Welcome to The Musical Instruments Brass Famiy Blog!
Music is a part of the very fiber of our society and its inherent value for each human being is commonly acknowledged in the many cultures that comprise American existence. Not only does music provide a means for individuals to connect with themselves, it also facilitates connection with other people. Music brings people together and helps us experience our common humanity. It aids in and promotes our healing… and learning to play an instrument can make us smarter.
I’m a musician and play a few instruments. As a result, I’m a firm believer in the power of music. The Musical Instruments Brass Family Blog is a resource for music lovers of brass wind instruments. My brass family instrument of choice happens to be the didgeridoo (also known as Didjeridu or didge). In addition to general information on brass musical instruments, I’ll also share some of my favorite brass playing musicians and songs. I am a huge fan of jazz and love to view videos of the great jazz artists, so you’ll be sure to find many here.
Musical brass instruments are technically referred to as aerophones, which are instruments that produce sound principally by causing a body of air to vibrate. Brass wind instruments contain some type of resonator, most often a tube, in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into or over a mouthpiece set at the end of the resonator. The length of the tube, as well as manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air, are what determines the pitch of the vibration.
Interestingly, the distinguishing feature of brass musical instruments is NOT the material used to construct the body of the instruments. There are instruments made from brass that do not belong to the brass family and likewise, there are instruments not made from brass that do belong to the brass family. Two examples include the brass saxophone, which is actually classified as a woodwind instrument, and the wooden didgeridoo (or didjeridu), which is classified as a brass instrument. As such, what more accurately distinguishes a brass instrument from a woodwind is in how the musician produces the sound.
A brass instrument uses a cupped mouthpiece shaped in such a way that allows the player’s lips to vibrate, which in turn causes the air within the instrument to vibrate and generate the sound.
To reach different notes, brass musical instruments change the length of the vibrating air column. By engaging valves to route air though additional tubing, brass instruments lower the fundamental pitch by increasing the overall tube length. (An exception is the trombone, which uses a sliding mechanism to lengthen and/or shorten the tube.) Furthermore, brass wind instruments are capable of obtaining different notes through a method of making the column of air vibrate at different harmonics without changing the length of the column of air. This is accomplished by changing the embouchure (use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece) to get different harmonics of the standing wave.
Brass musical instruments include: the trombone, trumpet, French horn, euphonium, tuba, cornet, flugelhorn, baritone horn, sousaphone, mellophone, the old saxhorn, cornet, serpent, ophicleide, keyed trumpet, alphorn, conch shell, didgeridoo (or didjeridu), natural horn, shofar, vladimirskiy rozhok and Wagner tuba.
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Miles Davis on Steve Allen Show.