Brass Instruments
Brass instruments are very different from woodwind or percussion instruments. The differences in sound between conical and cylindrical brass instruments is often is often as much about physics as it is about the individual musician's embouchure.
The Brass Family of instruments contains such instruments as the trumpet, trombone, and tuba. Discover a bit about how these instruments are played and how they work.
Brass instruments are a group of musical instruments characterized both by their metallic construction and also by the way they produce sound. In order to hear a sound something must make the eardrum vibrate. In woodwind instruments those vibrations are ususally created by a vibrating piece of cane called a "reed". In brass instruments the vibrations come not from a foreign piece of wood but from the players lips buzzing rapidly into the mouthpiece of the brass instrument.
As the brass player blows into the mouthpiece he uses the muscles of his "embouchure," to press the lips together and inward as if in a slight pucker. When this embouchure is placed up to the mouthpiece and air pressure is applied by the player the lips vibrate quickly at various speeds depending on the tension produced by the muscles.
The vibrating column of air that is produced by the air stream flowing across the buzzing lips is amplified and focused by the brass instrument. You can think of the mouthpiece as being a microphone and the instrument as being essentially a loudspeaker. This is one of the reasons that all brass instruments have a flared bell at the end of them. The flared end of a brass instrument literally amplifies the sound much the way the megaphone of a cheerleader amplifies her voice.
The area of the brass instrument between the bell and mouthpiece determines the overall quality and tone of the sound generated. Conical bore brass instruments such as the cornet, euphonium, flugelhorn, and french horn have tubing that gradually increases in diameter throughout the length of the instrument. This conical bore creates a sound that is much more mellow and warm in color. Cylindrical bore brass instruments such as the trombone, baritone, and trumpet have the same diameter tubing throughout the instrument until the bell begins to flare outward. Cylindrical bore brass instruments are more "brassy" sounding with a slightly harder edge to the sound.
For more information on the many different instruments of the band and orchestra please visit my other articles on this subject:
- Understanding Wind Instruments
- The Piano, It's History and Evolution
- From Harpsichord to Piano
- Understanding Instrument Tuning
