Trumpets are amongst the very earliest of musical instruments, yet remote as is their date they throw no light on musical scales of the period of their use. Nevertheless for their very ancientness we cannot well pass them by without reference. Pictures of them appear in Egypt and in Assyria, but beyond that Old Time is chary of yielding evidence. The workers in metal in very early times undertook the fashioning of imitations of the horns of sheep, antelopes and oxen, and thus made they were used in primitive musical effects in relation to sovereignty or ceremonial. How strongly the aims of all royal and priestly offices determined the development even of the minutiæ of civilisation and the tendencies of domestic and industrial life, we are hardly able to appreciate with our modern notion of the individual assertiveness, limited only by the general good of the community. So it is well that, in considering the position of the worker, we should remember that he worked in order to fulfil the demand or behest of the king or the priest; for both were to him equally sacred, and often indeed in one man the two offices were combined.
Music may have remained with the people, as an instinct which in simple ways found its gratification; but as an art to be cultivated it had its beginnings to order. The musical instrument had a definite purpose to fulfil; and, under royal or priestly guidance, so long as that purpose was accomplished, little further thought was given to it. Under such conditions there was the perpetual tendency to stagnation; progress was not only unacceptable, but to the old conservatism, as in later days, the new thing was unnecessary; since, if it were desirable, it would have been thought of before by the proper responsible persons. Only under such like estimate can we understand the lack of resource, the poverty of invention, through many centuries during the sway of ancient monarchies, as regards musical instruments.
The possibilities of the various types of instruments, as we know them, were unimaginable in those days; for the human ear had not so far progressed in sensitiveness as to be able to comprehend the feeling for tone, for colour, for range, or for expressiveness, as we by long use have grown accustomed to and look upon almost as our heritage. Yet how short a period has it been since anything like a collection of instruments represented by our modern orchestra attained even a passable mechanical development! And what are the two last centuries we look back upon in comparison with the thousands of years during which the primitive instruments remained in their crude, barbaric immaturity; unimproved, and with neither want nor longing that they should be improved!
As instancing this blank, imperceptive state of mind and feeling, the trumpet is very noticeable. An ancient instrument for ages: perhaps nothing more than a ram’s horn, or horn of animal killed in the chase. Musically, to be ranked as a tooter or hooter. Then it became in ruling hands a means of signal: by sense of rhythm it conveyed to the hosts in field or fortress the message that was equal to words; and in royal and religious processions and ceremonies it communicated the intelligence for which the countless thousands waited; to inspire them, to uplift them in a contagious sympathy of exultation, or to bow them to the ground in common feeling of awe or adoration. When wealth accumulated, the pomp of ceremony increased. Then came the worker in metal, copying the product of nature, yet not venturing much beyond it.
The old monarchies of Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, with their tablets and monuments and paintings, afford no evidence of a stage of musical advance from the early horn; and we have but to contrast the wide range of our trumpet with the few notes producible on a cow’s horn, to recognise how, in the absence of higher aim inciting to achievement which we call art, the dormant possibilities of a marvellous instrument should have been unevoked: empires passed away, and the trumpet remained a horn. Do not be mystified by a misconception to which words may lead. The horn as we know it was an unknown thing in those far away times; its quality of tone not approached even, nor its chief constructive feature identified. The ram’s horn is the original parent of both trumpets and horns, and in the consideration of type belongs to that of trumpets more specifically. The shape of the mouthpiece of the trumpet determines the character of the instrument, and the old horns present only the same shallow cup. It is a matter to be noted how comparatively recent is the long, conical form of mouthpiece absolutely essential as it is to the quality of tone as we have it in the French horn used in our orchestras.
As seen in the Assyrian and Egyptian forms, the bell is evidently an added piece of funnel shaped metal, the first departure from the animal form; afterwards in the progress of music the shape was expanded with perception of its importance, until at last the bell became a marked configuration of symmetry associated with quality of tone, refined, penetrating, and sonorous. We have the old form still preserved to us in our fog horns, and some ancient horns of the town in our market place. In old Greek and Roman times some of the trumpets depicted possess very beautiful outlines; but there is nothing to indicate any great advance in musical evolution, and it scarcely seems probable that even then the production of harmonic notes went much beyond those common to the old trumpet horns. For an extended scale, much greater length than any we see given would be necessary: else the harmonic series could not be built up. Our old coach horn would about represent the limit of the musical value attained; gradually, however, longer tubes came to be used, and variety in shape and purpose awakened the perceptive faculty to the possibilities of higher things.
Yet how strangely dull is human inventiveness, unless the ideal aspiration precedes the routine of the worker, unless handicraft is stimulated by demand going before, of “saying give me the power to accomplish more; feed my ambition.” So we traverse the course of long ages, finding it barren of improvements.
| The Hwangteih. | Fig. 43. | The Haot’ung. | Fig. 44. |
The Chinese furnish a remarkable instance of a nation inventive yet stagnant; for although this people had the prototypes of almost everything that with Europeans has become of infinite value to modern civilization, the Chinese made nothing of them in practical development. Midway in time—how, when, and where, there is no information to guide us—the Chinese suddenly evolve a new thing, a telescope trumpet, a slide trumpet, the latent principle of the trombone; yet nothing came of it in their hands: it does not seem even to have been devised for any musical aim, nor to have a purpose beyond convenience.
The two trumpets here illustrated, called Hwangteih by some authorities, but by Van Aalst (that of the pattern we should in a modern house take to be a hearth broom) is named Haot’ung; but really Chinese names have such a never changing likeness that they are as difficult to distinguish as Chinese faces; and as for remembering them, my advice is, Do not try. These trumpets are on the sliding tube system. The Hwangteih is in three parts, and the Haot’ung in two parts, the first named being of very slender dimensions; the latter is often made of wood covered with copper, but when for military use it is of copper only. And here we should notice the feature peculiar to all trumpets in these Eastern lands, the extremely shallow disc like mouthpiece, with only the faintest indication of a cup,—throughout India, Burmah, Siam, and in fact the whole Asian regions contiguous. The effect of a shallow cup is the easier production of high, shrill notes; and it may be that the lip muscles are in these races thin and tense, the expanse of the disc merely exercising pressure, leaving only a minute portion of the lips for vibration equal to the diameter of the very narrow aperture entered by the stream of wind. The actual force and vigour of the breath would thus have a more predominant influence than any calculated variation of the lip muscles by will. The whole character of the music which satisfies these semi-civilized people seems to corroborate such a view. Shrillness and ear piercing intensity were the effects aimed at.