More than any other musical instrument, the trumpet has gone through centuries of evolution in what it is made of, its design, its tonal range and its uses. The first trumpet, several thousand years B.C., is believed to have been a tree branch without a mouthpiece or bell flare, used solely as a megaphone, sounded at religious and magical rites. Related trumpets are the Australian didjeridu and the African transverse trumpet, the latter made from an antelope horn or elephant tusk. The trumpets of the Israelites, made of hammered silver, were used exclusively by priests, as in the famous tumbling of the Walls of Jericho in the book of Exodus. The oldest surviving mention of a trumpet is in the Epic of Gilgamesh, from about 2000 B.C.
The oldest existing trumpets, both silver, from 1353 B.C., were discovered in the tomb of King Tutankhamen in Egypt. They were each 23 inches long, played against the narrow end of the tube, without a mouthpiece. However, they could only produce two notes, both harsh-sounding. Indeed, until the Fall of Rome in 476 A.D., the trumpet had only military and religious functions because they produced only loud, harsh sounds.
The trumpet used at the time of the Crusades, in 1100, was the busine, a long, usually cylindrical metal instrument. It was named after the buccina, a large, coiled Roman horn, and was capable of a greater musical range than shorter trumpets. Just before 1400, the making of brass instruments was revolutionized by the discovery of a new technique: bending the tubing. By filling a straight piece of tubing with liquid lead and letting it stand until the lead cooled and became firm, the tubing could be bent. Hammer taps during this process minimized the forming of folds. In this way, trumpets could be made into an S shape and in the folded shape of today. Thus, the length of a given instrument could be reduced by two-thirds of the actual tubing, giving trumpets greater portablity on ...