of modern brass instruments - horn, pipe, tuba, saxhorn, etc. There are two valve designs - "rotary" and "standing" (piston).

Nowadays, with the revival of interest in ancient music, the performance on natural and valve instruments is once again coming into practice.

Brass instruments can also be classified by their acoustic properties in ^[2] :

• Full - instruments on which you can extract the basic tone of a natural scale .
• Half - instruments on which it is impossible to extract the main tone, and the natural scale begins with the second harmonic.

Brass instruments are widely used in various musical genres and compositions. As part of a symphony orchestra, they form one of its main groups. The standard composition of a group of brass instruments in a symphony orchestra includes:

• French horn (an even number from two to eight, most often four)
• Pipes (from two to five, most often two ― three)
• Trombones (usually three: two tenors and one bass)
• Tuba (usually one)

Cornets were also often included in symphony orchestras in musical scores of the 19th century, however, with the development of performing technique, their parts were played on trumpets. Other copper instruments appear only occasionally in the orchestra.

Copper instruments are the basis of a brass band , which in addition to the above instruments also includes saxhorns of various sizes.

Solo musical compositions for brass instruments are quite numerous - virtuoso performers on natural pipes and horns already existed in the early Baroque era, and composers willingly created their own compositions for them. After a certain decline in interest in wind instruments in the era of romanticism, in the XX century there was the discovery of new performing abilities of brass instruments and a significant expansion of their repertoire.

In chamber ensembles, brass instruments are used relatively rarely, but they themselves can be combined into ensembles, of which the most common brass quintet (two trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba).

Trumpets and trombones play an important role in jazz and a number of other genres of modern music.

Modern

• French horn
• Cornet-a-piston
• Saxhorn Family:
  • Alto
  • Tenor
  • Baritone
  • Bass
  • Euphonium
• Sousaphone
• Trumpet
• Trombone
• Tuba
• Fanfare
• Flugelhorn
• Helicon

Helikon, with a large, wide bell peeking over the shoulder of the musician, can be seen at military parades or during the ceremony of meeting honored guests. This - the lowest sounding brass instrument - is used only in brass bands. By sound, it corresponds to a tube.

Disused

• Cornet (also known as zinc)
• Ocheleid
• Sacbut
• Serpent
• Chimbasso

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