Alouette

[From the collection “First Easy Tunes for Beginning Trumpet Players on TrumpetHeroes.com]

This old French tune might have disappeared without the Voyageurs using it as a paddling song as they plied the rivers and lakes of what is now Canada in their fur-trading canoes. If you sing it, the repeated bar makes each verse longer as the bird’s body parts add up. It’s a kids’ song with a dark side! Since Canada is officially bilingual, it’s always sung in French and with the kids touching the various body parts as they’re plucked. Nobody seems to mind – it’s all good fun!

If you’re a low note specialist start with the second one – the one in C. Most of the song is easy, but there is that octave jump in the repeated bar. In any key make sure that you’re actually playing an octave, not a fifth. The third key – in G – is there specifically so that you have to play D and low D in that measure. If you’re like most beginners your higher D is going to sound a little flat and your lower D is going to be wildly sharp (if you don’t fix it with the third valve slide). The result is that your octave jump will sound bad. You can try to raise that higher D by moving the air faster but you’re still going to have to get that slide out for the low D. There’s more info on that business this other post (scroll down to ***).