Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

Another, and I think the latest production of note--no pun is here intended--brought before the public by Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke is Fanfare, the cornet player. This is the figure of a gentleman dressed in modern costume, holding in his hand a cornet, which he places to his mouth and plays in the most professional manner. The whole performance of this mechanical marvel, however bewildering it may appear to the observer, consists of nothing more or less than remarkable clever “lipping” on the part of a living musician, who really plays the instrument in the lonely solitude of the regions beneath the stage. The sound emitted from a brass instrument is altered in tone and pitch, according to the length and breadth of the tubes through which the wind is blown. For a bass tone wide and long tubes must be used, while for a treble tone much shorter and narrower tubes must be employed. The principles of construction are exactly similar in the cornet as in the euphonium and saxehorn, the difference of tone being produced merely by the different dimensions of the tubes. The direction of the tubes--that is, whether they be twisted or straight, or in different folds--makes very slight, if any, difference in the tone of the instrument. A cornet could be so constructed as to admit a much longer and straighter tube immediately in front of the piston tubes, and still have the tone of an ordinary cornet.