Baritone instrument?

[toomanyleggings]

DD’s music teacher has suggested this for her moving away from the trumpet. I am not musical at all so is this a good move or not? I really have no clue. She’s ten and I’d like her to get involved with any music clubs or bands they have at secondary school for the social aspect ( and keep her busy). Is there going to be lots playing this? Would she be better with a clarinet?

Depends what kind of music clubs/bands at the school. What kind of music does your daughter enjoy playing?

Why has the teacher recommended moving away from the trumpet and why towards baritone?

He said her mouth is large and she’d find a bigger mouthpiece better? She is very knew to it but super keen and I don’t want to put her off

New not knew sorry!

A baritone is a larger brass instrument but as I understand its only for brass bands. She could consider a trombone as that's a similar size mouthpiece but you can play in brass bands and also jazz with a trombone.
A trumpet is quite high pressure blowing and isn't for everyone, but like a trombone you have more options of different types of bands with a trumpet. The cornet is the brass band equivalent.

I agree the baritone is a niche instrument for brass bands, but there are plenty of brass bands that would love an enthusiastic learner they can develop. Our county has both orchestra and brass band. It is quite a large instrument though.

The clarinet isn't the same instrument family - that's woodwind so different technique...and different teacher. Although as a brass player I was always quite envious at how petite the case for a clarinet and flute were!

The trombone offers more opportunities for playing in different ensembles and has a similar size mouthpiece.

Overall, both the baritone and trombone fall into the lower register range of orchestra's/bands which is massively under subscribed in youth circles so your daughter would have plenty of opportunities to stretch her musical legs and be valued for it too.

Go for it! Transferring from one valved brass instrument to another is very easy and straightforward. It wouldn't be like starting from scratch (whereas moving to clarinet would be totally different, as pp has said). Baritone has a lovely mellow sound and there will be lots of opportunities to play in brass bands, which are super sociable and fun 'clubs' to be in. Why not let her give it a go, and see how she gets on? She might love it, and if she doesn't, she can just go back to the trumpet.

Thanks for responses! I was thinking about it being a large instrument as well and taking it to school but everything else sounds encouraging! As you can tell I don’t know much about instruments

Hi OP. I used to play a baritone, and then moved to a euphonium. There is plenty to do in a concert brass band and it is a lot of fun, it can still open doors to an orchestra if that is something that she sees in her future.

Have you asked your daughter if she is happy to move to something bigger or if she would prefer to go to woodwind?

Had you considered French horn? My DC moved from trumpet to French horn as she preferred the mouthpiece and the lower sound. She’d got to G4 on the trumpet, and it gave her a massive head start, she’ll be doing G4 on the French horn about six months after first starting to learn it.

@StuffLoriThangs i mentioned it to her this morning. She said she didn’t want to lose the learning she’d done so far but I was thinking more of paying for her to learn the clarinet in addition as the music lessons through school are fairly cheap and then seeing what she does better with?

I agree with the good advice you've had from previous posters. She could well find herself very much in demand playing Baritone and perhaps also picking up Euphonium and potentially trombone a bit later on, or even shifting to Tuba. But if you are worried about the size of instrument then you could see what the music teacher thought about trying Tenor Horn as a next step? It is really easy to swap between valved brass instruments (compared to other instrument families). If she goes for clarinet it will be effectively learning from scratch again (bar being able to read music).

I found the switch to Tenor Horn was enough to make it much easier. Personally I wouldn't want to lug a baritone around. Would have loved trying out the trombone though!

Rather than the clarinet how about a saxophone far less high pitched squeaking as they learn.

I think it's a good move as the bass intruments are not played a lot and have very few players. You will always find a lot of trumpet and clarinet players. If you want your child to join a wind band or orchestera, look at what is available in your area. Our county music service has an area wind orchester. DC1 secondary has a wind band. You can play in both with a baritone horn.

Are you sure you can't join until seconardy. Our area orchestra welcomes children of all ages once they pass the level requirement.

Not every area has the same provision with ensembles.

DC switched from trumpet to tenor horn on recommendation by the teacher. I don't play brass. It's apparently easier to play the higher notes?

The problem with tenor horn, according to DC, is she doesn't get to play the interesting bits in the band. I don't know if they'll get better parts when the music gets more complex?

The cornet nearly always gets the solos and complex parts in a brass band tbh.

The French Horn is beautiful if there is an orchestra to be part of?

I would look at what bands/groups/orchestras there are for her to be part of.

I played French Horn and Tenor Horn so if you DC is really keen maybe see if adding French Horn to the mix might work. Although to be fair playing French Horn in an orchestra is also quite a lot of counting bars rest and playing off beats interspersed with some pretty complex stuff.

Tenor Horn wise the more "advanced" brass band music has some pretty complex Solo Horn parts, but serving time playing Tenor Horn 2 can be a bit mind numbing I guess