In the ABRSM First Steps book, it says that the highest brass instruments are Trumpet (treble) and Horn (treble), in that order.

I've just got Dorothy Dingle's book "Pass Grade 5 Theory" which says that the order is Horn (treble, sometimes bass), then Trumpet (treble).


Obviously I'm going to go by the First Steps book, but has Dorothy Dingle just got it wrong or is there some other explanation? Any comments welcome....

Hmm. Don't know about the theory books but surely it must be trumpet not horn as the highest brass instrument. Listen to some J.S. Bach eg Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. Don't known what is meant by "horn" but trumpet is higher than french horn especially piccolo trumpet.

I've always thought that the trumpet is the highest and according to this website, they think so too.

I agree with trumpet.

Trumpet, horn........

And, for the exam, is the piccolo a standard orchestral instrument or not? If not, then the answer for the highest sounding member of the woodwind family is flute?

*skylark - great sig - very helpful! I don't have the blue book yet.....*

Thank you everybody for confirming trumpet.

Interesting point about piccolo, LT, because the First Steps book *doesn't* mention piccolo and gives flute as being the highest.... [goes to change signature again ]

That's correct for pitch if the instruments are played with equal competence. An experienced horn player would be able to play higher than most beginning trumpeters. Brass instruments have no highest resonance, they just get more difficult to make vibrate at the higher frequencies. Also, horns go lower than most horn players do.

In an orchestral score, the horn staves are placed above the trumpet staves.

Assuming in an orchestra, all the musicians are of broadly equal competence, and therefore trumpet would be higher than a horn, I'm wondering why horn is placed above trumpet on the score...



The plot thickens... Looking at Grade 5, the First Steps book adds piccolo to the family.... so it looks as if flute is the highest woodwind if you're answering a G4 paper, but piccolo if you're answering a G5 paper I wonder if you'd be penalised if you answered piccolo for G4...

*Sigh*

It is my understanding that the place of an instrument in an orchestral score has more to do with their physical place in the orchestra. And the brass instruments are usually placed horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba's so they are in that order in the score too.

Thank you, I didn't know that!

I e-mailed the Board for clarification about the piccolo a while ago + was told either flute or piccolo would be accepted.

Thanks for that!

*relief*

I think that the reason is that horns can't really make up their mind whether they are brass or woodwind. Sorry, I'll rephrase that.

I think that the reason is that horns are very versatile, and can be used in combination either with the rest of the brass, or equally well with the woodwind section. Remember that woodwind quintets include a horn. Hence it makes complete sense to put them in between woodwind and brass in the score. This also reflects their position on the stage, which is usually the other side of the orchestra from the rest of the brass.

I have always thought that the trumpet was the highest brass instrument, and a revision website called SAMLearning also says this!!

Maybe it says different in this other book because I'm sure I learnt somewhere that an instrument can go as high or low as the performer can technically make it go (within reason obviously!). But perhaps this has something to do with it, although I'm am not sure if it this applied to a specific instrument or not...

If they are refereing to "standard orchestral instrument", then flute is the highest...that was what I was taught....

Thanks for that - one of the past papers I've been doing asked this question and I've been wondering what to put


It all makes sense now, thanks for explaining the context

I was just relaxing with a final cup of coffee before thinking about setting off for the exam and having a last look through my books (like you do ) when I noticed that the Music Theory in Practice book says that Horn is the highest instrument, even though the First Steps pocket book says the Trumpet and both books are written by Eric Taylor

Hey ho, at least I'm not likely to forget the brass instrument family!

I have one set of grade 5 model answers (which I only just looked at )

They accept trumpet, flute, piccolo, violin and glockenspiel as the highest sounding instruments from the relevant families

Thanks LT



I think I'd better go! Best of luck to you LT

And to you too skylark.

Good luck to everyone else also - need to dash soon myself.

True things have been said about the horn's versatility and the seating of the brass, but I suspect a major influence on the strange positioning of horn staves in the score is the order in which wind instruments were added to the Classical orchestra. The four string parts (double basses were occasionally allowed to stop playing the 'cello part, but the first independent d.b. part I can think of is Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony, last movement) were the basis of the sound. A lot of music was written with strings, two oboes and two horns, then other wind instruments were added or substituted: bassoons had been part of the bass section, playing the same notes as the 'cellos, since Baroque times, and they soon were given individual parts; oboe players sometimes picked up their flutes for the slow movement; Haydn often added one flute to oboes, bassoons and horns, later two became usual, and Mozart wrote for clarinets when they were available. Trumpets had been used in orchestral music since the 17th C.; however, they had a rather special position, because of their military associations, and were used mainly when this connection was be exploited in the character of the music. For the same reason, almost without exception, they were accompanied by timpani, also military instruments. I don't mean merely that works rarely had one without the other, but even that they usually played together in loud passages and were tacet together in quiet ones. It was therefore convenient for the eye of the person reading the score if the horn staves were next below the woodwind, and the trumpets between the horns and the timps. Trombones arrived in the Classical symphony at the end of the period, with Beethoven (5, 6 and 9), by which time the surprising but convenient score order was well established. Only with the invention of valved horns and trumpets during the period 1820 to 1840 did it become easy to score a brass section of trumpets, horns and trombones playing by themselves, and I can think of no well-known examples of such scoring before the Verdi Requiem (1874) and Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony (1878). (There may be such passages in some of the larger works of Berlioz, with which I am not familiar.)

I like reading about the history of instruments - thanks for that kenm