Piccolo trumpet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Piccolo trumpet in B-flat, with swappable leadpipes to tune the instrument to B-flat (shorter) or A (longer)

The smallest of the trumpet family is the piccolo trumpet ("picc" in trumpeter slang). The most common of these are built to play in both B-flat and A, with separate leadpipes for each key. The tubing in the B-flat piccolo trumpet is exactly one-half the length of that in a standard B-flat trumpet. Piccolo trumpets in G, F and even high C are also manufactured, but are rarer.

The piccolo trumpet in D is also known as the Bach trumpet, and was invented in about 1890 by the Belgian instrument-maker Victor Mahillon for use in the high trumpet parts of music by J.S. Bach and George Frideric Handel.

Many players use a shallower mouthpiece on the piccolo trumpet. The sound production technique is basically the same as that used on the larger B-flat trumpet. Almost all piccolo trumpets have four valves instead of the usual three: the fourth valve takes the instrument down in pitch, usually by a fourth, to facilitate the playing of lower notes.

Although the piccolo trumpet features in much classical music, its first use in modern popular music is thought to have occurred in a distinctive David Mason solo in The Beatles' definitive recording of Penny Lane. Paul McCartney was dissatisfied with the initial attempts at the song's instrumental fill (one of which is released on Anthology 2), and was inspired to use the instrument after hearing Mason's performance in a BBC radio broadcast of the second Brandenburg Concerto [1], and asking George Martin what the "tremendously-high" trumpet was (Martin said it was a piccolo trumpet or "Bach trumpet"). Eventually the Beatles work was recorded by Mason using a B-flat piccolo trumpet. [2]. Use of the instrument is now commonplace in many musical genres. Maurice Andre who is a well known piccolo trumpet chamber music artist, Wynton Marsalis and Hakan Hardenberger are some of the more well-known piccolo trumpet players.