Copper wind instruments are a group of wind instruments, the principle of which is to produce harmonic sounds by changing the force of the air flow or the position of the lips.
History of brass instruments
The art of trumpeting into the hollow horn of an animal or into a shell was known already in ancient times. Subsequently, people learned to make special instruments out of metal, similar to horns and designed for military, hunting, and cult purposes.
The ancestors of modern brass instruments were hunting horns, military signal pipes and post horns. These instruments, which had no valve mechanism, produced several natural sounds, extracted only with the help of the performer’s lips. This gave rise to military and hunting fanfares and signals based on the sounds of a natural scale, which became firmly established in musical practice.
With the improvement of metalworking techniques and the production of metal products it became possible to make pipes for wind instruments of certain sizes and the desired degree of finish. With the improvement of brass pipes and the development of the art of extracting a significant number of natural sounds on them, the concept of natural instruments, that is, instruments without a mechanism capable of giving only natural sounds, has appeared.
In the beginning of XIX century the mechanism of valves was invented, which has sharply changed the technique of performance and has increased the possibilities of brass instruments.
Classification of brass instruments
Brass wind instruments are divided into several families:
Valve instruments have several valves (usually three to four) controlled by the performer’s fingers. The principle of the valve is to instantly incorporate an additional crown into the main tube, increasing the length of the instrument and lowering its entire build. Several valves connecting tubes of different lengths allow for a chromatic chord. Most modern brass instruments – French horns, trumpets, tubas, saxhorns, etc. – are valve instruments. There are two valve designs – “turning” and “standing” (piston).
Instruments with a rocker use a special U-shaped retractable tube, the rocker, whose movement changes the length of air in the channel, thereby lowering or raising the sounds being extracted. The main rocker instrument used in music is the trombone.
Natural instruments do not have any additional tubes and can extract only the sounds of the natural scale. In the XVIII century there appeared special orchestras consisting of natural horns. Until the beginning of the XIX century natural instruments were widely used in music, then, with the invention of the mechanism of valves, went out of use. Natural instruments are also sometimes found in the scores of composers of the 19th and 20th centuries (Wagner, R. Strauss, Ligeti) for special sound effects. Natural instruments include antique trumpets and French horns, as well as the alpine horn, fanfare, horn, signal horns (hunting, postal) and similar instruments.
Clavier instruments have holes in their bodies that can be opened and closed by the player’s fingers as on woodwinds. Such instruments were widespread until the 18th century, but because of some discomfort in playing them then also went out of use. The main valve brass instruments are the cornet (zinc), serpent, ophicleide, and valve trumpet.
In our time, with the revival of interest in early music, the performance on natural and valve instruments is back in practice.
Brass instruments can also be classified according to their acoustic properties:
Full – instruments on which the basic tone of the harmonic scale can be extracted.
Half – instruments on which the basic tone cannot be extracted and the harmonic scale begins with the second harmonic consonant.