The contrabass trumpet is the lowest-pitched member of the

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

family, sounding below the

bass trumpet The bass trumpet is a type of low trumpet which was first developed during the 1820s in Germany. It is usually pitched in 8' C or 9' B today, but is sometimes built in E and is treated as a transposing instrument sounding either an octave, a sixt ...

. A very rare novelty instrument, only a small number of instruments exist. It first appeared in the mid 20th century and has no orchestral or jazz repertoire. Usually built in 12' F a perfect fourth below the B♭ bass trumpet, it has the same length as the F

contrabass trombone The contrabass trombone (german: Kontrabassposaune, it, trombone contrabbasso) is the lowest instrument in the trombone family of brass instruments. First appearing built in 18′ B♭ an octave below the tenor trombone, since the late 20th cen ...

, cimbasso or

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

. Some (sometimes called the subcontrabass trumpet) are built larger in 18' B♭ an octave below the bass trumpet, two octaves below a standard B♭ trumpet.

History

A "contrabass trumpet" in 18' B♭ played by tuba player

Don Butterfield Don Kiethly Butterfield (April 1, 1923 – November 27, 2006) was an American jazz and classical tuba player. Biography Butterfield began to play the tuba in high school. He wanted to play trumpet, but the band director assigned him to tuba inst ...

appeared in 1962 on the TV show ''

I've Got a Secret ''I've Got a Secret'' is an American panel game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS television. Created by comedy writers Allan Sherman and Howard Merrill, it was a derivative of Goodson-Todman's own panel show, ''What's My Line ...

''. The instrument was loaned to the show from a Claremont College University musical instrument collection, which is now at the Musical Instrument Museum in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the on ...

. In 1967

Roger Bobo Roger Bobo (born June 8, 1938) is an American tuba virtuoso and brass pedagogue. He retired from active tuba performance in 2001 in order to devote his time to conducting and teaching. He gave what is reputed to be the first solo tuba recital i ...

, tuba player with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, commissioned a contrabass trumpet from instrument maker George Strucel. Unhappy with the sound of the

in recording the ''Canzoni e Sonate'' by Gabrieli, they built an instrument in 12' F in the shape of a large bass trumpet, out of spare tubing and a bass trombone bell from the

Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wor ...

factory. Tuba player Carl Kleinsteuber made four similarly configured contrabass trumpets in F in the 1990s. He made them cheaply out of spare brass instrument parts as "fun" instruments, acknowledging the absence of any known repertoire. In the early 2000s, Latvian trombonist Vairis Nartišs built four instruments in 18' B♭ which he called "subcontrabass trumpets", two of which are now in museums.

Performance

Contrabass trumpets have not gained wide appeal, and very few instrument makers offer a contrabass trumpet today; Lars Gerdt in Sweden offers a model in F based on the Strucel/Bobo instrument. Their unwieldy shape and weight can make contrabass trumpets difficult or impractical to play. The

timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musica ...

from their cylindrical-bore construction, use of valves and similar range allow them to be readily substituted with a cimbasso.

References

{{Trumpets Contrabass instruments Trumpets