...still a Renaissance woman

throughout my professional musical career...
I've been primarily an instrumentalist...

as my instrumentalist career has wound down...
I've found myself singing more often...
so I was especially pleased to be asked to sing with a Renaissance group...
[see post,"...a Renaissance woman",2/18/09]

my dislocation having severely limited my "recorder potential"...
I found myself wishing that I hadn't sent my natural trumpet...
to the music store in Oakland with all the others to sell...
after I retired from the Symphony a few years ago...
since now, I could use the natural trumpet again...

so after a recent conversation with Mr.Trumpet Man...
a trumpeter colleague from when the earth's crust was still cooling...
AND the founder/tenore of the Renaissance group with which I sing...
I decided to call the music store & see if I still owned a natural trumpet...
and I do... !





these are recreations of actual period instruments from the Renaissance...
into the Baroque era,[circa 1500-1750]...
the top ones are more Renaissance with the conical bell...
Baroque trumpets & sackbutts[trombones] had more flare...
like the bottom one...



without valves[which would first be added after 1813]...
these instruments are like large bugles...
and play only these notes in the "overtone series"...



Baroque composers especially, knew how to use them despite their limitations...
this is a piece written for 7 trumpets c.1750, in modern notation...

the composer wrote the first "method book" for trumpet...
that contains this piece along with pedagogical advice...
as well as many trumpet calls, fanfares & duets for the natural trumpet...
I have a "facsimile edition" to access for source material...
it is so cool to see the text as they would have...



trumpets in the Medieval/early Renaissance period were straight...
[you can see the more conical bell on this replica...]
but since the trumpet was often played on horseback...
it was soon folded for ease in playing & the player's safety...
[you try handling a 6-8 foot trumpet on horseback...]



this is an actual German Renaissance period trumpet...
[silver-plated, with some gold plating trim...
undoubtedly from a wealthy nobleman's household...]
it was an extravagant instrument for the time...
ironically, it's extravagance [the plating] is probably what preserved it so well...



and here, in action...



this Renaissance trumpeter is properly dressed for the Renaissance...
but probably not as a trumpeter....
because of their ceremonial nature [or use by watchmen/town criers]...
they were never "folk" instruments...
so even "small town" trumpeters probably were more "well turned out"...
and not so "commonly dressed"...

so how would a female Renaissance trumpeter dress ?



well, I've seen a few woodcuts of them playing trumpets...
but women would have never been employed as trumpeters...
so I suppose if the "Renaissance enactor" could wear his usual garb...
I can too...

I can't wait to get my hands on my natural trumpet again...!

I hope Mr.TM can find himself a natural trumpet...
[I gave him several suggestions, locally...]
because as cool as it would be to play fanfares myself...
duet fanfares would be way better...