Brass instrument

A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibration of the lips as the player blows into a tubular resonator. Brass instruments are also called labrosones, literally meaning "lip-vibrated instruments" (Baines, 1993).

Families of brass instruments

Brass instruments nowadays generally come in one of three families:

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• Natural brass instruments, where the player can only play notes in the instrument's harmonic series, for example the bugle. The trumpet was a natural brass instrument prior to about 1795, and the horn before about 1820. Natural instruments are still played in authentic performances of older music, and for some ceremonial functions.

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Piston valve

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Rotary valve

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Slide

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• Valved brass instruments use a set of valves (typically 3 or 4 but as many as 7 or more in some cases) operated by the player's fingers that introduce additional tubing into the instrument, changing its overall length. This family includes the modern trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, saxhorn, euphonium, tuba, sousaphone, mellophone, and horn. The valves are usually piston valves, but can be rotary values. Rotary valves are the norm for the horn and are also prevalent on the tuba.
• Slide brass instruments use a slide to change the length of tubing. The main instrument in this family is the trombone (although some valve trombones are also made) and the slide trombone's ancestor the sackbut. Some modern day trombones also have rotary valves in addition to the slide. The folk instrument the bazooka is also in the slide family.

In the past, a fourth type was common:

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• Keyed or Fingered brass instruments used holes along the body of the instrument, which were covered by fingers or by finger-operated pads (keys) in a similar way to a woodwind instrument. These included the cornett, serpent and keyed trumpet. Such instruments were difficult to play and became obsolete with the invention of the valve, though have had a renaissance with the growth of the early music movement.

Some other wind instruments

• alphorn (wood)
• conch (shell)
• shofar (horn)
• Vladimirsky rozhok (wood, Russia)
• Didgeridoo (wood, Australia)
• Wagner tuba
• Natural horn