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Learning an Instrument Which Instrument Trumpet: Brass Family
You can get to the point where you can play a simple tune and it will sound quite nice in a few lessons with a bit of luck and a good teacher.
a trumpet The three valves on the top of the trumpet produce notes when they are pressed in different combinations. To play the trumpet you have to vibrate your lips over the mouthpiece, like blowing a raspberry, with the end directly forward. It can be prone to dents, which may be costly to repair. A starter or student model trumpet can cost upwards from about £160, a cornet is generally more expensive. It is a very popular instrument in jazz, pop and with some classical composers. Interview with father and daughter Neville and Lottie Young
Nevill and Lottie Young There is a very wide range of things that you can do with a trumpet…you can find the weirdest things that have trumpet parts. Lottie Young, 15 Video interview Interview transcript Need video help? Top Tips
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Other Brass Instruments
Cornet - very similar to the trumpet, except the brass tube gets fatter towards the end French Horn - an expensive and difficult instrument to learn. A tube of brass coiled in a round with a flared bell at one end and a mouthpiece at the other. Trombone - not too expensive and fairly easy to learn. A narrow tube of brass folded over itself. Tuba - the biggest brass instrument and heavy for young children. It is also fairly expensive. A long tube of brass that widens as it gets to the flared bell end, and is wrapped around itself.
Neville: Lottie started to play trumpet largely because she lost her recorder lessons at school, because the school recorder teacher had given up or left or we just ran out of funding or something. So we were a bit stuck for a wind instrument and I play the trumpet so there were always trumpets around at home so it was just the logical thing to do. I don't think that I had a great deal of influence over it - I was just so pleased that she did it, but it was not really our decision.
Neville: I don't think that it's a terribly hard instrument for a child to learn. You can't start it if you are very little. With lots of instruments nowadays, like the violin and the piano, you get children of three or four starting which can be really nice if it is done well. With the trumpet I think that you will find that you just can't because until you have a good set of front teeth that are grown up and settled down you are going nowhere with it. This is because your embouchure, the way that you set your lips, is going to keep changing all the time and it is very difficult for the child and the teacher to work around that. So there is one obstacle that says that you are going to have to wait until you have that set of teeth and for many children that is around year 4 or 5 at junior school. But I think once you get going there is this reputation that it makes loud noises and it's tricky but it is not that hard. You can get to the point where you can play a simple tune and it will sound quite nice in a few lessons and with a bit of luck and a good teacher to begin with.
Lottie: Occasionally at school when I bring my trumpet in my friends pick it up and have a go and it just sounds horrendous. But once you have got the hang of it, it does sound lovely and it can be really rewarding when I can hear how bad it sounds when my friends, who have never seen the thing in their lives before, have a go and I can get a vaguely normal sound out of it.
Lottie: There is a very wide range that you can do with a trumpet. I am in an orchestra, big band and a brass band. So it is incredible. You can find the weirdest things that have trumpet parts and it is really nice to be able to play jazz and classical. Rather than on the violin where you do get occasional jazz violinists but generally the violin is more of a classical instrument but the trumpet can be both.
Neville: One thing that is worth bearing in mind with quite young and small children playing the trumpet is that there is at least a school of thought - and I would check this with a teacher as they would have a view on this - that the cornet is sometimes a better instrument to start on. Not because you are actually trying to decide whether they are a trumpet player or a cornet player - you just want them to play the instrument - but it is just that it is easier to hold. The trumpet feels like a very big, extended heavy thing to hold for little kids. The cornet is much shorter - its centre of gravity is closer to the child and some kids find it a lot easier to hold. Also it goes in to a nice little case, it carries around easily and it is just not as huge as the trumpet.
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Further Reading The Right Instrument for Your Child , Atarah Ben-Tovim, Douglas Boyd (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1995; ISBN: 0575058943)
The Rough Guide to Trumpet & Trombone (Rough Guides 2001; ISBN: 1858287545)
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