The old wooden cornet, or
German zinke, an obsolete, cupped mouthpiece instrument, the real bass
of which, according to family, is the now obsolete serpent, was used
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the treble instrument in
combination with alto, tenor, and bass trombones. The leading features
of the trumpet are also found, as already inferred, in the trombone;
there is the cupped mouthpiece, the cylindrical tubing, and, finally,
a gradual increase in diameter to the bell. The slide used for the
trumpet appears for four centuries, and probably longer, in the well
known construction of the trombone. In this instrument it consists of
two cylindrical tubes parallel with each other, upon which two other
tubes communicating by a pipe at their lower ends curved in a half
circle glide without loss of air. The mouthpiece is fitted to an upper
end, and a bell to a lower end of the slide. When the slide is closed,
the instrument is at its highest pitch, and as the column of air is
lengthened by drawing the slide out, the pitch is lowered. By this
contrivance a complete chromatic scale can be obtained, and as the
determination of the notes it produces is by ear, we have in it the
only wind instrument that can compare in accuracy with stringed
instruments.
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