How to Play a Note on the Trumpet (Fix a Low, Grumbling Sound)

It’s time to learn how to play a note on the trumpet. If your Trumpet is working, you’ve tried hard and still can’t get anything good to come out of it, this post is for you. If words like grumbly or flabby or gross are good descriptions of how you sound on the trumpet right now read on – we’re going to fix that.

Most school band methods start with learning a note on the trumpet that the teacher wants to call “Concert F” or “Concert Eb” …but you’re here because those notes are not coming out of your instrument. That’s a frustrating experience for you and the mission here is to shorten the time it takes to get those right notes coming out.

How to Get Any Real Note Out of a Trumpet

The first thing to do is get a real note out – any real note. Most often the problem is that you’re not using enough air and/or that air isn’t moving fast enough.

  • Start with decent posture and the Trumpet somewhere close to horizontal – as I said to a student yesterday, “you don’t want to look like a clarinet player.” (Some of my best friends are clarinet players – don’t be offended if yours are too.)
  • Leave the valves alone for now.
  • Use the muscles at the ends of your lips to keep your lips together (but not puckered out) and place the mouthpiece in the middle.
  • Your lip is meant to vibrate like a wide blade of grass in that grip that some people can do with their hands. That grip requires some tension at the ends and some flexibility in the middle. That same squeaky sound gets a whole lot better with a mouthpiece and a Trumpet attached to it.
  • Take a big breath and let it out through the Trumpet. If you got a sound, check below to see what that sound was. If you didn’t get a sound at all do it again but start with your tongue in the place behind your teeth where you would if you were saying “T” or “L”. The idea is to let the air-pressure out by removing your tongue from that position. It’s a bit like kick-starting your sound. If you still don’t get a sound jump over to this other post and then come back here to learn some melodies.

Next: Figure Out What Note You Are Playing

Let’s figure out what note is coming out of your trumpet. Play the sound clips below and compare them to the sound that your trumpet is making.

Don’t get worried about learning the note names today, just get started by identifying the notes and then playing some simple bits of tunes. Use the trumpet valve fingerings (next section) and your ear.

Low C Note on the Trumpet

If you can get a low, real trumpet note it’s probably Low C, which sounds like this:

If your note seems a little lower try taking and using more air, or faster air. If that still doesn’t work try again with a couple of valves down, or one valve until you get something like a sound.

If the Open (no valves) note is a G you might not need this post – skip over to Here or Here. You can still have some fun with the tunes below – and maybe learn something.

Sound of a G on the Trumpet

A G sounds like this on a Trumpet:

If your note is higher than that sample you’re not having trouble.

The tunes below require some pushing down of the valves. For now, try the first note of Frère Jacques from each key to find the group of tunes (the Key) that you’re comfortable starting with. If you find that you can only play the first note and the others are too high, go to a lower key. There are some even lower notes which your band teacher can show you, but our mission here is to move you upward. As soon as you find a given key playable move to the next one. By the time you’re at the 5th one you’ve probably caught up to your class and learned a bunch of notes they don’t know. Bonus!

Oh yeah, try to play three, four or even 5 notes in one monster breath, rather than taking individual stabs at notes.

Next: Try an Easy 3-Note Melody

… using only Low notes for Trumpet

These are short bits of songs and you’ve probably heard them.

Most of these are in odd keys, but that’s because they’re not for playing with any other instruments. (If that statement sounds like a foreign language just skip down, look at the notes, listen and imitate.) They’re particularly well suited to beginning Trumpet players who just can’t seem to play the notes that everyone else in band is playing. If you’re making really low sounds these are for you.

The Really, Really Low Key

In this key the three notes you’ll use are called A-flat, B-flat and C. They are fingered 2+3, 1, and open. The pattern is A-flat, B-flat, C, A-flat (repeat) so the fingerings are 2+3, 1, 0, 2+3 (repeat).

Frère Jacques first notes:

The pattern is A-flat, B-flat, C, A-flat (repeat) so the fingerings are 2+3, 1, 0, 2+3 (repeat).

It looks like this on paper, but concentrate on how it sounds:

Hot Crossed Buns first notes are the same three notes in a different order:

The pattern is C, B-flat, A-flat (repeat) then 4 A-flats, 4 B-flats, C, B-flat, A-flat Fingerings are 0, 1, 2+3 (repeat) then 2+3 for 4 notes, 1 for 4 notes, 0, 1, 2+3

Mary Had a Little Lamb first notes:

Au claire de la lune first notes:

The Really Low Key

Frère Jacques first notes:

Hot Crossed Buns first notes are the same three notes in a different order:

Mary Had a Little Lamb first notes:

Au claire de la lune first notes:

The Low Key

Frère Jacques first notes:

Hot Crossed Buns first notes are the same three notes in a different order:

Mary Had a Little Lamb first notes:

Au claire de la lune first notes:

The Kinda Low Key

Frère Jacques first notes:

Hot Crossed Buns first notes are the same three notes in a different order:

Mary Had a Little Lamb first notes:

Au claire de la lune first notes:

The Sorta Low Key

Frère Jacques first notes:

Hot Crossed Buns first notes are the same three notes in a different order:

Mary Had a Little Lamb first notes:

Au claire de la lune first notes:

You’re caught up! There’s a lot of useful Trumpet playing tips on this site so stick around.

You should make sure you’ve been to this page and made sense of it.

There is a different kind of Trumpet Fingering Chart over here that makes more sense than the normal one.

There is now a post over here that has printable sheets of a few short tunes in a few low keys. These should help you put this all together.

Jim

Jim is an orchestral Trumpet player and retired high school Music teacher.

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