Bugle

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Bugle

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3

a treble brass wind instrument with cup-shaped mouthpiece and conical bore, used as a military duty and signal instrument. The bugle was originally, as its name denotes, a bull's horn,[1] of which it has preserved the characteristic conical bore of rapidly increasing diameter.

Those members of the brass wind such as the horns, bugle, trumpet and tubas, which, in their simplest form, consist of tubes without lateral openings, depend for their scale on the harmonic series obtained by overblowing, i.e. by greater pressure of breath and by the increased tension of the lips, acting as reeds, across the mouthpiece. The harmonic series thus produced, which depends on the acoustic principles of the tube itself, and is absolutely uninfluenced by the manner in which the tube is bent, forms a natural subdivision in classifying these instruments:--(1) Those in which the lower harmonics from the second to the sixth or eighth are employed, such as the bugle, post-horn, the cornet à pistons, the trombone. (2) Those in which the higher harmonics from the third or fourth to the twelfth or sixteenth are mostly used, such as the French horn and trumpet. (3) Those which give out the fundamental tone and harmonics up to the eighth, such as the tubas and ophicleide.[1]