Trumpet Simulator

[Awilda]

Utilizinga virtual trumpet to simulate playing can be a great way to fight boredom and craft your own melodies. It brings together amusement, education, learning, and imagination, allowing you to play your favorite tunes from any location.

The trumpet is a brass instrument which produces the highest register in this family. It has three valves which are used to change the pitch of the instrument, as shown in the interactive trumpet fingering chart above.

To get started, slip your left-hand ring finger through the ring in the middle of the trumpet, curl your other fingers around the valves and place your thumb on the thumb rest. Your pinkie finger can simply rest against the third valve.

Now on to your right hand: your index, middle and ring fingers should sit on the three valves, while your pinkie finger can either rest on, or curl around, the pinkie holder. Your thumb can simply rest underneath the valves.

There are two ways to produce pitch on the trumpet: using your lip position (open notes) and using the valves. Once you have mastered the lip positions, you can move onto the trumpet fingering chart above.

The valve system of a trumpet is superficially simple: you have threevalves, one that lowers pitch by a whole step, one by a half step, andone by a step and a half. For example, the easiest note to play on atrumpet is the 'Bb' you get with all the valves open. From thisposition the first valve will lower you from Bb to Ab, the second fromBb to A, and the third from Bb to G. To get other notes, however,you're going to need to start combining valves, and that's where thefudging comes in.

The note you get out of a trumpet depends on the length of tubing theair travels through. To make a valve that lowers pitch by a halfstep, you send the air through 5.95% more tubing. [2] The problem is,after the first valve lowers us a whole step by adding 12.2% moretubing, adding the second valve on top of that only lowers us by5.30%. But it really gets bad once we add the third valve. If thevalves are set at exactly a whole step, half step, and step and ahalf, then when we put all three in we'll be adding 37% instead of41%. So as you play the note you adjust with your lips, or you use athird-valve slide to add a bit more tubing.

But what if you don't want to have to make adjustments? What if youwant each note to come out as close to where it should be as possible?Then play in C# major and set the tuning slides to make that asin-tune as it will go. I wrote a simulator thatfigures out the optimal settings for the tuning slides for a given setof notes and computes the remaining error,and here are the twelve major keys in descending order of intonation:

Overall, the main thing I'm taking away from this is that theintonation issues I'm having playing trumpet and baritone in contradance sharp keys like D and A is to be expected and requires activecompensation by the player. In other words, I should learn to use thethird valve slide.

[2] Why? Well, if you lower a note by a half step twelve times youneed to get the same note an octave down, which means we need to endup with twice as much tubing. Solve for this amount and you get5.95%. It's the twelfth root of two (1.0595), less one to make it apercentage increase instead of something to multiply by.

The sound starts on a brass family instrument when a musician buzzes their lips into the mouthpiece to get the air inside vibrating. The main brass instruments in an orchestra are the trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba. These instruments are located along the back of the orchestra because you otherwise may not be able to hear the other instruments over their large, bright sound.

The percussion family contains hundreds of instruments, though only about 10-20 are used regularly in an orchestra. They are any instrument you strike or shake to make a sound. The percussion section usually has 1-5 musicians at a concert with one musician who only plays the timpani and none of the other instruments.

These thoughts quickly led me to the idea of creating a Visio shape that could be used atop imported screenshots of sheet music. So I quickly set to work creating a Visio SmartShape that could easily display trumpet fingerings like this:

Visio can incorporate images into drawings and diagrams. You can import from files on your disk or in cloud services such as Dropbox or OneDrive, or just cut and paste. Sometimes you can even drag and drop from your browser.

It has enough useful options, such as choosing the range of notes to practice, fingering a horn with 3 or 4 valves, screen layout of the valves, quizzing via random notes, scales or exercises, and more.

I've started the process of switching over to trumpet. I was wondering how difficult it would be to join the nearest drum corps on trumpet when I switched over. I've heard stories about people making it in with less than a year of experience on a new instrument, but they were all mellos and euphs.

If you're good enough, can march, are a team player, and pay the bills on time, you can make most corps. With a few more years of eligibility left, you might consider either an open corps or a corps that did not make the top 12 last year, then audition in November for another corps. Best of luck and keep practicing.

I'm currently a senior in high school and play flute/piccolo. I've started the process of switching over to trumpet (I already own one, and anything else is very difficult for me to carry. I'm a fairly tiny person). I was wondering how difficult it would be to join the nearest drum corps (the Blue Knights) on trumpet when I switched over. I've heard stories about people making it in with less than a year of experience on a new instrument, but they were all mellos and euphs.

A few things- 1) I had a student in my band program that played clarinet and made the switch to trumpet. I told her this very important piece of info- immerse yourself in it. I've seen students over my 15 year teaching career that expect a switch to be easy. It never is... But, if you take lessons, practice using good fundamentals you could do very well. The clarinet player turned trumpet? She made both All Region Jazz, and All Region band on trumpet. It just takes devotion and dedication to the techniques necessary to be a good player.

2) Seek out help- Best to take lessons and also get help on picking method books to help your needs. You want to do a lot of mouthpiece buzzing, breathing, lip slurring, tone building to start. Keep the throat and teeth wide open in an AHH position. Seek as much help as possible in your practice.

When I auditioned for PR for their 2003 season, I was an above average college level player. Trumpet players much worse than I made the corps - but they had already marched with lesser corps and knew what touring was all about.

Touring is incredibly tough stuff. The members suffer miserably for weeks on end. I don't think I would have been able to handle it, and I don't think I really understood what I was in for at the time, and the staff probably did me a favor by cutting me. That was the season they took 4th.

From a recruitment/audition standpoint most corps do relish drum corps experience. That said, the quality of the player matters immensely. Sure attitude, consistency, ability to keep up, financial concerns are all valid. But, World Class corps are seeking the best talent. Some corps, because of various circumstances have younger talent with potential while others have nearly 100 percent vet/experienced members. Still in the world today, it's all about great sound, good technique and the ability to march with great timing at various rates in tempo.

BK is getting picky the past couple of years. Keep that in mind, but don't let it deter you. Get with Wes...follow his advice...heck, you might even pay BK a visit when they get back to Denver for DATR and talk to some of the members and staff. They are nice people.

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