Music Composition DUMmIES

Piccolo trumpet ..................................................................................

The piccolo trumpet is smaller and capable of higher, brighter-sounding notes

than the B flat trumpet. Thus it is used for more sprightly sounding musical

sections. It’s also (normally) a B flat transposing instrument, with the

notes sounding a full octave higher than the B flat trumpet.

When writing music for the piccolo trumpet, you have two things to take into

consideration: First, transpose the sheet music for the instrument a whole

step up from concert. Second, the music is going to be played a full octave

higher than middle C.

The written range for the piccolo trumpet is F#3 to C6 (Figure 14-9).

To hear Write

CD

C#/D% D#/E%

DE

D#/E% F

EF#/G%

FG

F#/G% G#/A%

GA

G#/A% A#/B%

AB

A#/B% C

BC#/D%

?

w

pedal range

french horn

concert range

w

best range

practical range

w

w &

w

w w

extended rangew

Figure 14-8:

The French

horn range,

transposed

to concert

pitch.

174 Part IV: Orchestration and Arrangement