Understanding the Trumpet Valves: How They Work, What They Do and the Chromatic Scale 

hahaha you're welcome

Thanks for swinging by and the note, Barry!

this. i'm not a trumpet player i was just wondering how the trumpet works and then somehow you suddenly dropped register and i have no idea how.

Brass embouchure While performing on a brass instrument, the sound is produced by the player buzzing his or her lips into a mouthpiece. Pitches are changed in part through altering the amount of muscular contraction in the lip formation. The performer's use of the air, tightening of cheek and jaw muscles, as well as tongue manipulation can affect how the embouchure works. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embouchure

hi Lee Bee - there is a video series up at my site (blackwellstrumpetbasics.com) under the free lessons tab called 'trumpet foundations' that's free, just requires an e-mail. It's all about something called the 'harmonic series' or 'overtone series' I should probably just upload that to youtube....

Glad it helped :-)

K

thanks for watching!

Glad it was helpful!

Much appreciated!

Thanks, Stephen!

As a music teacher and trumpet beginner, I have to say that you are a great teacher. I subbed and will watch your other videos :) Thank you again !!!

Glad you enjoyed it!

love it!

Thanks Ken! If you are interested, I'm putting together a full-blown beginner video course which I will be selling on my website. however, part of the design process is getting beginners to BETA test the lessons. As a thank you I'm offering the BETA testers free, lifetime access to the course. Something you'd be interested in? If so shoot me and e-mail and I'll let you know the details. JamesMBlackwell@gmail.com Thanks for commenting and good luck with everything!

mfk what about all the other notes?

Glad you liked it

great!

Glad to hear you enjoyed it :)

Glad it was helpful!

You're welcome. thanks for watching.

glad you dug it!

Been playing for almost 3 months now and that's helped me LOTS, man. Truly. Thank you so much hahaha i deducted all chromatic valve position from what you taught here + the overtone series. Cheers

you bet!

My pleasure - glad you enjoyed.

Garrett, I had been playing for 16 years before somebody showed me this! Haha!

Great! It's in Bb. the most common are Bb and C.

Honestly, I am not sure at this point. Possibly here in the 'Trumpet Foundations' lessons: www.blackwellstrumpetbasics.com/freetb/

has to do with something called the 'harmonic series' or 'overtone series'. In higher ranges the notes are closer togeher so you can play more notes with the same valve. The reason 13 and 123 go away is because they are generally not as in-tune as the other potential fingerings. As you get higher you can play the same note with different valves - they will all hive a slightly different pitch and timbre. For example, top space E can be played open (no valves), 1+2 and 3rd valve only. All of those finger patterns have that E available on their personal harmonic series.Good question. I should probably throw something up.

Not knowing whether comments to this video are still being monitored and answered, I will jump in and offer an answer. Let's start by pretending you have a bugle (which, of course, has NO valves) rather than a trumpet. As you probably realize, a bugle can play only a limited number of notes, which represent the harmonics inherent in a piece of tubing the length of the bugle (if it were straightened out)--but the instrument offers no valves or keys to get from one harmonic to the other. Therefore, the player changes the notes by using his/her lips. This is done by "buzzing" the approximate pitch of the note the player wants to play, and in doing so, the desired harmonic is "selected"--that is, the air inside the bugle resonates with the pitch being produced by the player's lips. This takes some practice, but one's lips can be trained to produce the desired pitch quite easily. As mentioned above, the bugle can only play the harmonics of the tube of which it is made. Now if we splice in some additional lengths of tubing, and provide valves to select if and when one or more sections of the additional tubing add to the length of the entire instrument, we can change the series of harmonics the instrument will produce--sort of like putting down the bugle and picking up a larger or smaller one to play the missing notes. Again, the pitch produced by the buzzing lips work in combination with the length of tubing chosen by the valves. The valves act to determine which series of harmonics can be produced at a particular tubing length, and the lips select which harmonic within the given series will be played. Although I've played instruments over the course of "many" years, I took up my first brass instrument this past spring--a trombone. As you probably realize, the trombone changes the length of the tube by means of a slide rather than by valves (although there is such a thing as a valve trombone, but it is rare). The slide can be used in any of seven positions, and each one has its own set of harmonics. For example, with the slide in 1st position (retracted completely so it is at its shortest length), the instrument can play a low "pedal-tone" concert B flat, and then the B flat an octave higher, then the F above that, then the next B flat, then D, then another F and so on--which one is played depends on the player's lips. (This would be the equivalent of playing the trumpet with no valves depressed.) If the slide is moved to the 2nd position, then the series is "pedal-tone" A, then A, then E, then A, then C sharp, then E, etc.--which would be the equivalent of depressing the 2nd valve on the trumpet. (Because the trumpet is a "transposing" instrument, playing C on a trumpet is actually sounded as B flat--something I realized quickly when I started playing clarinet 60 years ago, and discovered it wasn't the same pitch as C on my mother's piano. I hope this is of help in answering your question. I'm fascinated by the physics of musical instruments as well as the music they play. I will be getting a trumpet later this week (I've never played a valved brass instrument before), and my challenge to myself is to play the Star-Spangled Banner on it within a hour of picking it up to play it! (I've written it out--with fingerings--in the key of G so it involve the lower notes on the instrument.)

@@bobjacobson858 Thank you for explanation sir!

@@catoleg You're most welcome; I hope it was of help. FWIW I was able to play the Star-Spangled Banner within minutes of picking up the trumpet--I already knew what each valve did and the range of notes it could play, so it was a matter of getting my lips "oriented" to the smaller mouthpiece and instrument, and then coordinating my lips with the appropriate use of the valves.

Yep he got that part wrong.

Hi Andres, thanks for the comment. I don't think there is one up yet but I'll see what I can put together. All the best!

2nd valve is a half step, 1st valve is a full step, and 3rd valve is one and a half steps. So, 1st and 2nd is the same as 3rd.

His reminds me of my McKay music trumpet

it's a yamaha 8310z

Bill Strike 5:00

@@jacobiglesias2954 Tx!

low D and low C# are sharp!

Hey Barry, the top space E is no valves, as well as all octaves above that. Maybe that's what you're seeing. Bottom line E is 12. This video was part of a beginning series I posted on my website called "Trumpet Foundations." Here's the link if you're interested. It's all in there. www.blackwellstrumpetbasics.com/?page_id=2127

The descending order shows the valve combinations for all notes from G in the staff and below. For the partials above that, the fingerings will still work but they are "alternate" valve combinations that are less in-tune.

this is a Bb trumpet - thanks for watching!

YES!!!

absolutely. 30yo is nothing. maybe you can remember how fast you learned guitar. you probably had the basic chords within months and could play some songs within a year. I have no idea about the difficulty of a trumpet, but what I want to say is - imagine you practice 5 years playing the trumpet, then you will be only 35yo and might be able to use it for whatever. Follow your heart and don't be as stupid as I am.

I believe this is because the trumpet is tuned to Bb, so you have to do a tone modification in your head when reading, this happens with many classical instruments in the way they relate to "c"

You can only get (about) 6 notes on the first two octaves of the trumpet range using each valve combination. We need seven valve combinations to end up with all 12 notes and multiple octaves of range.