On a trumpet, there are very few useful patterns to the fingering. Here’s a C scale, with numbers representing the three valves you push down. (13 = first plus third valve held down. 0 = open, no valves) By the way, with brass instruments, you have to warm up before you play. You can’t just sit down and play a chart, or you’d tire yourself out really quickly, wreck your lips, or sound like crap. Also, brass players have limited endurance because we’re using our lips to make the sound (not a string or a reed), and we have to hold in the vibration with the muscles surrounding our lips. Those muscles, like any muscles, run out of steam. And you need a decent ear to play both instruments, because they are never automatically in tune. It’s not a matter of pushing buttons and getting a good note: push a button and you could be horribly sharp or flat. Your ear should tell you how to tune the instrument or compensate for the inaccuracies of a brass instrument.
Comments