Hi, Here's information from www.grovemusic.com about brass mutes that
might prove helpful.  Incidentally, the print edition of the New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians (second edition), is on special offer
at the publisher's website for more than 50% off!  I'll tack on the press
release at the end of this email for those who are interested.  Or you can
visit www.macmillanonline.net/news/US2_musicart.htm

   (ii) Brass.
   Mutes are applied to brass instruments as much for modifying the
   tone colour as for softening the tone.  Trumpets were being muted
   by the early 16th century for funeral ceremonies, and Mersenne
   depicted and described a mute in Harmonie universelle (1636-7;
   fig.2) and Harmonicorum libri XII (1648).  17th- and 18th-century
   references indicate that use of a mute raised the pitch of an
   instrument by a tone.  However no surviving mute seems to transpose
   this exact amount: most raise the pitch a semitone or a bit more,
   depending on the mute and trumpet used (research has been hampered
   by a lack of mutes that can be linked with specific instruments).
   If desired, an instrument could be retuned to the original pitch
   by adding an appropriate crook.  The technique of hand stopping on
   the horn is said to have been developed from experiments with mutes
   by the Dresden horn player A.J.  Hampel around the middle of the
   18th century (Domnich, Methode, 1807).  (See Horn, =A72(iii); see
   also Gregory, 49ff.) Altenburg (1795) gave five reasons for muting
   the (natural) trumpet: secret military retreat; use at funerals;
   embouchure development; prevention of 'screeching'; and improving
   intonation.  - Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2001-2002

---

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Therese Ng <[log in to unmask]>