Wood for trumpets

[larry9988]

I see that most trumpets are made from imported hardwoods. Why is that? Do they have better tonal qualities? I know that Turpin preferred cocobolo and amaranth (purple heart) and experimented with many, many woods. Besides osage and desert iron wood, are there any domestic woods that make a good trumpet call. I know many of you trumpet makers have had to have made some out of domestic wood and could give me some insight. thanks,  Larry

[TRKYHTR]

The harder the wood the better sounding trumpet, as a rule.

TRKYHTR

[ol bob]

I had a master Trumpet maker make 3 Trumpets one was osage one cocobolo and a broom handle using the same mouth piece you could not tell any difference with your back turned.

[West Augusta]

Brian Mero made me a fine sounding trumpet out of Black Locust.

[larry9988]

Thanks for all of the replies.  Larry

[misfire]

I have found the same thing to be true. I have used a lot of domestic woods and noticed very little, if any, difference in tonal quality

[pappy]

Tonal quality? What is it? What makes sound in a trumpet and how is that sound effected by wood choice? The sound of the trumpet comes from a vibrating air column inside. This vibrating air column pushes pulsating air back out of the bell of the trumpet. How fast or slow this pulsating air travels within the trumpet dictates the pitch of the call, if you want a higher pitched call you want what is called a brighter wood, that would not absorb sound vibrations. If we are concerned with obtaining as much fidelity of tonal quality as possible then we want a resonance chamber which absorbs the least amount of overtones – both high and low. A dense, hard wood is best for this. That is why the best clarinets, wooden flutes, bag pipes etc are made form African blackwood or another dense hard wood. Dense native woods can be found, Osage is in my opinion the best, a hard maple and cherry trumpet is sweet sounding as well, but when you are looking for softer tonal quality in a trumpet, consider this, the softer the wood the more vibrating air is absorbed resulting in the slower moving of the pulsating air, resulting in a softer playing trumpet. I can make a call sound the same with different woods, by finishing the inside with a lacquer or CA glue to seal the surface "fooling" the resonance chamber into thinking it is dense.....

[M Sharpe]

"resulting in a softer playing trumpet"

JMO Pappy, but I own several dense woods that play soft. The wood that comes to my mind is a more mellow sounding trumpet. When I hear the word "soft", I think of less audible.

[pappy]

"less audible" is true, I use the words Bright and Soft as comparable tonal qualities, this would also effect the audible aspects, you could adjust that by the amount of draw, maybe.