The smallest of the trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

 family is the piccolo trumpet, pitched one octave higher than the standard B trumpet. Most piccolo trumpets are built to play in either B or A, using a separate leadpipe

Leadpipe

In a brass instrument, a leadpipe is the pipe or tube into which the mouthpiece is placed.For example, on the illustration of a trombone, the leadpipe would be between #3 and #4, the mouthpiece and the slide lock ring. In the illustration of a French horn, the leadpipe is #2.Some instruments have a...

 for each key. The tubing in the B piccolo trumpet is one-half the length of that in a standard B trumpet. Piccolo trumpets in G, F, and even high C are also manufactured, but are rarer.

The soprano trumpet in D is also known as the Bach trumpet and was invented in about 1890 by the Belgian instrument maker Victor Mahillon to play the high trumpet parts in music by Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 and Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

.

The modern piccolo trumpet enables players to play the difficult trumpet parts of Baroque music, such as Bach's second Brandenburg concerto and B-minor Mass. Adolf Scherbaum was the first to specialize in the piccolo trumpet repertoire and to discover new baroque works, doing original transcriptions. Maurice André

Maurice André

Maurice André is a French trumpeter, active in the classical music field.-Biography:He is a classical virtuoso trumpeter, born in Alès, France in the Cévennes into a mining family. His father was an amateur musician....

 further developed the modern piccolo repertoire, playing the instrument for 50 years.

The sound production technique is basically the same as that used on the larger B-flat trumpet. Air pressure and tonguing are different, and players use a shallower mouthpiece

Mouthpiece (brass)

On brass instruments the mouthpiece is the part of the instrument which is placed upon the player's lips. The purpose of the mouthpiece is a resonator, which passes vibration from the lips to the column of air contained within the instrument, giving rise to the standing wave pattern of vibration in...

 for the piccolo trumpet. Almost all piccolo trumpets have four valves instead of three — the fourth valve usually lowers the pitch by a fourth. This extends the low range and provides alternate fingerings and improved intonation for some notes.

The piccolo trumpet solo in The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' "Penny Lane

Penny Lane

"Penny Lane" is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney. It was credited to Lennon–McCartney.Recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, "Penny Lane" was released in February 1967 as one side of a double A-sided single, along with "Strawberry Fields Forever". Both songs were later included...

", which introduced the instrument to pop music, was played by David Mason. Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

 was dissatisfied with the initial attempts at the song's instrumental fill (one of which is released on Anthology 2

Anthology 2

Anthology 2 is a compilation album by The Beatles, released by Apple Records in March 1996. It is the second of the three-volume Anthology collection, all of which tie-in with the televised special The Beatles Anthology. The opening track is "Real Love", the second of the two recordings that...

), and was inspired to use the instrument after hearing Mason's performance in a BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 radio broadcast of the second Brandenburg Concerto http://abel.hive.no/trompet/tpin/Penny_Lane_solo.html and asking George Martin

George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

 what the "tremendously high" trumpet was. Eventually Mason recorded the solo using a piccolo trumpet in A. http://www.nevilleyoung.co.uk/pennylane. Use of the instrument is now commonplace in many musical genres. Maurice André

Maurice André

Maurice André is a French trumpeter, active in the classical music field.-Biography:He is a classical virtuoso trumpeter, born in Alès, France in the Cévennes into a mining family. His father was an amateur musician....

, Otto Sauter

Otto Sauter

Otto Sauter Otto Sauter Otto Sauter (b.19610is a German trumpet soloist, who specializes on the piccolo trumpet . -Biography:From 1988 until 1998 Sauter was principal trumpet in the Bremen State Philharmonic Orchestra...

, Guy Touvron

Guy Touvron

Guy Touvron is a French classical trumpet player and music teacher. He is an accomplished soloist, having played with some of Europe's leading orchestras, and has premiered several prominent trumpet concertos...

, Reinhold Friedrich, Adolf Scherbaum

Adolf Scherbaum

Adolf Scherbaum was a Bohemia-born trumpet player from Eger .He activated at Prague, Brno, Berlin, Bratislava, Hamburg, and taught at the Hochschule für Musik Saar, Saarbrücken.- References :...

, Ludwig Güttler

Ludwig Guttler

Ludwig Güttler, also Ludwig Guttler, is an internationally known German trumpet and corno da caccia virtuoso....

, Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...

, and Håkan Hardenberger

Håkan Hardenberger

Håkan Hardenberger is a Swedish trumpeter. Taking up the trumpet at the age of eight under the guidance of hometown teacher Bo Nilsson, Hardenberger pursued further studies at the Paris Conservatoire, with Pierre Thibaud, and in Los Angeles with Thomas Stevens...

 are some well-known piccolo trumpet players.

The piccolo trumpet should not be confused with the pocket trumpet

Pocket trumpet

thumb|250px|Pocket trumpet in B-flat, with a 5-inch standard size bell and medium-large boreThe pocket trumpet is a compact size B trumpet, with the same playing range as the regular trumpet. The tubing is wound more tightly than that of a standard trumpet in order to reduce its size while...

, which plays in the same pitch as the regular Bb trumpet.

External links

• Maurice Andre website See section : Piccolo tpt
• Piccolo trumpet models
• Piccolo trumpet manufacturers
• History of the piccolo trumpet