Online Trumpet

Three valves and a ladder of notes

A trumpet is one long brass tube, about a metre and a half of it, and at any length a tube plays a whole ladder of notes — the harmonic series. Your lips choose the rung by how fast they buzz: that rung is called a partial. The three valves switch extra tubing in, which moves the whole ladder down: valve 2 a half step, valve 1 a whole step, valve 3 a step and a half. So every note on a trumpet is two things at once — a valve combination and a partial — and the whole art of fingering is knowing which pair gives the note you want.

This trumpet lets you play it both ways. In Notes, tap the note you want: the drawing pushes down the valves for it and tells you which partial it is on, and each key carries its own three valve dots, so the keyboard is the fingering chart. In Valves + air, you play it like the real thing: hold the pistons with one hand and blow on the air ladder with the other. Each rung is labelled with the note it gives under the valves you are holding right now, so you can watch the ladder slide down as your fingers go down.

Trumpet fingering chart, low F♯3 to high C6

Every note of the standard range, in written pitch, with the concert note it sounds. The rule behind the chart is short: play each note on the nearest partial at or above it, and press the valves that take it down the rest of the way. That is why 1-3 and 1-2-3 only appear in the low register — above the 4th partial there is always a closer rung — and why the top of the range is nearly all 1, 2 and open.

The last column is alternates: other valve-and-partial pairs for the same note. Valve 3 alone uses the same length of tubing as 1 and 2 together, so it can stand in for 1-2 anywhere — players use it where it makes a passage easier or sits better in tune on their horn. And a note can often be played on the rung above with more valves: third-space C is open on the 4th partial or 2-3 on the 5th.

The partials a trumpet uses, and the one it skips

With no valves down the trumpet plays written C4, G4, C5, E5, G5, C6 — partials 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8. Two are missing. The 1st, the pedal note an octave below middle C, does not lock in on a trumpet and is not part of normal playing. And the 7th, the B♭ above the staff, is left off every chart because it is about 31 cents flat: the harmonic series is pure arithmetic, whole-number multiples of one frequency, and the piano’s equal temperament only agrees with it at the octaves. The 3rd partial is 2 cents sharp of the piano, close enough not to matter; the 5th — the E at the top of the staff — is about 14 cents flat, which players lip up without thinking about it; the 7th is too far to lip, so the B♭ it would give is played with valve 1 on the 8th instead.

On the air ladder the 7th is still there, striped, so you can hear it for yourself.

Bare horn: a trumpet is not quite in tune with itself

Turn on Bare horn in Valves + air and every note comes out where the physics puts it, with nobody correcting it. Two things push a note off, and they add. The partial, above. And the valves: each valve’s tubing is cut to be right on its own, but lengths cut for one tube do not add up to what a combination needs, so the more valves you press, the sharper the note. French Wikipedia’s chart gives what players do about it in millimetres of slide — pull the third slide 17 mm for 1-2-3, 7 mm for 1-3, and the first slide 4 mm for 1-2 — and on a tube about 1.48 m long that is 1-2-3 about 28 cents sharp, 1-3 about 12, and 1-2 about 8.

That is why low C♯ and low D are the notes every trumpeter learns to fix with the third-valve slide ring, and why a trumpet with its valves pressed down sounds the way it does in a beginner’s hands. With Bare horn off — the default, and always in Notes — every note is where a good player would put it.

Written pitch and concert pitch

A B♭ trumpet is a transposing instrument: it sounds a whole step lower than written. Its open tube is a concert B♭, and its music is written as if that were a C, so the fingerings stay the same whichever key the trumpet is built in. Everything on this page — the keys, the labels, the song tabs, the chart — is in written pitch, because that is what a trumpet part and every fingering chart use. The drawing names the concert pitch as well, so you always know what a piano would have to play to match you.

The key menu is in written keys too, with the concert key beside each: written C is concert B♭, the band key most method books start in. It changes the numbers in the song tabs, not the trumpet.

How to play it

Hold a note to blow it and let go to stop — a trumpet sounds only while air goes through it. Slide along the keys without lifting to slur from note to note in one breath; the voice hears that the air never stopped and leaves the tongue out of the next note, which is what a slur is.

In Valves + air, hold valves with the fingers of one hand and a rung of the ladder with the other. Press or release a valve while you blow and the note changes without a new attack — a valve slur. Slide up or down the ladder while you blow and the lips jump a partial — a lip slur, the exercise every trumpeter warms up with. Try it: hold 1-2 and slide from the 2nd rung to the 6th.

On a computer keyboard, in Notes, the letters run up a semitone at a time from Q, which is middle C — the open 2nd partial. In Valves + air, J, K and L are valves 1, 2 and 3, under the right hand’s first three fingers exactly as on a trumpet, and the number keys 2 to 8 blow that partial — hold J and K, then press 4, and you are playing written A.

Trumpet, cornet or flugelhorn — and the mutes

The three chips above the instrument are three instruments with the same fingerings in the same B♭. What differs is the bore. A trumpet’s is mostly cylindrical, and the sound wave steepens as it travels down it when you play hard, which is the trumpet’s bright blare. A cornet’s is mostly conical, so the same fingering comes out rounder and softer-edged; a flugelhorn’s is wider and more conical still, dark and mellow, and it barely blares at all.

The mute menu puts something in the bell. A straight mute cuts the low end and leaves a bright, nasal edge; a cup mute muffles it to something soft and round; a harmon mute leaves one thin, buzzing peak — the sound of Miles Davis. Vibrato adds a slow pulse to held notes, the way a player does with the jaw or by rocking the right hand. The sound of all of it is modelled, not recorded.

Songs to play

Press Play a song under the instrument and pick one. In written C the trumpet plays 22 of the 22 public-domain songs here; in C major, F major and D major it plays all of them. Play plays a song for you and shows each fingering as it sounds, which is the fastest way to learn them. Practice waits on the next note and pushes its valves down in the drawing before you play it, and it works in Valves + air too — the ladder lights the rung the note is on. Play along closes a ring on each note in time with the music.

More instruments you can play here

The online harmonica and the online ocarina are the other wind instruments here, and the online violin is the other one whose notes last exactly as long as you hold them. Got a real trumpet, cornet or flugelhorn that sounds off? The trumpet tuner listens through your microphone and walks the main slide and the valve slides.

Frequently asked questions