Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument that looks a lot like the trumpet, but has a warmer, mellower tone. In Cuba it played a leading role in the orquesta típica, the wind band of early danzón.
- Shape: the cornet's tubing is mostly conical (it gradually widens); the trumpet's is cylindrical up to the bell.
- Tone: that makes the cornet sound warm and round, the trumpet brighter and sharper.
- Technique: in the same key they sound at the same pitch and are played almost the same way.
- Origin: the cornet appeared in the 1820s, when valves were added to the post horn.
In the orquestas típicas of the late 19th century the cornet was the highest brass instrument, alongside the valve trombone, the ophicleide and one or two clarinets. Later, in son and salsa, the trumpet became the leading brass instrument.
💃 For dancers
A cornet on a recording usually points to the old típica sound of danzón: solemn, full and a little military.
📝 Sources
The danzón is Cuba's elegant "national dance" from 1879: a salon dance of the orquesta típica and later the charanga, and an important step towards mambo and cha-cha-chá.
Lees meer >Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and the birthplace of some of the world's most influential music and dance traditions. African, Spanish, and French cultural streams collided here over centuries of colonial history, producing an extraordinary creative culture that exported itself across the globe.
Lees meer >EGREM (Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales) is Cuba's state recording company, founded in 1964 after the Revolution nationalized all private recording labels. Its main facility, Estudios Areíto in Havana, is where virtually every important Cuban recording from the Revolution era was made.
Lees meer >The ophicleide and the tuba were the bass instruments of the orquesta típica, the wind band that played early danzón. Later the double bass took over their role.
Lees meer >The trombone is the defining brass voice of timba. Where earlier Cuban popular music relied primarily on trumpets, timba shifted the brass weight toward trombones — giving the music a deeper, darker, more aggressive horn sound.
Lees meer >The trumpet has been central to Cuban popular music since the 1920s, when it became the lead melodic voice of the son septeto — the "seventh voice" that transformed the ensemble.
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