How to Tune Your Trumpet
- Warm up for a few minutes first, with long tones and lip slurs. A cold trumpet plays flat.
- Leave the switch on Written Pitch to see notes as they appear in your music. Concert Pitch shows the note that sounds, the way a piano player or band director names it.
- Tap Start Tuning and play written C in the staff (C5, third space), which sounds concert B♭. Use a full, relaxed sound.
- If it says Tune down (you are sharp), pull the main tuning slide out a little. If it says Tune up (you are flat), push it in. Then play the note again.
- Check another open note, such as written G4 (second line), to confirm.
Written and Concert Pitch
A B♭ trumpet sounds a whole step (two semitones) lower than written: when you play a written C, the note you hear is B♭. In Written Pitch mode the tuner adds the two semitones back, so the note name matches your music. The cents reading is the same in both modes.
| You Play (Written) | It Sounds (Concert) | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| C5 (third space) | B♭4 | 466.16 Hz |
| G4 (second line) | F4 | 349.23 Hz |
Brass pitch rises as the instrument warms up, and depends on your lips and air as well as the slide, so no trumpet is perfectly in tune on every note. Tune on a warm instrument and keep listening. Notes played with valves 1 and 3, or all three, run sharp (low D and C♯); extend the 3rd valve slide for those.