You've probably had a fair few 'I'm thinking of learning posts' but well, here's another.
I love the trumpet and had I realised what it could do when I was younger I probably would have learnt a long time ago, Im at uni now and itching to learn a new instrument and have had my eyes on the trumpet for years.
Is it worth buying a really cheap one? I've seen them for as little as £100 (don't know what that is in dollars) and can't spend anymore (partly coz i buy so many intruments every year but mainly coz im a poor student) Please advise a clueless musician...
please read the post entiltled Trumpret for beginners. and no don't buy a generic brand trumpet for $100, they are crap. i put some links to some good trumpet in trumpet for beginners.
I bought my first trumpet for 100 australian dollars 15 years ago, which is way less than 100 pounds. I kept it right through to when I started playing in pro bands and first year of music college. I even cut some calculated lengths of the piping off and turned it into a C trumpet, I did a whole latin tour on it after that and I got many compliments on my tone.
I think the point is that Trumpet is a simple instrument, it's cheap, 90% of it's tone is made by the person blowing, not the actual horn. And the other point is that it was a Conn, a decent brand, don't go for Tristar and some others off the internet, they are very out of tune.
If you get someone to play it who has a good ear for tuning (maybe not the guy selling it) and it sounds good, and it costs 100 pounds than do it.
I also bought a Trombone 300 dollars (king) 12 years ago and I have used it for dozens of recording sessions, it sounds great and has a good range etc.