We have to go all the way back to the physics of a brass tube.  As you blow
into the mouthpiece and tighten your lips, the note kicks up to the next
harmonic.  In the perfect tube, harmonics are strictly mathematical -- I
think some ancient Greek showed the same thing with lengths of strings.

Things go well for the 2nd, third harmonic etc. like G C E G then the next
one is between A and Bb.  Then back to a good c d e, then the next one is
exactly half way between an F and F#.

The larger and smoother the mouthpiece is, the more the player can 'bend'
the pitch up or down just a little bit.  Most early trumpet/horn writing
stays away from trying to bend that lower one either way, but Handel was a
past master and asking his trumpeters to bend the F-F# one way or the other.

The best example is his THE TRUMPET SHALL SOUND.  It starts out CCE     EEEG
GGG  c    defg....fedc   etc.  Then along toward the end of the phrase, he
kicks in with a f#g    f#g   fedefd.....cc.

I think the tradeoff with the bigger mouthpiece giving you more notes is
that it probably sounds softer.

On a more modern note, pun intended, back in the early 1950s, there used to
be a BUGLE player from New Orleans named Sam Decomel, who came on Radio
Station WWL every Sunday night with a Dixieland group.  He could play WHEN
THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN on the bugle, getting notes that were not supposed
to be there!  The secret was (probably) that the bugle was so dented, that
out-of-the-ordinary notes resonated enough to produce the needed notes and
our ears which 'wanted' to hear the saints accepted the rather out-of-tune
notes.  Truth be known, some modern reproduction trumpets of the 1500;s and
1600;s have small holes drilled in the tube so that when you take a finger
off of them, its just enough to disturb the air column and give some
'better' out-of-the-ordinary notes for the trumpet.  Needless to say, the
'purists' sneer at that ploy.  In fairness to the purists, some years ago I
did hear that a new model of a Yamaha flute was so perfect in pitch, that it
did not sound good!   i.e. We need a little less perfectness to make music
sound right!   I sure bring a lot of that to my trumpet playing!!!!

Back what started all this....... The Jamestowne Trumpeter.  I hope to put
together a couple of dozen tunes of the time that MAY have been played at
Jamestowne.  They will be for three trumpets, although can be played by a
solo trumpet or a duet.  Since they are 'stand alone' -- no accompanient --
you can play them with one two or three horns, violins, oboes, flutes etc.
My contribution to celebrating the 400th anniversary of our English heritage
at Jamestowne.  I'll shoot for the summer of 2006 so stay tuned...... AND
send me anything that you run across about Trumpets in the New World.

Randy Cabell
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Randy Cabell" <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: English National Songs ca. 1607


> I'm pleased Randy got some value from my posting - perhaps some small
> return for the invaluable help I have had from members of the list.
>
> Brent Tarter asked a question somewhat along the lines of one that got
> left off my posting - I'm interested in the mouthpiece also. The fact of
> it being large is interesting in itself, and makes my query even more
> significant - does the opening at the bottom of the cup have a sharply
> angled edge, or is it softly rounded? I'm thinking of whether the sound
> was intended to be bright and sharp, or soft and mellifluous. I once was
> allowed to try a 14th century trombone of the type used when trombones
> were the only instruments allowed to accompany voices in church music, and
> the contrast with the normal modern orchestral sound was very marked - the
> mouthpiece disappeared smoothly down the tube, like French Horn
> mouthpieces, and very similar to that used jazz trombonists who want a
> soft tone rather than bright. The answer might reflect on the type of
> music played, or the circumstances in which they were to be used.
>
> John Weiss
>

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