Anthony Thompson demonstrates the piccolo trumpet:
Note that Anthony Thompson has no connection with North Tyneside Brass in Schools but we like his short videos!
The piccolo trumpet is half the size (in length of tubing) of the standard trumpet or cornet, and is pitched an octave higher (to find out what an octave is, please see our page on Musical Intervals).
The modern piccolo trumpet enables players to play the difficult trumpet parts of Baroque music, such as Bach‘s second Brandenburg Concerto, and it has been used in modern popular music, famously to play the high trumpet solo in the Beatles “Penny Lane” (see video below).
As here, the piccolo trumpet usually has four valves instead of three, and the fourth valve lowers the pitch by five semi-tones (a “perfect fourth”), allowing lower notes to be played and providing alternate fingerings and better intonation for some notes.
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