Some Reasearch on brass

I have a meeting on Monday to discuss with John (instrument repair technician) about gathering more brass instruments from the Northern Ireland Education Board. I am also trying to arrange a session with him where he can show me the techniques used to repair and weld brass parts together so I can start making these instruments on.

Started doing some research to refresh my mind of brass and how each of the parts actually work to affect the sound of each instrument.

There are 4 main types of brass instruments played in secondary schools:

* Trumpets
* Trombones
* Tubas
* French Horns

There are of course a number of other brass instruments such as the bugle, sousaphone etc but the likely hood of stumbling across any of these in school cupboards is highly unlikely. So far i have managed to acquire a trombone, french horn and a very battered tuba.















There are two main types of design when it comes to brass:

* Cylindrical Bore

* Conical Bore

Cylindrical Bore is where the instruments piping from mouthpiece to bell are the same thickness. Trumpet and Trombone are both cylindrical bore.

Conical Bore is where the thickness of the instruments piping gradually widens from the mouthpiece to the bell. French Horn and Tuba are conical bore.

Finally there are 4 main sections to take into account on brass instruments:

* Mouthpiece

* Mouthpipe

* Body of instrument (valves/slide)

* Bell

There are 2 factors to changing the pitch of a brass instrument: changing the player's lip aperture or "embouchure", which determines the frequency of the vibration into the instrument and pressing the valves to change the length of the tubing.

Valves and Slides work on the same principle that by changing the length of piping you can change the pitch of the sound. Valves have a more defined distinction between each note being played where as a slide has a more fluid blend between notes. Valved instruments have more of an advantage when it comes to playing faster pieces of music as the slide can be slow and quite awkward jumping up and down the scales.

There are also two main types of valve designs to consider in the construction of these instruments: Rotary and Piston Valves (they both do the same job changing the flow of air through different parts of the instruments but by slight different process)

Rotary Valve


Piston Valve