Wetaskiwin District Heritage Museum Centre & City of Wetaskiwin Archives

Sounding in the New Year and the first Heritage Moment of 2020 is our trumpet from 1909, Scotland. Earliest forms of the trumpet were found in China, South America, Scandinavia, and India who used various materials including animal horns, conch shell, bamboo, and tree limbs. Prehistoric man’s basic technique was to blow through a horn shaped object used typically for religious, military, or hunting purposes. Silver, bronze, and metal trumpets arrived around 1500 BCE when King Tut was buried with his own instrument. In the Middle Ages the trumpet became more prominent in European music, but they were limited to a single primary tone in a harmonic series. This ‘natural trumpet’ style was made popular through the compositions of Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi. To perform in such complex arrangements the player was required to select a different trumpet each time the keys changed, and the pitch was too challenging to reach. An invention known as ‘crooks’ or ‘shanks’ applied small sections of extra tubing to the instrument aiding in the change of pitch, which came to the relief of many musicians in the 18th century. Keys, valves, and reeds weren’t introduced until the 1800s, making the new clear and focused sound resonate in the ‘Pop Music’ of Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. If you want to hear a little Jazz, Blues, or Big Band horn, stay tuned for our roaring twenties prohibition party in the late spring to get your ‘brass’ on the dance floor!