Equipment

Hermann Baumann

A virtuoso's career

A career built on sound, memory and the natural horn shows how Hermann Baumann helped redefine what a horn soloist could be on the international stage.

By Jean-Pierre Mathez

The trombone: changing times, changing slide positions

From Virgiliano to Praetorius and Eisel, early sources reshape long-held assumptions about trombone tuning, slide positions and historical playing practice.

By Howard Weiner

Part 1

The Baroque trumpet, the high trumpet and the so-called Bach trumpet

Edward H. Tarr examines the Baroque trumpet and clarifies the origins and meaning of the so-called “Bach trumpet.”

By Edward H. Tarr

Part 1

On the early history of valves and valve instruments in Germany (1814-1833)

At the origin of modern brass: Herbert Heyde uncovers the true story of valve invention—revealing rivalries, experiments, and the breakthrough that transformed musical history.

By Herbert Heyde

And approach the realm of making beautiful music

A rare and powerful call from maestro Roger Bobo: at the height of the “Tuba Explosion”, he challenges players to define — at last — the ideal instrument.

By Roger Bobo

Part 1

The Art of the Musical Instrument Maker

Encyclopédie méthodique — Paris 1795

A 1795 encyclopedia captures brass and wind instruments at a moment when their language, character and expressive roles were understood rather differently.

By Anonyme

Part 9

Instrument Makers in USA

Yamaha Music Products

In Grand Rapids, Japanese precision met American manufacturing, as Yamaha balanced imported components, skilled craftsmanship and the demands of a growing brass instrument market.

By Stephan Suter

Understanding the mouthpiece

A brass player's limitations may have less to do with technique than equipment, as subtle changes in mouthpiece design can transform comfort, response and performance.

By John Stork

Part 8

Instrument Makers in USA

Getzen

Two devastating factory fires, rapid reconstruction and a growing export market shaped Getzen’s rise in Wisconsin, where craftsmanship met industrial ambition.

By Stephan Suter

Part 2

The Art of the Musical Instrument Maker

Encyclopédie méthodique, Paris 1795

In 1795, musical instruments were thought to need no further invention, yet their materials, construction and acoustic possibilities remained open to experimentation.

By Anonyme

Points and areas of corrosion in brass instruments

Red spots on brass instruments were often blamed on players and poor maintenance, yet the causes of premature corrosion may lie in manufacturing and surface treatments.

By Karl Hachenberg

Brass in the Operas of Berlioz

Berlioz turned a changing brass section into a dramatic force, using horns, trombones, cornets and saxhorns to shape colour, distance, ceremony and fear.

By Benjamin Perl

Part 3

The Art of the Musical Instrument Maker

Encyclopédie méthodique, Paris 1795

By Anonyme

On the Sackbut or Harmonic Trumpet

From Pierre Trichet’s Traité des Instruments de Musique (c. 1640)

A seventeenth-century description of the sackbut captures its moving slide, chromatic freedom and bass role at a moment when the instrument was still being defined.

By Pierre Trichet

The Remarkable Story Behind the Cover

A war, a theft, and an unexpected recovery turned one nineteenth-century cornet into a witness to musical memory beyond its craftsmanship and sound.

By Jean-Michel Gauffriau

Part 1

Music in an American Frontier Communal Society

Aurora Colony

In a German communal settlement on the Oregon frontier, bands, choirs and original compositions shaped daily life as strongly as faith, work and education.

By Deborah M. Olsen

Part 1

Cesare Bendinelli (1542-1617)

Biography

Cesare Bendinelli (1542–1617), imperial trumpeter and teacher, shaped a tradition and wrote the first trumpet method — a key document of Renaissance brass playing.

By Edward H. Tarr

My Experiences with Colleagues and Pupils

in 50 Years as trumpet player and trumpet teacher

Across five decades, Heinz Burum links trumpet embouchure, mouthpiece design and teaching practice to concrete cases from orchestras, pupils and colleagues.

By Heinz Burum

The bell-tuning trumpet

Colin Bloch examines bell- and slide-tuned trumpets, comparing intonation patterns through controlled tests and outlining structural causes behind observed deviations.

By Colin Bloch

Part 2

Cesare Bendinelli (1542-1617)

The Trumpet Method

The first trumpet method rediscovered: Edward H. Tarr reveals how Bendinelli’s 1614 treatise reshapes our understanding of trumpet technique, signals, and ensemble art.

By Edward H. Tarr

Yamaha, an ambitious giant

Behind the rise of a future industrial giant lies an unexpected lesson in craftsmanship, cultural exchange and the discipline that reshaped wind instrument making.

By Jean-Pierre Mathez

Instrument Making and the Ear

From hearing physiology to workshop testing, E. Ferron links instrument design, acoustics and perception, where no two ears judge sound in quite the same way.

By Emile Ferron

J. G. Albrechtsberger (1736-1809)

Concertino for chromatic trumpet

Study by Reine Dahlqvist arguing that Albrechtsberger’s 1771 Eb concertino was intended for Jew’s harp rather than keyed or slide trumpet.

By Reine Dahlqvist

The F/Bb horn with whole-tone ascending 3rd valve

A different horn, a different approach: Francis Orval explores how an ascending 3rd valve reshapes technique, intonation and response.

By Francis Orval