Bach to Basics

James Collins

atural trumpets. Trumpets made out of dirt and weeds? Wrong. They're made out of brass like any other trumpet.

"A natural trumpet is essentially a trumpet without valves," Bryan Proksch, a graduate student in musicology, or the study of the history of music, explains. He sits up straight and reaches for his trumpet case. The instrument that comes out of the case looks nothing like a modern trumpet — it is almost twice as long and has no mouthpiece.

On a modern trumpet, the three valves are connected to thin pieces of tubing. These little tubes connect to the larger tube that makes up the horn. However, the little tubes remain closed until the player presses a valve, which opens the passageway to a tube, elongating the path that the air travels. The longer the air path, the lower the sound that comes out of the horn. Proksch compares the phenomenon to blowing across a Coke bottle. The less liquid you have in the bottle, the longer the "air path," and the lower the resulting sound, because more air passes through it.

By using a combination of valves, a modern trumpeter can produce every note on a musical scale. The natural trumpet has no valves; instead, through subtle adjustments in lip tension, a natural trumpeter produces the notes of a harmonic scale, a set of selected tones that are "fixed by nature."

Proksch jumps up and grabs the telephone on his desk. He shakes the phone cord, creating a series of waves. "Imagine that one wave is equal to the note created using the smallest amount of lip tension. On a C scale — a series of eight notes beginning and ending with C — that note is C," he explains. He then shakes the cord harder and the waves double in frequency. The next note on the harmonic scale is "double" a C, or the C an octave higher. Shaking the cord even harder — the equivalent of adding more lip tension — creates a wave that is a fifth of the frequency of the original wave.

The natural trumpet evolved from the signaling trumpet, a single, straight tube about 47 inches long with a flared end. Aptly named, the signaling trumpet's splendid sound could be heard at great distances and was useful in military battles and royal fanfares. The natural trumpet performed similar functions as the signaling trumpet; however, instrument makers folded its 88 inches of tubing to make it more convenient to carry on military campaigns and to court functions.

The trumpet's function would have remained military if not for an important event in the trumpet's history: its acceptance into art music in the 17th century. The natural trumpet flourished during this time, with eminent composers such as J. S. Bach and Johann Schelle writing pieces in which trumpets led the melody. Valentine Snow was one such natural trumpeter for whom Handel wrote most of his music; Snow was also a composer, and Proksch recently edited a set of his natural trumpet duets, which was published by Brass Press.

Yet by 1770, composers such as Beethoven and Mozart had ushered in a more complex musical sound with several key changes in one piece. A natural trumpeter must change the instrument's mouthpiece in order to change keys. The impracticality of this requirement reduced the trumpet's role to opening flourishes and climaxes until the valve trumpet was invented around 1815. Unlike the natural trumpet, it can change keys without changing the mouthpiece and is easier to play in tune because it requires less lip tension.

Despite the pleasing, clear tone of the modern valve trumpet, Proksch insists that it is not what Bach and his contemporaries intended their robust and somewhat unrefined trumpet parts to sound like. Proksch's desire to play these pieces properly prompted him to learn how to play the natural trumpet. Better yet, he decided to make one. Even better, he decided to recruit other natural trumpeters in the hopes of creating a natural trumpet ensemble. Last spring, along with two undergraduate music majors, Derek Bittner and Edward Jakuboski, Proksch obtained a grant from the university to build six natural trumpets. Professor Leslie Leupp from the School of Visual Arts, the Department of Metal Arts, and Engineering Services assisted in the project by donating their facilities and materials.

"Making a natural trumpet is a lot simpler than you might think," Proksch says. Humming a Bach concerto, he riffles through some sheet music on the piano and finds scrap paper to draw on. "First," he says, "you cut a big sheet of brass." This piece will become the bell of the trumpet. He sketches a pattern of a trumpet bell that is about a yard long and looks as if it has been run over by a truck. He continues, "Next, cut out the pattern and make teeth marks along the two long sides." The two sides will eventually be connected; the interwoven teeth create a stronger fit than if two straight sides were simply welded together. Now, fold the pattern in half lengthwise and open it slightly at one end to fit on a mandrel, a big piece of curved steel. Finally, hammer out the bell into its proper curved shape.

Smaller brass tubes make up the rest of the natural trumpet. The joints are pressure-fitted by tapering the end of one tube slightly and expanding the end of the other. A discovery in tube bending shortly before the 1400s allows the brass to be curved. Brass has a melting point of 1083 degrees C, while lead melts at 327 degrees C. Consequently, lead melts and cools more quickly than brass. Filling a straight piece of brass tubing with liquid lead allows the brass to bend but not melt. After bending the tubing, the cooled lead is melted again and removed. Today, because lead is poisonous, trumpet makers use an alloy made of bismuth, which melts even before water boils.

By making the trumpets and forming an ensemble to play pieces from the 17th century, Proksch hopes to restore the natural trumpet to its rightful role. "The reason we are interested in the natural trumpet is more than purely historical," Proksch insists. "It actually sounds better than the modern trumpet. If you want to hear music the way Bach heard it, you at least have to have the right instrument."

— Elizabeth Jin

Bryan Proksch is a master's degree student in musicology in the School of Music within the College of Arts and Architecture, 233 Music Bldg. I, University Park, PA 16802; 814-863-4421; bjp176@psu.edu. Derek Bittner and Edward Jakuboski are undergraduate students, both majoring in music. The natural trumpet project is funded by an undergraduate research grant from the College of Arts and Architecture.