Tutankhamun’s Trumpets. What is this? The pair of trumpets from Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb are believed to be the oldest playable trumpets in the world. These trumpets are the only ones that have survived from ancient Egypt and are over 3,000 years old.

In the ancient Greek and Roman eras, trumpets were used for marching in wartime, for which they were admirably suited. Subsequently, almost all European royalty had trumpet bands that played military music. It was in the seventeenth century that the trumpet came to be used purely in musical ensembles.

Known for its powerful musical presence, the trumpet is one of the oldest instruments in the world. Predecessors to the modern trumpet can be found 4000 years ago in ancient Egypt! Over the course of many years, the trumpet emerged as an important instrument for ceremonial and military purposes.

Anton Weidinger
Musical pieces Anton Weidinger developed in the 1790s the first successful keyed trumpet, capable of playing all the chromatic notes in its range.

In 1875 C. G. Conn founded a factory in Elkhart, Indiana, and to this day most brass instruments from the United States are manufactured in this city. Today some orchestras are not satisfied with only using B-flat trumpets.

Dating back to 1500 BCE and further, the earliest trumpets have been found all over the world in places such as Egypt, Scandinavia, China, Africa, and Peru, even with a mention in the Bible. The first trumpets were usually made out of animal horns, which eventually became brass and other metals similar to the trumpets we know today.

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.

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.

A new pitch changing idea came in the 18th century, when horns began to be outfitted with an invention called “crooks” or “shanks.” These were short sections of extra tubing that could be added to the trumpet to tune its primary note to a new pitch.