The trumpet is a shiny golden instrument with a dazzling far-carrying voice. Like all brass instruments, it has a long coiled tube with a mouthpiece against which the player presses his lips to the trumpeter can produce sounds of varying pitch, but not enough for a complete scale. Until about a hundred years ago the trumpeter, like the bugler of today, had to be content with a limited range. Then, however, valves (3 button-like objects on the picture) were invented. By pressing them down extra lengths of tube and, therefore, extra notes of lower pitch and introduced to give a complete scale. The trumpet was heard long ago on battlefields where it gave courage and strength to the soldiers. At royal celebrations, kings used it because it sounded so grand and important. Helen Keller, who has been blind and deaf since the age of two, was once asked what she imagined the color "red" to be. Her answer was that it seemed like the powerful blast of a trumpet. And this is just what the trumpet’s sound’s like – a flash of the brightest color we know.

    A trumpet player can make a number of notes by pressing only three piston valves. Each valve contains holes that divert the vibrating air into a side section tubing. This lengthens the column of vibrating air in the instrument, and lowers the note. The side sections are of medium, short, and long length. Combinations of the three valves give six notes below the note being sounded bye the lips. Depending on the player, the lips can make a dozen or so notes, and the piston valves create the rest.

    Franz Joseph Haydn composed his famous trumpet concerto of 1796 for the newly designed keyed trumpet because it could produce extra notes. However, the instrument was said to sound like a "demented oboe" so it did not long survive