just wondering about this.....does it have to do with the fact that the Bb concert scale is the C scale for trumpets? pleez reply!
thankz
trumpetbabe2012

Yes, Just because the fundamental note with no valves is a Bb, but we call it C. It's crazy really. As a jazz player I have to sight transpose music almost all the time. And if you play another instrument like piano or trombone you have to learn every song in two keys.

Yes, different instruments play in different keys. It has to do with the length of the pipe in the horn and the frequency of soundwave it produces and physics stuff like that. However, you can take one instrument and make it play in a different key by changing the length of pipe like a C trumpet. Saxaphones are the most visible example though, a regular alto saxaphone plays in the key of Eb while its bigger brother the tenor saxaphone plays in Bb. A good experiment is to have two instruments, like a trumpet and a sax, play a G not a concert G but their regular G. If the note matches then they play in the same key, if they dont then they play in different keys.

I hate this really. like Trumpet plays in Bb, but couldn't we just learn that open valves makes a Bb, F, and so on through the harmonic series? What I hate even more is how the tuba reads. The tuba is a C instrument, meaning it reads all of it's music in concert pitch, and yet open valves for it is a Bb exactly like on the trumpet. Why do they make all these confusing rules??

wow,this is kinda confusing......but no one said trumpet was easy...... thankz any way!!!

It's called a Bb trumpet because the horn is pitched in Bb (tubing length puts it in the key). So when you play an open C on a Bb trumpet you're actually playing a concert Bb. Now they call open a C because it's easier for the average/beginner musician to understand. Now a c trumpet is shorter than a Bb trumpet, so therefore it's pitched in a higher pitch...which is the key of c. so if you play an open c, you're playing a concert c. now you're probably wondering what "concert" or "concert pitch" is. Concert pitch is like the real note. When someone says play a Bb, you grab a piano and play a Bb...thats concert pitch. Concert pitch is based off the key of C...C-C no sharps and flats.

That's true, but why is the standard trumpet in Bb, while the standard Tuba is in C, when the fingerings for the same pitches are the same??
annnd the BARITONE!! dont get me started !! the baritone has the exact fingerings as Bb trumpet, and the exact same written notes when read in the trble clef, and yet when it reads in the bass clef, it is a different key!! WHYYYYYYYYY??

--Jameh

To answer the instrument difference part, it's like TrumpetKid said, it has to do with the length of the instrument ( although I don't understand why a 9 foot French Horn plays higher than a trumpet...if anyone has the answer to that, please answer...) anyway, the instrument Key difference is due to the length. They could have made a tuba a different length and called it a Bb tuba. I actually pulled the tuning slide on my Bb out so far that I was playing in the key of A. So it just depends on the length of the instrument.

To answer the treble/base clef difference, I don't know why it was created like this in the first place, but the bottom line on a treble clef is an E and the top line an F, while on the base clef, the bottom line is a G and the top line an A. So when you play the second line on a base clef and then the second line on a treble clef, you aren't actually playing the same note, even if you use the same instrument or 2 instruments pitched in the same key.

Hope that helped.

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By the way, when I said "called it a Bb tuba", I meant they could actually make it a Bb tuba, or an Eb tuba or whatever else they wanted...it all depends on the length.

It would be very hard for a trumpet player to have a C trumpet and a Bb trumpet if it wasn't a transposing instrument. You would have to learn all your fingerings again for each different trumpet, so you'd pick up a Bb trumpet and C would be 1 & 3. On a C trumpet C is no valves, you'd pick up a high Eb trumpet and C would be 1 & 2.
That would be a lot more confusing.
But I still think it's @^#%, because 99.9% of all trumpet players just use the normal Bb trumpet. the rules should be the same as Baritone and trombone, they learn it like it is.

LET'S START A "TEACH ALL KIDS THAT Bb IS NO VALVES " CAMPAIGN.

And by the way Trumpet Herald guy, French horn's range isn't higher than a Trumpet. If you get a french horn player to play their regular C (in the treble clef), you play only a middle G to match it (in the treble clef) on trumpet. An average French horn player can go an octave above that, and an average trumpet player an octave and a half above that.
The horn does have that sort of sound though where you think it's playing high, but when you match it on trumpet you are only playing mid range notes.
I think that happens a lot, with trombone, if they are playing a high Bb, it sounds high, but the same note (mid c) on trumpet doesn't sound high at all.

Because Bb Trumpet is in the key of Bb. nice