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60 free Trumpet trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This trumpet trivia quiz covers the instrument itself and the players who made it famous. The easy questions are ones any band kid could answer: how many valves a trumpet has, what key the standard instrument is pitched in, how the sound is produced, the nicknames of Louis Armstrong, and the bugle call played at military funerals. The harder end is for brass players and jazz fans: which valve lowers the pitch a whole step, the keyed trumpet built for Haydn's concerto, why Dizzy Gillespie's bell pointed upward, the trumpets found in Tutankhamun's tomb and broadcast by the BBC in 1939, the Harmon mute Miles Davis pushed up to the microphone, the piccolo trumpet solo that Paul McCartney borrowed from a Bach concerto, and the record Herb Alpert holds on the Billboard chart. Cornets, flugelhorns, bugles, Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Wynton Marsalis, Doc Severinsen and Arturo Sandoval get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the instrument and each musician before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our jazz, musical instruments and Louis Armstrong quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which key is the most common trumpet pitched?
B♭
It is a transposing instrument, sounding lower than written.
Q 02How many valves does a standard modern trumpet have?
Three
Some piccolo trumpets add a fourth valve that lowers the pitch a perfect fourth.
Q 03Roughly how long is the tubing of a B♭ trumpet?
1.48 m
The tube is usually bent twice into a rounded rectangular shape.
Q 04What produces the sound of a trumpet?
Lips buzzing in a mouthpiece
The buzz starts a standing wave in the air column inside the instrument.
Q 05What is the technical term for the shape and tension of a brass player's lips?
Embouchure
Changing lip aperture and tension lets the player choose among the overtones.
Q 06By how much does the first valve of a trumpet lower the pitch?
A whole step
The second valve lowers it a half step and the third one and a half steps.
Q 07How many different tubing lengths do a trumpet's valves produce?
Seven
There are eight combinations, but the third valve alone equals the 1–2 combination.
Q 08Which type of valve is more common on trumpets in German-style orchestras?
Rotary
Most trumpets elsewhere use piston valves.
Q 09What do orchestral trumpeters learn to do at sight when parts are written for D or E♭ instruments?
Transpose
They usually play such parts on the more common B♭ or C trumpet.
Q 10Which musicians usually play the bass trumpet?
Trombonists
Its mouthpiece resembles a trombone's.
Q 11How does a cornet's bore differ from a trumpet's?
It is mostly conical
The trumpet stays cylindrical up to the bell section, giving it a brighter sound.
Q 12Who patented the improved piston valve in 1838 that became the model for modern brass valves?
François Périnet
Parisian cornet makers had adopted it by the 1830s in place of Stölzel valves.
Q 13The German word Flügel in flugelhorn means what?
Wing
An 18th-century ducal hunt leader called a Flügelmeister used the horn to direct his wing of the hunt.
Q 21In what year did the BBC broadcast Tutankhamun's trumpets being played to 150 million listeners?
1939
The presenter later claimed the silver trumpet shattered during a rehearsal.
Q 22For which virtuoso did Haydn write his Trumpet Concerto in E♭ in 1796?
Anton Weidinger
He did not premiere it until 1800, on an instrument of his own design.
Q 23What kind of trumpet did Weidinger develop to play chromatically through its whole range?
Keyed
Haydn's concerto shows it off with chromatic shifts.
Q 24Which composer completed a Trumpet Concerto in E major in December 1803?
Q 14Which jazz musician was renowned for playing the compact pocket trumpet?
Don Cherry
Many pocket models suffer from poor intonation and a limited dynamic range.
Q 15What was a natural trumpet unable to do?
Play notes outside one overtone series
Its coiled tube had no valves, so players changed crooks to change key.
Q 16What is the high Baroque trumpet register developed by players like Cesare Bendinelli called?
Clarino
Bach and Handel wrote for it, and modern players tackle it on the piccolo trumpet.
Q 17Which Belgian maker invented the piccolo trumpet in D, also known as the Bach trumpet?
Victor Mahillon
It was built to handle the high parts in Bach and Handel.
Q 18Who played the piccolo trumpet solo on the Beatles' Penny Lane?
David Mason
McCartney had seen him play Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto on BBC television.
Q 19Which Greek straight trumpet, 62 inches long, featured in contests at the ancient Olympics?
Salpinx
Homer's Iliad contains the earliest reference to its sound.
Q 20Who found Tutankhamun's silver and bronze trumpets in 1922?
Howard Carter
They are considered the oldest playable trumpets in the world.
Hummel
Like Haydn's, it was written for the same Viennese virtuoso.
Q 25Which bugle call signals lights out and is played at US military funerals?
Taps
It is also known as Butterfield's Lullaby after the Union general who arranged it.
Q 26Which Union general arranged the lights-out bugle call in its present form?
Daniel Butterfield
He was a Medal of Honor recipient.
Q 27Why is a bugle limited to the notes of the harmonic series?
It is valveless
Standard bugle calls use just the five notes of the bugle scale.
Q 28Which two nicknames did Louis Armstrong go by?
Satchmo and Pops
He shifted jazz from collective improvisation to solo performance.
Q 29On which date did Louis Armstrong often claim to have been born?
July 4, 1900
Records suggest August 4, 1901, but the date has been heavily debated.
Q 30Which Louis Armstrong recording is on the Voyager Golden Record?
Melancholy Blues
The disc is a sample of Earth's sights and sounds sent into space.