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Music: Practice & Theory

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  • Is there any chance that the pictured trumpet is keyed like a modern Baroque reproduction, anticipated by Leonardo da Vinci and maybe a precursor of Anton Weidinger's prototype? Commented Jul 18, 2024 at 17:10
  • @GratefulDisciple modern baroque trumpets have vent holes but no keys. As far as I understand, which isn't terribly far, they affect tuning of individual overtones rather than changing which overtone series is being used. They cannot play chromatic passages, for example. Da Vinci's instrument was more of a true keyed trumpet if I understand correctly, similar to Weidinger's, perhaps, but I haven't seen the drawings. The holes on a keyed trumpet are similar in size to those of a woodwind instrument; the holes on a modern baroque trumpet are much much smaller. Commented Jul 18, 2024 at 19:32
  • @phoog There have been experiments with trumpets with tone holes, thing is that this heavily affects tone and response of the instrument. There have been players trying to stop trumpets, but that did not catch on. Now keys allows not only to have tone holdes, but also tone holes with optimal position and size. But they require certain metalworking technology, which made a huge leap in 19th century, which is why in that era we see the big development towards modern brass instruments. The keyed trumpets were still not popular, as they affected tone, and became obsolete only shortly after with .. Commented Jul 19, 2024 at 9:37
  • @phoog ... valve/piston trumpets (which still took some time to get widely adopted, as musicians tend to stick to what they know). So all in all any keyed trumpet would probably be an experimental thing, nothing you would expect to be manufactured in numbers and shipped all over the place. Commented Jul 19, 2024 at 9:51