What are effects of a curvy cornet compared to a linear

[Gingrai 02]

I just received a very neat cornet. A C. W. Osgood model (very cool engraving on the bell).

My question is, does the first curve coming from the leadpipe to the main tuning slide on cornets affect the sound more towards a trumpet? Mine takes two hard 90 degree turns, compared to the long, flowing pipe I've seen on other models, new and old.

Those first two 90 degree turns are for the A / Bb tuning adjustment, but I just wanted to see if this would make the cornet sound more like a trumpet. I've never owned or heard one played by a reputable individual live, which is why I ask.

Thanks!

[Dennis78]

Mouthpiece choice will have the most effect to the sound produced. Shape of the cornet is just looks. There are probably 100 different cornet wraps and they all sound like cornets
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a few different ones

[JWG]

While I agree with Dennis that mouthpiece choice and then bell flare will most affect the sound a cornet produces, I respectfully disagree with Dennis that "the shape of a cornet is just looks."

If you built an "unwrapped" version of your brass instrument using the exact same diameter of tubing throughout, it should sound brighter than your horn, just as a herald trumpet sounds brighter than a normally wrapped trumpet. Curved tubing tends to darken the tone by making it more difficult for the higher frequencies (overtones) within the standing wave to repeat themselves and resonate within the tubing.

When someone did a physical survey of tubing diameters in trumpets and cornets, the results shocked most players, because, overall, cornets had less conical expansion from mouthpiece to bell than trumpets did. Yet, players agreed that cornets overall played darker. More curved tubing explains this fact, because higher frequencies need to repeat themselves within the tubing many times before they reach the bell. The straighter tubing of a trumpet allows those higher frequencies to continue repeating themselves with high fidelity. The more curved tubing of cornets dampens higher frequencies as they resonate back and forth between the mouthpiece and bell.

You can visualize this for yourself on a piece of paper: To represent a trumpet: Draw a perfectly straight line segment, then mark it into even quarters, and then draw 3 sine waves on it: one using the entire line segment, one repeating at the midpoint of the segment, and one repeating every quarter segment. To represent a cornet: Draw the same length line segment but in curve (use a tin can or compass to trace), then do the same as you did above: mark it into even quarters, and then draw 3 sine waves on it: one using the entire line segment, one repeating at the midpoint of the segment, and one repeating every quarter segment. You will clearly see that the higher frequencies get squished far more on the inside of the curved line segment than on outside of the line segment where they get stretched. This compression and expansion of the sine wave along the length of the curve makes it more difficult for the wave to maintain faithful to its shape as it travels through the curved tubing.

The French Horn, having no appreciable lengths of straight tubing whatsoever, constitutes the best example of the phenomena of curved tubing dampening higher frequencies.

Hopefully, there exists someone on the forum who has experience building, testing, and designing brass instruments and who can give you a better explanation than I have.
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Flip Oakes Wild Thing Bb and C with 1.5 TCC, XT, C, C-O, O, & L mouthpieces
Bach 183S (undersprung valves & straight taper pipe) with 1.5 Flip Oakes XF

[Dennis78]

Well that was definitely informative. I’ll say then some cornets are shaped differently for looks. In my personal experience with quite a few cornets, I’ve noticed marginal differences. My cornet that has the brightest tone would be my New Proportions Couturier model which has what seems to me quite a few bends. My darkest is a Blessing Artist model. My favorite to play is my c605 which is a long model with a shepherds crook.
But.........
It really also depends a lot on my mind set and how I approach the instrument. All but just a couple I could use for BBB and concert band
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a few different ones

[Wrms]

Would that mean that a pocket cornet (with the same bell) would play darker then its standard counterpart?

Mark

[Bob Stevenson]

JWG.....could you link to that "survey" please?

I have here at home 6 cornets and 4 trumpets (including pocket trumpet)......if you take a good cornet such as my B&H Sovereign LB, the leadpipe taper goes from the mpc receiver to the water key, a length of 14 inches....none of the trumpets has a leadpipe taper longer than 8 inches (one of my trumepets appears not to have a taper at all!)

At the bell section the Sov has approx 25-30% greater diameter than the largest trumpet bell (measured 2 inches from bell rim)

I have a Jupiter pocket trumpet that I used for teaching....I made an adaptor to take a cornet mpc and i can confirm that this instrument does indeed produce BOTH good trumpet and good cornet tone depending on the mpc used.

[Dennis78]

Never even thought about my pocket trumpet being bent up. They’re folded up way more than a/most cornets. And what of the trumpet shaped cornets?
The Conns and the Olds Mendez are shaped just like a trumpet but do sound cornet-y
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a few different ones

[Gingrai 02]

Hmm,

I had thought that might be the case. Fortunately, this cornet has the same amount of pipe bend degrees that I have seen from different models, barring any custom designed cornets.

JWG, do you think that the 90 degree bends to my cornet pipes would tend toward brighter sound?

Thanks!

[Bflatman]

Lets not lose sight of the physics.

A trumpet that has three valves has 180 degrees of extra tubing wrap in every valve slide.

If the theory that extra tubing wrap darkens the sound then for every extra valve slide used the tone would darken and using two valves would darken it even more and using three valves would make the tone noticeably and deeply dark.

I personally dont hear any difference whatsoever in the richness or darkness of the tone when using all three valves compared to using no valves.

I hear exactly the same darkness of tone regardless of valve use and regardless of any extra wrap included in the tube in use.

The idea that extra wrap darkens tome must therefore be totally false.

Extra wraps make no difference at all to the darkness of the tone or we would hear this happen when we use the valves and include extra tube wrap.

[Dennis78]

Well kinda. Playing A above the staff of the one in the middle with the third valve definitely sings a bit different as does G played on 1&3
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a few different ones

[lewis]

I think the research referred to in the post by JWG above is by Robb Stewart, and is on his website.

[cheiden]

[Subtropical and Subpar]

I know nothing about nothing about the psycho-acoustics of brass instruments, but my Conn 38A can be very dark in timbre despite having no Shepherd's crooks. I've often seen this attributed in TH threads to the instrument's nickel plating and the possibility of a copper leadpipe, bell (Coprion), and/or plating of copper between the brass and the nickel plating (Electro-D). Whether or not any of this is the case has been rehashed endlessly before my time by people far more knowledgeable than I am, so I will leave it at that.
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1932 King Silvertone cornet
1936 King Liberty No. 2 trumpet
1958 Reynolds Contempora 44-M "Renascence" C
1962 Reynolds Argenta LB trumpet
1965 Conn 38A
1995 Bach LR18072
2003 Kanstul 991
2011 Schilke P5-4 B/G
2021 Manchester Brass flugel

[Bflatman]

I find darkness / brightness to be affected by the instrument, the mouthpiece, and the player embouchure in this general list

Player natural tone
Player embouchure
Player ability to vary tone depth and richness
Mouthpiece cup volume
Mouthpiece cup shape
Mouthpiece weight
Instrument material
Instrument material thickness
Instrument resonance
Instrument bell flare

Nowhere do I find any correlation between the number of crooks and bends in the instrument wrap and the darkness of the tone generated.

I find that nickel plays bright, brass plays rich, copper plays richer, I find silvered brass slightly brighter than laquered brass and laquered brass similar to raw brass.

I find a resonant bell plays brighter than a damped bell

I find a heavy medium cup mouthpiece to play similar in tone to a regular weight large cup mouthpiece

I find a deep vee cup mouthpiece to play darker than a similar size c shaped cup mouthpiece.

When a cornet player with a shepards crook instrument that is a large bore large flare thick walled instrument and carries a large mouthpiece like a wick it will play dark.

Whereas a trumpet with medium bore thin walls less flare and a c shaped 7c piece or similar will play brighter.

Without exception the player will claim that the darker tone in the cornet is due to the shepards crook in the cornet wrap and they ignore the real reasons for the darker tone.

It is not the shepards crook it is all the other things that influence the tone darkness.

Understand tone formation and all the things that affect it so that you can generate the tones that you want regardless of the instrument and you will be in full control.

I choose to play dark and I am told that my brightest trumpets sound like I am playing a flugel that is because I choose the mouthpiece to suit the instrument that will generate the darker tones I want.

When I pick up an instrument I assess its characteristics of - material, thickness, bore size, flare, and choose a mouthpiece that will modify and shape the tone to get where I want to be.

If I have a bright instrument I might choose a yamaha 16e4 and if I have a darker heavier instrument I might go to a bobby shew jazz or an even shallower mouthpiece.

On cornet I play a small c cup but I might go for a traditional deep vee if I want to shape the tone darker.

Control your tone generation and you control the instrument.

I hope this helps understand the many reasons for the darker tone in a cornet none of which in my opinion are the shepards crook.

[etc-etc]

I think the more curved the wrap, the more stuffy the instrument will become to play.

Imagine a resonant (n-th harmonic) stationary sound wave inside of a conical or cylindrical bore that has a straight bore axis, as in a herald trumpet. The peaks of extreme range of pressure will be evenly spaced along the bore axis.

When the bore keeps its cylindrical or conical cross-section, but the axis itself is turned from a line into a curve, the distance traveled by the sound will be different dependent on the distance from the axis center to the bore wall. Just as in a race track, the inner track will be shorter, and the outer track will be longer.

In fact, the problem of different distances becomes apparent even when comparing a cylindrical vs conical bore. For a cylindrical bore with a straight axis, the path along the axis of the bore is the same, whether taken at the axis or along the wall. In contrast, the path along the axis of a straight conical bore is shorter than the path along its wall. This disparity is exacerbated even more once you encounter a turn in the tubing.

The disparity in distances should result in an additional instability of the stationary wave. The instability should increase with the ratio of bore size to the turn radius:

Instability ~ (bore size) / (turn radius),

or, more exactly,

Instability ~ [(bore size) / (turn radius)]^(effective exponent),

as the relative difference between shortest and longest distance traveled will be increasing, the sharper the turn, and the wider the bore.

As a result, the resonant Q-factor should decrease in a complex wrapped instrument compared to a straight axis bore. Similarly, the harmonic peaks in the sound spectrum should become more diffuse, and terminate sooner, i.e., at lower frequencies.

Perhaps you recall that cornets went out of fashion in jazz bands in 1920s as their sound was less piercing and less rich in high range overtones, compared to trumpets.

The old-school cornopeans of 19th century had Stoelzel valves that sported sudden bore changes and 90 degree turns. These were quite stuffy to play.

The cornet wrap was created partly to emulate the cornopean shape and partly, to emulate the cornopean response.

The compensating cornets of the late 19th / early 20th century were similarly stuffy (high impedance) and went out of fashion very quickly as well.

If you look on an image of a French horn, you will notice most slides turn radius is quite large. I think this is not only for aesthetics but also for even sound response. The Vienna French Horn by Engelbert Schmid includes a relatively large turn radius (much larger than the bore at the point) even for the second valve slide.


In similar vein, Benge 7Z and its descendant Kanstul 1530 cornets have large radius turns for the third slide and for the final turn of the leadpipe.

[Bflatman]

A cornet will often be a thick walled large bore conical bore heavy instrument with a large deep mouthpiece plugged in to the cornet and a musician with a deep rich porky tone concept plugged on to the mouthpiece.

Dont get me wrong many cornet players are great musicians but many cornet players just are not.

A Trumpet will often be a thin walled medium bore cylindrical bore light instrument with a small shallow mouthpiece plugged in to the trumpet and a musician with a bright and brilliant tone concept plugged on to the mouthpiece.

You do not generally see a cornet player choosing to play bright lead and blow his guts out reaching for the double c.

Is it any surprise that a cornet sounds darker than a trumpet.

Do not look to the wrap to explain the tonal differences between the instruments look to the many other reasons to explain it.

[cheiden]

[Bflatman]

I play cornet and trumpet every single day and have little difficulty manipulating tones on either to sound very much the same.

I regard them as the same instrument I can sound like a cornet on either and I can sound like a trumpet on either and I can sound like a flugel on both.

It all depends on what you choose to do with your tone.

I have played a bright peashooter in a British Brass Band but played as and sounded as a cornet.

It is the embouchure and the tonal concept of the player and the mouthpiece where it all happens.

Choose the instrument, think tonal concept, fit a mouthpiece that will create that tonal concept, modify your embouchure to suit the tonality you are aiming for, out come the tones you want.

Rich dark and deep resonant tones are available from a trumpet bright and piercing projected regal tones are possible from a cornet.

I do this every day.

I switch between cornet and trumpet and back again during a single day and I change mouthpieces between numbers simply to manipulate the tones to suit the mood and the music.

The money tones come from a cornet however, they are that slight amount richer and slightly more pleasing to john doe public. Having said that all instruments cornet or trumpet sound rich resonant and full and joe public loves trumpet as much as cornet. It is just an ever so slight tonal difference between trumpet and cornet.

Do the curves in the cornet wrap make a difference NO, no difference at all.

Mouthpiece tonal concept embouchure. These decide the tone, the rest make only a very slight difference such as material thickness etc.
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Conn 80a Cornet
Boosey & Hawkes Emperor Trumpet
Olds Fullerton Special Trumpet
Selmer Invicta Trumpet
Yamaha YCR 2330II Cornet
Selmer Student Trumpet
Bohland and Fuchs peashooter Trumpet
Boosey and Hawkes Regent Cornet
Lark M4045 Cornet

[Dennis78]

I cannot agree here. If I put my Wick 4 or Holton 27 in an adapter and plug it into my trumpet it just sounds awful. If I put a 7c into one of my New Proportions cornets and even my cr310 and my c605 they all react as if they’re being over blown.
I believe they are two separate instruments. Most of my cornets will not readily light up like my trumpets. Schilke cornets are very lightweight VERY! but have some of the best lush cornet sound (my experience is with the XA1)
To deep of a cup on trumpet sounds weird as does to shallow a cup on cornet
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a few different ones

[Bflatman]

Hi Dennis

I respect your opinion and I believe our differences are more than likely due to my restricted experience with the gear I have access to.

I do not have access to your gear to try it out so I of course must accept your experience, there is a difference between your mouthpiece and instrument combinations and mine.

The cornet and trumpet are slightly different instruments but they do share many similarities are are very close relatives, many cornets are very trumpet like and may trumpets are very cornet like. The boundaries are often blurred.

The fact that my gear works well in my manner of use does not guarantee that the same is true of yours. I defer to your experience in this.

The topic of the wrap and curves in that wrap is the issue in question and on this alone I do not see the wrap itself making the difference between the instruments.

Any suggestion from me that my gear works in a particular way so your different gear must work in the same way would be the mother of all apples and oranges comparison. Apologies if it appeared that way.
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Conn 80a Cornet
Boosey & Hawkes Emperor Trumpet
Olds Fullerton Special Trumpet
Selmer Invicta Trumpet
Yamaha YCR 2330II Cornet
Selmer Student Trumpet
Bohland and Fuchs peashooter Trumpet
Boosey and Hawkes Regent Cornet
Lark M4045 Cornet