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

“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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>