4
1 The Musician’s Experience of Brass Instruments
Fig. 1.1 A brass band
to denote the family of lip-excited instruments, will be used in this book when
the colloquial description ‘brass instrument’ seems inappropriate or potentially
misleading.
1.1.1 Labrosones from Found Objects
At some stage in the unrecorded millennia of prehistory, the dramatic effect of the lip
buzz on a suitable resonator was discovered. The first ever brass player may have
been experimenting on a Pacific shore, buzzing into the rudimentary mouthpiece
formed on a conch shell by breaking off its end. The use of these naturally occurring
hollow shells as labrosones (Petiot and Tavard 2008) was certainly well-established
at least 3000 years ago, as evidenced by the discovery in 2001 of a cache of 20
polished and decorated Strombus galeatus marine shell trumpets with carefully
shaped mouthpieces in a pre-Inca site in Peru. Figure 1.3a shows one of these
original shells being played by Professor Perry Cook, a member of the team which
researched their acoustical and musical properties (Cook et al. 2010; Kolar et al.
2012; Kolar 2014).
The use of animal horns as labrosones is recorded in some of the earliest Biblical
texts. In the Book of Leviticus, describing events at a time around 1300 BCE but
probably written several centuries later, Moses receives a command from God that
once in every 50 years, a jubilee year should be proclaimed:
1 The Musician’s Experience of Brass Instruments
Fig. 1.1 A brass band
to denote the family of lip-excited instruments, will be used in this book when
the colloquial description ‘brass instrument’ seems inappropriate or potentially
misleading.
1.1.1 Labrosones from Found Objects
At some stage in the unrecorded millennia of prehistory, the dramatic effect of the lip
buzz on a suitable resonator was discovered. The first ever brass player may have
been experimenting on a Pacific shore, buzzing into the rudimentary mouthpiece
formed on a conch shell by breaking off its end. The use of these naturally occurring
hollow shells as labrosones (Petiot and Tavard 2008) was certainly well-established
at least 3000 years ago, as evidenced by the discovery in 2001 of a cache of 20
polished and decorated Strombus galeatus marine shell trumpets with carefully
shaped mouthpieces in a pre-Inca site in Peru. Figure 1.3a shows one of these
original shells being played by Professor Perry Cook, a member of the team which
researched their acoustical and musical properties (Cook et al. 2010; Kolar et al.
2012; Kolar 2014).
The use of animal horns as labrosones is recorded in some of the earliest Biblical
texts. In the Book of Leviticus, describing events at a time around 1300 BCE but
probably written several centuries later, Moses receives a command from God that
once in every 50 years, a jubilee year should be proclaimed: