The great excitement that was felt by trumpet players when the piccolo trumpet was invented probably was felt by the whole world. Now the "Brandenburg Concerto," one of the highest and most difficult pieces ever written for trumpet, was a reality for most players instead of a distant dream. A piccolo trumpet still takes a lot of maturity and a certain degree of talent to play, but it does lower the fundamental an octave, making centering pitches easier. A piccolo trumpet has half the amount of tubing that a regular trumpet does. This causes it to be pitched at an octave above a regular trumpet in the same key. The Bb/A offers players the ability to play in the key of Bb and A on the same trumpet with a handy mouthpiece extension. For this reason, it has become the most popular type of piccolo trumpet used at the present. Many piccolo trumpets have four valves. The first three serve the same purpose as the three valves of a standard mezzo-soprano trumpet. The fourth valve lowers the pitch a perfect fourth, so it is roughly equivalent to the combination of the first and third valves. (It is usually not exactly equivalent because generally the combination of first and third valves is sharp, whereas the player tunes the fourth valve to give an in-tune perfect fourth.) Contrary to popular belief, playing a piccolo trumpet does not automatically extend the performer's high range. It does, however, reduce the number of possible notes that can be played with any given fingering, thus potentially transforming blatantly wrong high notes into merely cracked or out-of-tune notes. This in itself would not account for the instrument's popularity. Rather, the piccolo trumpet is valued for the tone it produces, which is a result of its shorter tubing, smaller bell, proportionally narrower tubing, and the somewhat shallower mouthpiece cup and different mouthpiece backbore often employed by its players. More common in other musical venues, such as baroque chamber music and brass ensembles, the piccolo trumpet nevertheless has a role in jazz and big band music. |
