1.1 Creating Music from Lip Vibration: Labrosones Through the Ages
7
Fig. 1.5 (a) Photograph of the Tutankhamun silver trumpet (left) with its protective wooden
core (right). Copyright: Griffith Institute, University of Oxford. (b) James Tappern playing the
Tutankhamun trumpet in a 1939 BBC broadcast
Fig. 1.6 Part of the fanfare played by James Tappern on the Tutankhamun trumpet (actual pitch)
(Fig. 1.5b). Tappern inserted a modern trumpet mouthpiece into the instrument and
was able to play a three-note fanfare (Fig. 1.6).
It is dangerous to conclude that these pitches were accessible to the original
Egyptian performers, however, since the addition of the mouthpiece radically
changes the instrument. The eminent English trumpeter Philip Jones was permitted
to sound the silver trumpet in the Cairo Museum as late as 1975, presumably using
the original wide-bored entrance aperture. In a letter now held in the Department of
Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, he reported his reaction:
Its sound was not exactly melodious, as the bore in relation to its length is quite out of
proportion, but it was probably the most thrilling experience I shall have as a trumpeter.
An insight into the use of trumpets in this period is provided by a passage in the
Biblical Book of Numbers:
The Lord said to Moses: ‘Make two trumpets of beaten silver and use them for summoning
the community and for breaking camp. When both are sounded, the whole community is
to muster before you at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. If a single trumpet is sounded,
the chiefs who are heads of the Israelite clans will muster. When a fanfare is sounded,
those encamped on the east side are to move off. When a second fanfare is sounded, those
encamped on the south are to move off. A fanfare is the signal to move off. When you
convene the assembly, a trumpet call must be sounded, not a fanfare.’ (Numbers 10: 1–7,
Revised English Bible).
7
Fig. 1.5 (a) Photograph of the Tutankhamun silver trumpet (left) with its protective wooden
core (right). Copyright: Griffith Institute, University of Oxford. (b) James Tappern playing the
Tutankhamun trumpet in a 1939 BBC broadcast
Fig. 1.6 Part of the fanfare played by James Tappern on the Tutankhamun trumpet (actual pitch)
(Fig. 1.5b). Tappern inserted a modern trumpet mouthpiece into the instrument and
was able to play a three-note fanfare (Fig. 1.6).
It is dangerous to conclude that these pitches were accessible to the original
Egyptian performers, however, since the addition of the mouthpiece radically
changes the instrument. The eminent English trumpeter Philip Jones was permitted
to sound the silver trumpet in the Cairo Museum as late as 1975, presumably using
the original wide-bored entrance aperture. In a letter now held in the Department of
Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, he reported his reaction:
Its sound was not exactly melodious, as the bore in relation to its length is quite out of
proportion, but it was probably the most thrilling experience I shall have as a trumpeter.
An insight into the use of trumpets in this period is provided by a passage in the
Biblical Book of Numbers:
The Lord said to Moses: ‘Make two trumpets of beaten silver and use them for summoning
the community and for breaking camp. When both are sounded, the whole community is
to muster before you at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. If a single trumpet is sounded,
the chiefs who are heads of the Israelite clans will muster. When a fanfare is sounded,
those encamped on the east side are to move off. When a second fanfare is sounded, those
encamped on the south are to move off. A fanfare is the signal to move off. When you
convene the assembly, a trumpet call must be sounded, not a fanfare.’ (Numbers 10: 1–7,
Revised English Bible).