Zen Trumpet
Trumpet, free in your browser
Press a key to play the trumpet online, one note at a time; slide between notes with a mouse or with your phone on its side, or type on your computer keyboard. Octave moves the thirteen keys to another register. Your first press turns the sound on; the keys play once it's ready.
How to play
A new key takes over from the note that is sounding, with no gap. With a mouse or pen, press and drag along the keys to slide from note to note. On a touch screen, slide a finger along the keys while the trumpet lies flat, as it does with your phone on its side.
The note ends when you lift the finger, pen or mouse button that started it, or release its computer key.
The thirteen keys cover one octave and its closing note. Octave down and Octave up move them between two registers, so the keys reach from C4 up to C6.
While the song plays, an Octave button lights when a sounding note lies beyond the keys and the other register shows it.
Choose Song, then press Play, and Canon And Gigue In D Major, P.37 plays on the trumpet by itself, as Melody or as Classic VP with the piece's chords. You can press keys over it.
The song's notes can sound together. Your own presses sound one note at a time.
About the trumpet
How a trumpet sounds and how it is pitched, with sources.
Lips
Like every brass instrument, a trumpet sounds when the player blows through slightly parted lips. The lips buzz into the mouthpiece and set the air inside the tube vibrating, and the player picks a pitch from the tube's overtones by changing the lips' opening and tension.
Valves
A modern trumpet has three valves, rarely four. Pressing one adds tubing and lowers the pitch: the first valve by a whole step, the second by a half step, the third by a step and a half. The keys here are notes, not valve combinations.
B♭
The most common trumpet is in B♭, a transposing instrument: it sounds a whole step lower than its music is written. A trumpet in C sounds as written. Each key here is named by the pitch you hear.
Family
The trumpet family runs from the piccolo trumpet, an octave above the standard B♭ trumpet and with the highest register in the brass family, to the bass trumpet, an octave below the standard B♭ or C trumpet.
Your presses play one recorded Trumpet sound, one note at a time, on thirteen keys. Nothing here models breath, lips, valves or a mute.
Before you play
About playing here, and what the full app adds.
No. This virtual trumpet runs online in your browser, with nothing to install and no account.
Your first press turns the sound on and plays nothing itself. If the sound is still loading, the keys say so, and your next presses play once it's ready. If it can't load, a Try again button appears.
This page plays your presses as one instrument: a new key takes over from the note that is sounding, and releasing an older key changes nothing. Song is separate, and its notes can sound together.
They move the thirteen keys an octave lower or higher and end any note you are holding. The keys reach from C4 up to C6, so on the lower keys Octave down is off, and on the higher keys Octave up is off.
Its sheet in the Zen Library is in the public domain. Song plays it on the trumpet, as its tune or as a Virtual Piano letter sheet with its chords. The song moves by whole octaves to suit the Trumpet sound, and any note still out of its range is skipped, so Classic VP plays an octave higher without its highest notes.
Yes. Held upright, the phone shows the trumpet standing: tap a key, and a vertical swipe on the keys scrolls the page after sounding the key you touched, while a swipe beside the keys scrolls without a sound. Turn the phone on its side and the trumpet lies flat, so a finger can slide along the keys.
A library of songs. Play, on a computer with a mouse or trackpad, has 16 instruments and ways to learn a song, such as Magic Play and Practice; there, this page's link opens the song. On a touch device without a mouse, the link opens the touch piano on Trumpet.