![]() ![]() But in no way should these guidelines stifle creativity: new music can and should push boundaries. Of course, these guidelines are just that – a guide to trumpet writing that keeps within the physical limits of the performer and their instrument, and helps avoid writing that completely exhausts your player. The extreme high register, from c’’’, should be used very sparingly.Any virtuosic or strenuous material, as well as passages where the trumpet is “featured”, should be preceded and followed by rests.Firstly, as a general rule, writing shorter phrases with frequent rests gives the performer the physical and mental preparation time they need.However, composers should bear in mind that even professional players tire easily, and that their piece might not be the only piece on the program. Trumpet players have to train these muscles daily to stay at the top of their game. The embouchure required for trumpet playing requires a set of delicate muscles in the face, lips and tongue. There are, however, a few basic guidelines which make the job of the trumpeter a lot easier. ![]() ![]() Despite my own experience as a performer playing a whole lot of great new music for the trumpet, I still find endurance to be one of the more difficult concepts to explain to composers in a useful way. Central to this is the issue of endurance. In my experience, this usually stems from a misunderstanding of what is possible and realistic for trumpeters. One of the most common complaints from trumpeters about contemporary music is an apparent lack of consideration for their physical limitations. Playing classical repertoire on natural trumpets offers insight into what the composer had in mind while shedding light on the conventions for orchestral trumpet writing more broadly, especially with regards to transposition.Endurance is an issue that virtually all brass players have struggled with since they first picked up their instrument, and one that continues to challenge them in their professional careers.The musical and technical challenges posed by learning classical period repertoire on the natural trumpet can translate to a higher degree of mastery and artistry when playing on modern trumpets.The timbre of the natural trumpet is fundamentally (pun intended) different from the modern trumpet, and playing in a section of instruments on the same harmonic series (often with French horns), creates a cooperative sonority that is impossible with modern instruments that are constantly shifting between harmonic series.The epic trumpet fanfares that serve as bookends to Gustav Mahler's First Symphony are a perfect example, and the long F trumpets for which they were written would have sounded much more like natural trumpets than the relatively short Bb or C trumpets that are most often used today.īut why learn classical period repertoire on the natural trumpet when a modern trumpet can play all the notes that a natural trumpet can? Three basic reasons: The style of writing for the trumpet by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn laid the groundwork for later romantic composers, and it is undeniable that the instrument’s best loved, and best-known literature was either written for the natural trumpet or evolved directly from it. This new role, which relegated the trumpet to a range typically not higher than the 12th partial of the harmonic series, was nonetheless critical to the motivic and harmonic structure of the music of its time. Telemann come to mind, and we often forget the enormous volume of material written in the late 18 th through mid- 19 th centuries at a time when the instrument was taking on a different role in art music. When we think of the natural (or Baroque) trumpet, the virtuosic high trumpet parts by composers such as J.S. ![]()
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