I’m Looking To Buy A Trumpet, But What Is A Bb Trumpet?

Are you looking to buy a trumpet but don’t know what the “Bb” stands for? Here’s a quick way of understanding it.

“Bb” is actually used in place of “B flat” simply because it is almost impossible to find the correct musical symbol for “flat” when you are working on text documents, or accessing search engines. Even if the symbol is used correctly by the creator of the text, it might not be displayed correctly by all internet browsers. Lower-case b is thus used as an easy and sensible alternative since it more or less resembles the “flat” symbol.

The Bb trumpet is the most commonly used type of trumpet today, owing to the note produced on its lowest “open” position (or lowest “harmonic”), when no valve is depressed. A “harmonic” refers to the characteristic of a trumpet whereby a series of musically related notes may be produced merely by changing the air speed through the instrument. In other words, the trumpet is essentially a bugle if no valves are used, or if the same combination of valves are held in place throughout a particular harmonic series.

Since
(a) it is easiest to play the trumpet using the major scale based on this open note, and
(b) C is the easiest scale to read from a music sheet because it contains no sharps or flats,

It is natural that musicians would try to get the best of both worlds and call this open trumpet scale “C” while using the easy “natural C” written scale. The actual tone produced would, however, be B flat on a piano.

This trade-off unfortunately comes at a heavy price when all the other members of a band can take the same written music sheet and immediately play, whereas the trumpeter has to painstakingly transpose the piece a full tone higher! It is very rare that you come across a trumpeter who has learned to read the (true) C scale off a music sheet while playing the “D” scale on the trumpet. It is just too hard to switch from the one mode to the other when you have spent half your life learning to do only the one method!

It is highly unlikely that trumpeters would ever abandon this practice of calling the piano Bb note “C” on the trumpet. There are, of course, C trumpets being manufactured these days, but for some reason they are not making any significant inroads into the market. Perhaps trumpeters simply enjoy the slightly more mellow, warmer tone of the lower Bb pocket trumpet, one can only speculate. Confused trumpeters may take a small measure of comfort from the fact that most orchestral wind instruments have adopted the same practice, each in a different scale from the rest!

If the sound of a trumpet excites you and you would like to buy a Best Intermediate Trumpet and learn more about owning and playing it