Keyed trumpet

The keyed trumpet is a cylindrical-bore brass instrument in the trumpet family that makes use of tone holes operated by keys to alter pitch and provide a full chromatic scale, rather than extending the length of tubing with a slide or valves. It was developed from the natural trumpet and reached its high-point in popularity around the turn of the nineteenth century, but waned with the invention of valves in the 1820s and the subsequent emergence of the modern valved trumpet. It is rarely seen in modern performances.

The keyed trumpet has raised tone holes in the wall of the tubing similar in construction to the later ophicleide or saxophone, closed by keys with pads. The experimental E♭ keyed trumpet was not confined to the natural notes, but was chromatic in all registers of the instrument. Before this, the trumpet was commonly valveless and could only play a limited range of “harmonic” notes by altering the lip tension and embouchure, a group of instruments referred to as natural or baroque trumpets today. These harmonic notes were clustered in the high registers, so previous trumpet concertos could only play melodies at very high pitches.

There is also some discrepancy over who created the E♭ keyed trumpet, as it is claimed that “the Viennese court trumpeter, Anton Weidinger invented the keyed trumpet” though elsewhere it is insisted that although “the invention of the keyed trumpet has been ascribed to the Viennese, Anton Weidinger, who is said to have constructed it in 1801... the instrument itself is older than that, as Haydn's concerto was written five years earlier.”