How do Brass instruments actually work?
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- Опубликовано: 3 авг 2024
- Check out the instrument pages on Apple Music Classical to continue learning more about brass instruments: apple.co/DavidBennettPiano 🎺🎺 (Free trial available for new users)
The previous episode in this series: • How to compose for Str...
Thank you to the amazing Tommy Peach for featuring in this video! You can check Tommy's work out here: patchworkpeache... 🎺🎺🎺🎺
SOURCES:
How to play a bugle, Steve the Musician: • How to Play a Bugle
Trombone Mutes, Paul The Trombonist: • Trombone Mutes - How D...
Trumpet harmonic series chart: blog.pbone.co.uk/hubfs/trumpe...
OnMusic Dictionary, Trumpet airflow: dictionary.onmusic.org/append...
The Serpent: • Serpent, made by Georg...
Alphorn players: • Alphorn players in Nen...
Didgeridoo: • Traditional Didgeridoo...
Philharmonia Orchestra, Bass trombone: • Instrument: Bass Trombone
Philharmonia Orchestra, Tuba: • Instrument: Tuba
Brass family of instruments, Oregon Symphony: www.orsymphony.org/learning-c...
Philharmonia Orchestra, Bass trombone, Euphonium
• Instrument: Euphonium
And, an extra special thanks goes to Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: / davidbennettpiano 🎹
0:00 Introduction
0:20 How brass instruments make sound
5:05 Apple Music Classical
6:11 Which brass instruments are in an orchestra?
6:57 the highest pitch is flexible
8:33 other brass instruments
9:19 Conical vs. Cylindrical bore
10:11 Mutes
10:57 writing for brass
11:31 Transposing instruments
13:24 other techniques
14:13 Saxophone is not a brass instrument
14:30 Labrophones
15:22 Patreon Outro
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Check out the instrument pages on Apple Music Classical to continue learning more about brass instruments: apple.co/DavidBennettPiano 🎺🎺 (Free trial available for new users)
David you are so awesome and inspirational! Thank you 🎉
I love how David is not really interviewing the trumpet player, he's just saying what he knows and the player is confirming.
As a pianist, I have to say I had no idea how brass instruments worked to produce different notes.
Babe, wake up. David Bennet Piano uploaded
*wakes up himself from a dream*
about brass no less
😂
Holy moly I come back to this a day later and almost 100 likes. Wasn’t expecting that at ALL
*seal voice* harr harr harr
I used to play trumpet and I was never taught any of the terms, only notes and what knobs to press. Also, this is the first video I’ve seen on RUclips that has gone through how a trumpet works! This video was super helpful and educational, thanks!
Completely agree!!
Same here. My music teacher's sole concern was enhancing his reputation as "...one of the foremost brass teachers in the UK...", so he trained us to perform music, rather than educating us in the ways of music.
I love it when someone makes education fun. Thanks David.
As a guitarist I've never been able to properly wrap my head around brasses, but this is very instructive! I have so much more respect for brass players now (more than I already did, which was considerable)! ❤
10:25 on a side note, the Harmon mute (also called a wah-wah mute) that Miles Davis used is actually missing the second part, which looks like the bell of a trumpet. That was Miles’ preferred method of using a mute in that period of his career.
Side-by-side note :- Mutes are interesting in that they alter how the sound propagates from the bell, changing the loudness by muffling and the timbre by adding or damping resonances, but without altering the effective length of the tube and so the pitch of the notes do not change significantly.
The exception is the wah-wah mute , which can distort the pitch by modifying the effective pipe length. It's arguably something else and not a true mute because of this.
to explore different mutes, if you're not a brass player, Libre Wave produce a plugin for DAWs called Sordina which produce very realistic simulations, including stem in and stem out on Harmon mutes
@@charlesgaskell5899 oh, if only I had a PC
@@StarQueenEstrella Sordina works on all DAWs, including those that run on a Mac
@@charlesgaskell5899 I don’t have a Mac either
Good to know: Trombone = fretless trumpet.
Holy shit, I'm saving that joke for our next band rehearsal. I hope I won't get hit by a trombone slide.
Nuh uhhhhh
Y’all just shorter trombones with buttons >:c
As a euphonium player for most of my life, it's nice to see my main instrument getting a little bit of recognition.
Side note regarding transposing instruments - euphonium (often called "baritone" here in the states, but that's a whole other debate) can be read in treble clef, using the same fingering as trumpet. I was told this was to make for an easy transition for trumpet players learn the instrument, as was the case with me. However, when switching to reading bass cleff, we use the actual concert pitch names. The same fingerings for a tuba, although my tuba player friends have told me that the different pitched tubas (BBb, C, Eb, F, and G) all have different fingerings so that they can all read the same music, and to me, that sounds unnecessarily difficult.
I played euphonium for a few years in music school when my trumpet teacher got mad at me and said i sucked so he gave me the easier version, and it really is an easier version, what would be a higher C becomes the lower G, its just overall an easier instrument to play, still cant read bass clef though, sometimes sub in for my old orchestra, trying to play trumpet again is a pain
I switched from trumpet to baritone after a bike accident that needed a plastic surgeon to put my mouth back together. I loved the bari so much more than the trumpet. I would have continued on to a Tuba if my public school band teacher hadn't been so abusive as to lock kids in closets and throw iron music stands and hurt kids.
as a (not since high school)trumpeter, I have always wanted to play "baritone" to put this into practise... maybe someday
Always a bonus. Not surprisingly, soprano cornet (my weapon of choice) wasn't mentioned.. but it's a very niche instrument and very unlikely to be found played anywhere outside of a UK-style Brass Band set up. It is an absolute demon of an instrument to play. A masochist's-only instrument.
@@Cornet_Tooter Sounds cool! I miss being able to see brass bands, let alone play in one. Pretty much the only place to find "English baritones" as well - not to be confused with euphoniums, which are often called baritones in the US.
I’m an amateur on didgeridoo, I never knew it belonged to the brass instruments. Now I know. 😀
As a young 'un many decades ago, I struggled to hold what I guess would be an A#6 on my cornet. To know there are trumpet players that can sustain a pitch an octave higher ... unbelievable.
Right, he played much higher than I ever could on my trumpet.
Thanks! As a trumpet player, some additional remarks:
1) Brass players normally like keys with flats: Bb major, F major, Ab major. They have more difficulty playing in keys like E major.
2) Playing brass is tiring, in a different way than other instruments are. When a trumpet plays loudly in a high register (F5 and above), the player usually needs a couple of measures of rest afterwards.
(These things are less true for experienced professional players.)
That's actually really interesting. If you contrast with eg. guitar, violin family strings, viols (and other lute-likes) and piano, it's usually the low notes that need the most physical effort: You're manipulating heavier strings to move more air. What makes it different on wind instruments?
@@Komatik_High notes on wind instruments usually require more air to produce. There are exceptions to that, but that's generally true.
Although I knew that I could and successfully achieved to produce different tones on a trumpet without usage of the valves, my awe for any brass instrumentalist is immense as I for sure know that I could never cope the simultaneous complexity of embouchure, valve combinations and the transposing character of the instrument.
Coincidentally, this morning I was randomly watching a yt video comparing trumpet with flugelhorn and within about 30 seconds was sightreading the score with the correct valve fingering - it was a Mozart theme, but not one I knew.
It's 42 years since I last played a trumpet or cornet, but eye to hand coordination and muscle memory resurfaced really quickly.
Glad you addressed how saxophones are woodwinds. We use a single reed mouth piece (quite similar to a bass clarinet) and we change our tone by the actual keys and tightening of our embouchure. Excited to see how you cover the woodwind section. I know saxes aren’t in the orchestra but I hope you cover them as well :)
Unfortunately, I doubt he'll be covering other wind instruments that never appear in orchestras or classical music. The harmonica is one of the most interesting because unlike all other reed instruments, it produces sound both by blowing AND by sucking air, thus a harmonica player may not need to stop and breathe. Also of note, the harmonica had it's sort-of 200th anniversary in 2022, about 20 years older than the saxophone.
This video was much more interesting than I thought it would be. I learned so much and I have a much larger appreciation of brass instrument players. And I loved them before.
When i was young I got gradually moved up from a cornet all the way upto a Eb Tuba mainly because my mouth was too big lol. unfortunately i was also the second shortest person in my year, lets just say I could fit into the case at one point, it was difficut to carry to school,, lol
😂😃
Congratulations on the video. My daughter plays the trumpet and so I know the difficulties of the instrument. Many pianists or violinists think that their instrument is difficult but they never tried to play the trumpet! The video is done very well and I will show it to my ear training students!
That was really well explained. I had no idea how much variation is required by the player before they even put the instrument to their mouth! Respect!
The orchestral series is my favourite, i have waited months for the brass episode!!! 😀
Looking forward to the percussion episode. As a guitarist, percussion always baffles me.
I was a trumpet player back in high school band, and this video actually had some stuff I didn't know about brass instruments. It also had a few things I'd forgotten, or preferred not to remember. One little point of note is that if you take the trumpet valve out and put back in backwards, which is surprisingly possible, you're blocking the wind tube, and it'll make a funny, squashed sound, because the air can't get through the instrument like it's supposed to.
Well done! I think anyone with just about any level of familiarity with brass instruments can come away with something interesting from this episode. It takes a ton of skill to distill so much information in an accessible way. Kudos
Thank you!
New level of respect for these musicians after learning how their instruments work!
Thank you, I learned a lot. I had no clue how one produces sound out of a brass instrument. I mean, out of a labrophone 😊
To give you an idea how drilled into trumpet players' heads those valve positions are, I have not touched a trumpet in 14ish years and yet while watching this video I still correctly remembered the valve positions for the entire chromatic scale starting from middle C up to G5.
I played tuba in middle school and I still remember the fingerings for most of the songs we played
Almost all woodwind instruments also require an embouchure to create a usable tone.
Single- and double-reed woodwind instruments cannot function without a basic embouchure to create a seal around the mouthpiece/reed(s) which is necessary for the reed(s) to start vibrating, and advancing players need to be able to manipulate their embouchure to vary the tuning, timbre, and/or access different registers.
Edge-blown flutes are a little different in that the embouchure is used to direct the air towards the far edge of the instrument's (appropriately named) embouchure hole which is what creates the vibrations necessary for tone production, and subtle manipulation of the player's embouchure are used to change registers, tuning and timbre.
Brass embouchures are a little different in that the vibrations are directly produced by the player's lips rather than some part of the instrument.
The only wind instruments that do not REQUIRE an embouchure are the free-reed instruments (eg. Harmonica, Accordion, Pipe Organ), fipple-flutes (eg. Recorders, Tin Whistles, Ocarinas, etc.), and some vessel-flutes (eg. Nose flutes) though many of these can performed to a considerably higher standard if an appropriate embouchure is used (eg. Recorders and Harmonicas).
I would argue that only edge-blown flutes "require" an embouchure, technically speaking.
Single and double reed instruments can all be played with zero embouchure, you just need a reed of appropriate strength. A saxophone, clarinet, or oboe can thus produce a sound in the same manner that an organ pipe, crumhorn, or bagpipe does. Just that it will be an ugly sound. We only use embouchure on reeds to dampen undesirable vibrations and exert control over timbre and pitch, and this allows us to achieve new timbres using reed designs that wouldn't work so well without the labial coaxing. That is to say... the lips are not an integral mechanism to producing a sound at all, they only mould it.
For instance, when oboists and bassoonists "crow" their reeds to test their properties, they aren't really using their embouchure, they're playing it mostly as a free reed.
@@JHouse4 If you simply blow air towards or into a double reed attached to an oboe/bassoon, it will make a sound in the same manner that the trumpet player in the video demonstrates at 0:30 (likewise for a single reed with mouthpiece). While this is useful as a means to warm up the air inside the instrument prior to playing, or even as a (pitched, but nearly inaudible) special effect, there's no useful tone produced.
In order to produce a useable tone, we need to create a significant air pressure differential between the tip of the reed and the instrument so that enough energy is imparted on the reed to overcome its resistance to vibrating. For most double- and single-reed instruments, this chamber is our mouth and we use our embouchure muscles to ensure that enough of the air pressure we are creating (using our lungs, vocal tract and tongue) is released into the reed/mouthpiece rather than round the sides of the reed/mouthpiece.
For free-reed instruments, this chamber is part of the instrument, so most of the "embouchure" work is already done for the player before they supply the air, so it is often possible to create enough air pressure in the chamber to excite the reed just by blowing sufficiently hard in the direction of the opening of said chamber. However, this fixed chamber design has the disadvantage of limiting the amount of control the player has over the air speed as it enters the reed.
This is somewhat analogous to the difference between edge-blown and fipple flutes.
@@clarinetguyuk Thanks, I now have a better understanding of what "embouchure" means.
@@clarinetguyuk Demonstrably false, and by "demonstrably", I mean I could make a video demonstrating this if you like. Let me know. Single- and double-reed instrument do produce tones without embouchure support, they are just not pretty tones because they are not optimized to be played in the manner of capped reeds.
@@JHouse4 I'd be interested in seeing you try.
This was a really great video. Thanks David
Thank you 😊
I just gained so much respect for everyone that plays brass. Looks hard af
Thanks for this excellent video. I follow a lot of Drum and Bugle Corps, mostly for percussion. This really helps me understand the brass. For example, the mellophone is used instead of the French horn (the sound projects forward). I finally looked that up recently. Love your content!
Nice shirt! It's always a neat little thing for me when I see one RUclipsr wearing their friend's/colleague's merch.
I used to have a labrophone, but have since switched to a labrador. Way more friendly!
I'm really liking the series! Specially because of the part of writing for the instruments, please, keep it up!
played double b flat tuba in middle school now im in my 30s and learning piano, guitar, drums and vocals. that time playing tuba got me here. love brass, especially bass.
Mad respect.
Something that should have been mentioned: All strings and percussion have an ADSR envelope. They begin loudly, but eventually tail away. All wind instruments (brass, woodwind, or other) don't have that limitation. They can begin quietly and can increase in volume as a note is played.
This is a great series! Keep em coming!
I absolutely love these series
Wow - I knew hardly any of that! Really excellent video- many thanks. The bit about a digeridoo being a brass instrument triggered my inner pendant though!
This is so interesting! Thank you so much!
Great stuff - enjoying the instrument eduction series.
unbelievably informative. Thanks David!
Thank you so so so much for this! Your channel is right up there with the best of the best!
Wonderful!!
David Bennett covering my favourite class of instruments, just what I needed. 😊
Another excellent and very informative video , thank you
As a clarinet player, I’m really curious to see what I’ll learn from the woodwind video! There is one thing that I know I’m curious about: On one of your videos about microtones, you said that the clarinet could glissando, and my face became the mind blown emoji 😂 It’s definitely something I’d love to learn more about. Thanks for the great video, I look forward to the next one!
That would be a good topic! In general woodwind players can not smoothly slide between two notes. Because each pitch has a unique key combination, to move “smoothly” across a wide range of notes, a woodwind player has to finger each note along the way, creating a less-than-smooth transition. In synthesizers, the difference is known as “glissando” (playing each individual note along the way) and “portamento” (perfectly smooth transition). These terms can be used interchangeably, as most instruments can only really do one or the other. However, it is *possible* to get a very smooth, portamento-like slide between notes on a woodwind instrument. The intro to Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” is a great example of this on clarinet. However, this smooth glide between notes is somewhat of a special effect, where the player is using their mouth to bend the pitches, rather than relying only the keys. Many players can do it, but it’s not really a “standard” technique for woodwind players. You can think of it similar to the flutter tongue demonstration in this video - it’s an effect some players can do, and it will occasionally be called for in certain types of music, but it’s more of a special effect than a standard technique. 😁
Great video, David. Answered questions I had never even thought to ask.
brilliant job explaining this. I've always wondered how this works
This great, David! As a brass player, you covered it wonderfully! Love a switch up in the format, nice to see you doing something a little different. Loved it! 😁
Great explanation. Clear and precise!
Insane video series! Continue doing them!
My favorite brass instrument is the Wagner tuba. A choir of them sounds like heaven.
So long time I wondered how trumpets work ! Thanks you so much David !
I just gotta say, that awesome! In depth and comprehensive. I had no idea that's how these instruments made sound and the range of notes available. Looking forward to woodwinds! Thanks David!
Thanks, I learned something!
Very interesting, thank you, David.
FINALLY thank you david
Really great video David!!!...again, you are so thorough and yet concise with your approach, it's refreshing...However, shouldn't there be 2 more episodes left for the orchestral ensemble breakdown??? Winds, then percussion family maybe??? The scores of the old classical masters weren't percussion heavy, beyond timpani, cymbals, triangle, bass and snare drums...but many late 19th Century to today's classical music is full of percussion in many different types of instruments and techniques...a David Bennet video on that section of the orchestra would be quite welcome as well
This channel deserves millions of subscribers! 👍
This is the clearest and best explanation ever made for trumpet. Too many players simply don't know their instrument the trumpet. Harmonic series is the most important point you explain here. Thank you very much!
Very insightful! Can't wait for the woodwind section episode :)
Woooow! You really outdid yourself with this video! 😮😃🥳
I love these
thanks David!
The most helpful video I've ever seen. Showed this to my general music class and will show to my MS brass players.
Thank you!
Phenomenal work!! Had no idea the alphorn existed, it sounds beautiful too!!
Played trumpet until high school, was pretty decent. Didn’t know I could hit B flat, D, E, and F above the staff without hitting a valve (and TBH, I topped out at high E Anyway, lol). Gotta dust it off and start having some fun!
Before the Flood, as a conscripted soldier and a music lover, I volunteered to go to a one-month training to be a regiment trumpeter. There the trainer told us the length of the training, hence the training itself, is absurd as training the lips itself (without any instrument at all) to make it stand the tension of embouchure for a couple of minutes would take month's work. Never had even heard of the required buzzing lip technique I was shocked.
It was only after two weeks of mouth gymnastics that the very first sound left my instrument.
14:01 These sounds are 🔥
thanks m8.....greetings from Chile
Great video! Can't wait for woodwinds!
11:31 for those wishing to write for brass, I would like to point out that trumpet is in Bb (down major 2nd) and French Horn in F (cant remember if up 4th or down 5th). However, although nearly all low brass is tuned to Bb, they read and play in concert pitch, so if you write a C, they will play a C
It's a little more complicated as that. Most French horns are double horns, meaning that hey have tubing for F and tubing for Bb. The player selects the tubing he wants with a thumb valve. French horn players are masters of transposition. They can have a score for an instrument in whatever key; the score usually mentions for what type of horn it is written. E.g. the score for Mozart's 4th horn concerto is written for an instrument in Eb and on top of the score it will say: "French horn in Eb". The horn player has to transpose on the fly. So, it is true that if you give a French horn player a score for an instrument in concert pitch, he will play in concert pitch, transposing on the fly but the score will tell him on top that it is written for an instrument in C, so in concert pitch.
"However, although nearly all low brass is tuned to Bb, they read and play in concert pitch, so if you write a C, they will play a C" Until you encounter continental European baritone, euphonium and tuba players. I know this video is mainly about Orchestral writing, but euphonium especially has such a great demand of its entire range that bass clef is kinda cumbersome to write in, so providing a treble clef transposition of the part is never a bad idea.
Love for you to do some vids on compositional techniques such as sequence, imitation, passing and auxiliary notes, etc. Keeyup the excellent work!
Thank you x
Can't wait for woodwind episode
Currently playing trumpet in my school's band, thanks for satisfying my curiosity!
Wonderful video❤. You covered about everything one should know about brass. Next time someone asks me how I play my flugelhorn I'll send them this video😊.
excellent video
15:11 David Bennett Piano "Next time we'll be finishing our orchestral mini-series by looking at the woodwind section of the orchestra."
Percussionists: Am I a joke to you?
Seriously - I love this type of videos on your channel an as an arranger it would be extremely helpful to get to know more about how to write for Percussion instruments, arguably the most challenging to write for. Please continue this mini-series, it would mean a lot to me.
And (although I don't want to be too demanding), maybe in the future there could be some kind of video on how to write for choir?
The pressing of the valves changes the length of the tube, but it doesn't actually change the note itself, just the resonant frequencies of the trumpet
String player here - recently tried a trumpet for the first time and wow the mechanism feels very foreign. They should call it a lip buzz resonator because you are on your own making the vibration!
The bore of the French horn isn’t really the same as the other conical bore instruments. It has a fairly long cylindrical section, standard horns having a 0.468 inch bore. You’ll notice that the traditional British brass band, which is comprised of all the so-called conical bore instruments, does not include French horns. The horn has some more overtones than the conical bore instruments but the tone is mellowed additionally by the hand in the bell.
This Tommy Peach dude is awesome!
The closest I came to wind instruments was a Horner 'Melodica' which you blow into and press the keyboard along the outside for notes. I was gifted with extended lung capacity- except when I found the button on the underside of the instrument... pushing it releases all the accumulated mucus from your breath. Gobs and gobby gobs. never got used to that part.
Can't wait for the woodwind chapter.
0:51 Almost, but not quite. The 'embouchure' is the position of the lips when they do the buzzing, not the buzzing itself.
edit: 10:13 Mutes do make the trumpet play more quietly, but their primary purpose is to change the tone, not the volume. They're used in ensembles of every size.
I think it's also worth saying that 'embouchure' isn't just a brass term, it's used by woodwind players as well, even though they don't generally do any buzzing. It's just a name for the formation of the lips.
Good lord. Playing keyboard is way much easier
I know right!!
Looking forward to the woodwinds next up
Thank you for calling out that the sax is not a brass instrument. Some may be confused that sax players work on their embouchure a lot - our lips play a role and that is what we mean by the term but it is the reed that is vibrating.
I have always wondered how brasses work acoustically. Thank you!
GET PREGNANT
@@phantomvhs3537 Dude you have to be over 13 to be on the platform.
@@user-hv4nl9rn8t I poured boiling milk on my sister!!!!
It would be super to master any instrument at such a very high level, but at the end of the day when it came down to choosing one my number one choice was and is a keyboard instrument such as a piano😊
Awesome
I look forward to your video about woodwinds.👍🎼🎶
Nice first of October shirt!
I used to be able to hit the C6 on the trumpet many years ago. Getting notes lower than middle c was quite a challenge too, I recall...
Something alluded to in the video but not quite fully explained (probably due to a legitimate reason) is the way brass players use their tongues to play at varying speeds and in different styles. There are many different syllables brass players can employ such as: tu, ta, ku, du, dit etc.
Along with tone, different articulation styles is one of the reasons why orchestral brass playing sounds different from a different style like jazz.
My favourite pieces were "thanet Seascapes" pt1 Viking Bay, and life on the ocean waves., and "somewhere out here " from an american tale. I had the Boston Bounce as one of the pieces for my music grade tests
The funny thing about reading music as a brass player is you look at the notes on the score and see finger positions rather than letters, you have to retrain yourself to see letters again, same when I played the recorder.
Good to play
nice!!