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Peter Downey, Trumpets through the centuries, Early Music, Volume 42, Issue 1, February 2014, Pages 129–132, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cau003
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Extract
Studies devoted to collections of historic musical instruments generally follow one of two pathways. In the first, holdings are categorized, the instruments in each category are described—including information about manufacturer, date and place of production, musical range or fundamental pitch (according to both modern and the instrument’s contemporary standards), interesting features of construction and decoration, and detailed measurements of key aspects of form—and this information is supplemented with drawings, photographs (mainly monochrome, occasionally colour) and x-ray images of a representative sample of instruments. A more developmental approach is taken in the second pathway. Here the instruments are categorized and described in the same manner as before (often with greater use of colour images), but additionally are considered within a music-historical narrative that associates them with their own contemporary musical and technological practices and developments; lacunae are filled with reference to instruments from other collections; and images from relevant iconography and extracts from musical and other sources (both manuscript and printed) are included to help drive the account forward, particularly when the timeline encompasses prehistory, antiquity and the Middle Ages.