. In the orchestra French horns are used in pairs, two of the players taking the higher tones, and two the lower. The tone is intensely mellow but incapable of any extensive variation, but in spite of this lack of variety the tone itself is so wonderfully beautiful that the instrument is one of the most useful in the orchestra both in solo passages and to fill in the harmony. The horn (as well as the trumpet and trombone) differs from most of the wood-wind instruments in that its mouthpiece contains no reed, the lips of the player constituting the vibrating body as they are stretched across the mouthpiece and air is forced against them. The horn is used in bands as well as in orchestras.
23. The range of the trumpet is
, the typical tone being brilliant and ringing. It is used in both band and orchestra, playing the highest parts assigned to the brass choir. The trumpet is often replaced in both band and orchestra by its less refined cousin the cornet because of the ease with which the latter can be played as compared with the trumpet, and the larger number of players that are available in consequence of this ease of execution.
24. The cornet looks something like the trumpet, but is not so slim and graceful in appearance. Its tube is only four and one-half feet long, as compared with a length of about eight feet in the trumpet, and sixteen feet in the French horn.
The range of the cornet in B♭ is from
to