I have NO idea what this man is talking about, yet I stayed for the whole thing, and enjoyed it all!!!

Not having thought it through and being far from an expert on horn playing, my off-the-cuff intuition for how to score three horns would be - jokingly speaking - II&III as a bomber squadron and I as a free-roaming fighter escort. That is, score it as a traditional horn pair, plus one independent solo instrument. That, or I&II as … well, I&II … and III providing strategic support, such as for selective note doubling, or filling in critical harmony. Again though, that’s just my off-the-cuff gut-feel thought…

Conclusion: Use Bb, ignore C

10:49 ive always felt this ending was overdone. the hold out chord is maybe okay...

Didn’t stop Mahler 2 trumpet pianissississisimo high C 😂

Upon reading the title, I got a pair of sounds in my mind, and they were almost precisely described at 3:17 to 3:29. Maybe I'm learning something after all these years!

Dang! I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t realize that C trumpets were all that common. I tend to think of the ordinary Bb trumpets and the F trumpets (typically rotary-valve, some also sporting several vent keys for intonation adjustment, IIRC) used in various European orchestras, especially German. I was well aware that C trumpets _exist_ , of course, but I just didn’t realize that they were particularly commonly used. Cool!

There are times where I think an overwhelmed flute still provides a lovely bit of softness to the overall sound

Perfect except the key signature 🥲

Can't download -> won't watch.

In the context of a moderate length musical/opera (we're thinking it might fit in one act w/no intermission, or 2 acts, we're thinking when finished it might be about 1hour 40 minutes to possibly 2 hours) is it absurd to put suggestions to switch C and Bb trumpets? Or would that annoy the players? I scored for C trumpet, just because I was told that was the default these days years ago, and was told there wasn't much difference between them. But after watching your video, I can see how certain passages I wrote in the score might work better for Bb.

As a clarinet player, I really can’t understand how Bb vs C trumpet is any different at all than Bb vs A clarinet. In both cases, the difference in tone is equally subtle and the technical difference is only in extreme registers and highly technical passages. The only real difference between the clarinets and the trumpets is that trumpet players are trained to transpose while clarinetists are trained to bring their A clarinet to rehearsal when composers ask for it. I really don’t think you said a single thing about the Bb vs C that I haven’t heard people say about Bb vs A

What's the song at the beginning

So what about ottava clefs? I was half expecting some mention of how to effectively know to use them over regular ottava markings.

I purchased a Bb trumpet and a Bb trumpet beginner book. It shows a C is all open valves in the book. But the trumpet plays a Bb. What the hell is the point of telling me the fingering for Bb is a C?

The Shostakovich was undoubtedly played with a Trumpet-Flugel mouthpiece

Thank You

please do the subtitle!

Years ago in a TV documentary about Arthur Rubenstein, he recalled once asking Maurice Ravel "how did you become such a great orchestrator?" Ravel answered him "Saint-Saëns' Third Piano Concerto: the orchestration in that piece is fantastic!"

I read and reread Forsyth back in my adolescent years upon finding it in my school library. Years later I bought an old hardbound copy, the second edition from 1925, 1944 printing. It was my introduction to the topic of orchestration, and is still always enjoyable to read. But one book I now emphatically recommend is Henry Brant's _Textures and Timbres: An Orchestrator's Handbook_. It assumes that the reader already knows the basics of what the instruments and their ranges are, from ordinary instrumentation texts. Its focus is instead on establishing a method of determining optimal balances and blends among instruments. To that end, he doesn't use the traditional groupings of instruments -- woodwinds, brasses, strings, etc. -- but rather groups them by timbre: the flute group, which includes not just flutes but high-register bassoon and string harmonics; the reed group, which is reed instruments but just in particular ranges and dynamics, plus brasses with certain mutes... etc. These groupings are a basis for arriving at proper blends, also taking into account their effects at various dynamics, including how many of a kind of instrument it takes to balance with another kind. He asserts that every one of these principles has been carefully tested over years with actual instruments. All the musical examples were composed for the book, none taken from existing repertory. The book really changed my outlook on orchestral writing, making me far more confident about arriving at the most effective and idiomatic solutions -- again, emphatically recommended! My only reservations about Brant's book: his grasp of how organs and harpsichords work is quite fragmentary and in some ways inaccurate (I say this as an organist and harpsichordist); he omits mention of the Eb contra-alto clarinet, only addressing the Bb contrabass, and assumes it always extends to written low C, which is often not the case. But these are really minor quibbles; the rest of the text is excellent.

I play trumpet

overtone moment

Another really important blending, particularly in older music (cf. Beethoven 9) is with the chorus - trombones were used in churches before they were used in orchestras. Trombones will often double the male voices in choral works or even emulate them in works without a chorus

Hello! Pro trumpet player here, college professor and orchestral player. The timbral difference between C and Bb trumpet is no longer as great as you are leading the viewer to believe. Your final advice about scoring to the genre is how professionals view it. It truly is analogous to Bb/A clarinet, and it suggests an unfamiliarity with the trumpet to orchestrate differently between them. For instance, your Vienna Mahler 5 recording here is played by a principal C trumpet and lower Bb trumpets, and your London Symphony Firebird following that is played on Bb trumpets. Use of Bb vs C is up to tradition, and the sound concept is determined by the player and technique. Orchestrally, write modern parts in C- we will decide whether we want to play it on Bb, C, D, or Eb, and we will make it sound the same. If you want a brighter sound, score a piccolo trumpet. But despite the great work you put into this well-done video, this isn’t how we orchestrationally view the trumpet.

Most of what I play falls into the wind band and jazz band literature, so my main horn is the b-flat. I'm so uncomfortable on a c trumpet that I almost never play it. I find that a shallower mouthpiece gives me enough crispness to get close enough to the sound of a c trumpet. My pet peeve is seeing a section of trumpets play Fanfare for the Common Man (written to build off of the open tones of the B-flat) on C trumpets.

There are many other factors involved in trumpet timbre such as piston or rotary, mouthpiece size and depth, the key of the piece, range, the player. It is not just that the Bb is bigger and therefore darker. This is simply not universally true. I always write for Bb if it as pop, jazz, etc. because those players play brighter and don't usually transpose. A lead trumpet player in a jazz band is waaayyyyy brighter than any principle trumpet player in a pro symphony orchestra on a C trumpet. In fact on a orchestra pops concert the contracted trumpet players will commonly go to Bb to play brighter and match the lead player. My practice: write the part for C trumpet in an orchestral context and Bb for jazz, pop, big band. What do composers know anyway. Your last point is ultimately what's going to happen. With modern software I have even included parts for both Bb and C trumpet, and on occasion D trumpet parts, Eb, and even picc in A.

Many of the performances that claim to be using the B-flat pipe are playing rotary trumpets; I don't think it's appropriate to compare their tone to that of the C pipe trumpets.

My experience with orchestra players is that if you write for trumpets in B-flat, they will just transpose and play the parts on C trumpet. With brass quintet, I just write for trumpet in C but make copies for trumpet in B-flat if younger, less experienced players want to play it.

Yeah, difference between rotary and piston valves is much bigger than Bb/C in respevtive models, as you mentioned. Rotary is warmer/richer, Piston is brighter.

I've never written an orchestral score. I'm a jazz piano player. But this was tascinating.

Great vid Thomas

Fantastic essay and examples! I am an orchestrally trained trumpet player and teacher, and this is very in depth and accurate. I especially appreciated the Carmina Burana example, as I studied those excerpts a lot in grad school.

Great video. About asking the timpanist to play another instrument, as a composer, I would just write the parts needed and let the conductor and musicians determine how best to execute it.

The differences in timbre and color between the Bb and C trumpets are small enough to be subsumed by the spectrum of available timbres and colors in instruments built in either key. Also, there are orchestras where a Bb is preferred as the standard instrument, and those (like Chicago) where it will be a C. These are of concern far more to the performer than to the orchestrator. Additionally, a performer may be able to shade the color considerably with the choice of mouthpiece. The orchestrator (or composer) should consider the likely use of the composition, and, also, the likely equipment available to the likely performers. (Further, the orchestrator should consider the idiom; if the music is to fit into a vernacular where historically the trumpets and horns were valveless instruments in the key of the piece or its dominant, that might be a very natural and acceptable choice.) Generally, the instruments most widely available, and most used by students and amateurs, will be Bb instruments. C instruments are less usually available at a "student" level; of course both Bb and C instruments are available as pro-quality instruments. And, yes, trumpet players are expected to transpose if at or beyond a high-school level of proficiency. So, hm. If your rendering is for a band, use Bb in the score. If it's for orchestra, use in the score the key you consider most idiomatic for the work. If it's for church, favor C. Those choices should cover the needs of the conductor and any organist who must refer to the trumpet part. For the trumpet performer, have a care, and provide parts in both Bb and C, and also any other as makes sense (e.g. key of the piece where the idiom would be the natural trumpet). (For bands, you can keep the parts in Bb.) You don't always know whom you'll get for performers, and sometimes you get a substitute or a doubling musician, so make it as easy as possible. Today's notation software takes a lot of the work out of it, and paper is cheap.

8:30 is why I only write C trumpets in my scores now. If they're going to change the instrument, I might as well facilitate the transposition. Like A/Bb clarinets, I can't really hear the difference between Bb/C trumpets and find that the quality of the instrument and tuition the player can afford makes just as much a difference to the end sound. But this is still a fascinating video.

Great explanation!

I orchestrated for recording the Royal Philharmonic and London Symphony and they told me to write for Bb. I could write for C but they’d transpose it anyways. Personally, I think the C Trumpets are more useful because of their range. You want to get those C6 notes or B5 notes, since a lot of pieces are in C or C minor or F, or E, B, G. But with the Bb trumpet you get a top note of Bb5 which is only useful in like Bb or Eb. And other flat keys which are not going to be used as much because of the strings.

It's funny to me that professional Trumpet players (in my college-level experience) get so picky about Bb versus C Trumpets but will always play Cornet parts on Trumpet, despite the tone differences between those two instruments being much more stark. Perhaps since I started elementary band on a Cornet I look fondly on the poor, forgotten instrument...

This is a topic I can never get tired of. Thanks Thomas!

I personally like 1st on C and 2nd & 3rd on Bb the most. As the principal trumpet of my college symphony (and im being trained by some of the best in my area as well), I use almost exclusively C. We are playing tge Independence Day Suite and I am actually using piccolo for that since my parts are so high and my assistant is covering the lower stuff on C. The other thing you didn't mention is that most Germanic/Russian music is on rotary trumpets which have a completely different timbre than the US/UK standard piston valves. I played on one for the Hindemith Sonata and I was able to get it to sound almost flugelhorn like, something that cannot be done on a piston valve trumpet. And those pieces are almost exclusively played on Bb rotary trumpets (like Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Shostakovich, etc) with a few exceptions depending on availability and timbre interpretation. I've also been reading Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration book and he talks about trumpet in A as well, which also has a different characteristic than Bb. Although I would never wish anyone write parts for trumpet in A anymore, that is my least favorite and the lower the horn gets, it starts to become more shrill. I recorded the Carmen excerpt on an A trumpet and it just doesn't sound as good as a Bb despite it actually being out of range for Bb.

As a collegiate trumpeter and aspiring American orchestra musician, C trumpet is always the go-to. 8/10 the role of the orchestral trumpet is to cut through the orchestra and C trumpet does that phenomenally. It also works well in context of the strings written in C as well, vs. a band with Bb as the home key. Most orchestral players only pick up a Bb if there’s a note too low for the C trumpet, such as the low concert Ebs on 1st Eb trumpet in Strauss: Ein Heldenleben and 1st A trumpet in Bizet: Carmen. For Eb, D, and piccolo trumpets, it generally comes down to what makes our already tricky job easier. Yes, the Ravel Piano Concerto is in C and works, but it’s way easier on D trumpet. Yes, I wouldn’t have to transpose Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring if I played it on D trumpet, but it’s so much easier to play and get a good sound out on Bb piccolo. Yes, I could play the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra fifth movement solo on C, but it’s already high enough and sits well on Eb, plus he originally wrote that as a flute cue! Yes, the 1st movement of Respighi’s Pines of Rome is in Bb, but from the very first note (top line concert F muted at forte, all three making the pitch sharp on Bb) it’s better on C (I have access to a slide which lowers the pitch and takes all my problems away). In summary, the name of the game is making it as easy to sound good as we can.

I'm graduating in Composition in Bologna (It.), and here usually B-flat is the default trumpet; but most professional players, or even advanced students, will have the C instrument available as well. As a general rule, B-flat is used for tonal or modal music, the C one for atonal music given it's easier to read at concert-pitch.

I'm glad you made a quick reference between piston and rotary trumpets. I believe that the difference between the two valve types is far more obvious than the different keys. Modern piston trumpets are built to have a very consistent tone color between dynamics and registers, while the rotary trumpet is known for its great variety and complexity of sound. The rotary trumpet is capable of flugelhorn-like quality played soft in it's lower to mid register while the higher dynamics have a much thicker and textured sound than their piston valve counterparts. The rotary's shorter leadpipe, smaller bore and larger bell also allow for a broader projection, unlike the piston trumpet which is very directional, and far reaching with its sound. It's a shame that here in the states that rotary trumpets aren't as common and I believe that they should be the go to instruments for most romantic era (especially Germanic) literature. I would love to know what you think about Piston vs. rotary trumpets!

For a couple of years, we had a professional trumpet player in our small church orchestra. He always showed up with a brass Bb, a silver C, and a picc, and switched between them frequently. I imagine that if he were to write orchestral music, he’d be quite specific about which type of trumpet to use for each piece.

For me the distinction has mainly been writing for amateurs (Bb) or professionals (C). One time did a hymn arrangement with brass quintet for my friends to play. The introduction was in G# minor going to E major (a few accidentals too), so I wrote it for the Bb trumpets as Bb minor-Gb major. It was a success, and next year they got professionals in with their C trumpets, who transposed the music down a diminished third no sweat, because trumpeters.

Fantastic video, I’ve always have doubts about which one should I write for. Thank you very much!

Thanks for these useful pieces of info, Thomas; felt like I really needed them. For quite a while I did in fact assume that writing for trumpets should be approached in a similar way to writing for clarinets in regards to keys and fingering, but I now have a better sense of what to do through what was said here, the Bb trumpet's differences in character from a C being much more pronounced than those of an A clarinet from a Bb being something I especially didn't realise before. As someone who is based in New Zealand like yourself, it seems to me like this place tends to favour C trumpets more; the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra's trumpeters use them in performances more often than not, and the NZSO's score submission guidelines request that composers use them as the "default" trumpet as well.

I got to sing this piece 2 years ago, and it was one of the coolest experiences I've had as a choir singer. So excited for this series to launch!

Thank you for diving into this topic as there are indeed many misconceptions about it. However, I think your examples in the first segment of the video might be misleading. The Ravel is played on a piston valve trumpet while the Shostakovich is definitely a rotary valve trumpet. The "German" trumpet (rotary) generally has a wider bore and has this darker "Austro-German" sound. And the difference in tone definitely is more a result of this construction difference than C/Bb. In Europe, this whole thing is a big thing and it is immediately noticeable whether a player plays a rotary or a piston instrument. E.g. the Berlin Phil generally plays rotary which creates the typical dark sound of the orchestra while for the concert where JW was conducting they all brought piston and sounded very different than what the BP normally sounds. When I do recording sessions anywhere in Europe, I try to make sure in advance that the trumpets bring the right instrument for the job even though some players are really hesitant to switch from their usual instrument. But it is very tricky to get a player to sound bright and cutting on a rotary valve instrument, no matter whether it's a Bb or a C.

Would be fun to see a discussion on the F and D trumpets! And maybe a snippet on the A, counterpart to the A clarinet, if we're lucky?