The earliest trumpets date back to 2000 BC and earlier, serving as signaling instruments for military or religious purposes rather than music in the modern sense. Bronze and silver trumpets discovered in the grave of Tutankhamun in Egypt, bronze lurs from Scandinavia, and metal trumpets from China all date back to this ancient period. The Salpinx, a straight trumpet made of bone or bronze, appears in Homer's Iliad from the 9th or 8th century BCE, where it is described as being long and used in Salpinx contests that were part of the original Olympic Games. The Moche people of ancient Peru depicted trumpets in their art going back to AD 300, showing that these instruments were deeply embedded in cultural practices across the globe. These early instruments were not designed for complex melodies but for communication, with the modern bugule continuing this signaling tradition today.
The Golden Age
Improvements to instrument design and metal making in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance led to an increased usefulness of the trumpet as a musical instrument. The natural trumpets of this era consisted of a single coiled tube without valves and therefore could only produce the notes of a single overtone series. Changing keys required the player to change crooks of the instrument. The development of the upper, clarino register by specialist trumpeters, notably Cesare Bendinelli, would lend itself well to the Baroque era, also known as the Golden Age of the natural trumpet. During this period, a vast body of music was written for virtuoso trumpeters. The art was revived in the mid-20th century and natural trumpet playing is again a thriving art around the world. Many modern players in Germany and the UK who perform Baroque music use a version of the natural trumpet fitted with three or four vent holes to aid in correcting out-of-tune notes in the harmonic series.The Valve Revolution
Modern trumpets have three piston valves, each of which increases the length of tubing when engaged, thereby lowering the pitch. The first valve lowers the instrument's pitch by a whole step, the second valve by a half step, and the third valve by one and a half steps. Having three valves provides eight possible valve combinations, but only seven different tubing lengths, because the third valve alone gives essentially the same tubing length as the 1-2 combination. When a fourth valve is present, as with some piccolo trumpets, it usually lowers the pitch a perfect fourth. Used singly and in combination these valves make the instrument fully chromatic, i.e., able to play all twelve pitches of classical music. The overall pitch of the trumpet can be raised or lowered by the use of the tuning slide, and pitch can be bent using the embouchure only. To overcome the problems of intonation and reduce the use of the slides, Renold Schilke designed the tuning-bell trumpet, allowing the player to tune the horn with the bell while leaving the slide pushed in.