I am always excited about the sackbut.  This being the predecessor to the modern trombone I have tried to learn much about the early days of trombone playing.  It was such a versatile instrument of its day and got used a ton.

I love to listen to music I have never heard before.  In my quest, I have discovered some recordings of a british band of sackbuts and cornets.  This group, called His Majesty’s Sagbuts and Cornetts, plays superbly together and on so much and varied literature.  Their recordings are well worth checking out.  I am very interested in organizing a group like this in America and am looking for players all of the time who might be interested in collaborative venture.

I have not had any formal training on sackbut but I have had a few gigs on it over the years and do own a couple of my own instruments.  My recorder teacher has encouraged me that my recorder training will help me well in understanding how to play the music of the renaissance and early baroque on sackbut.  I am still looking to try to find some coachings with a more experienced sackbut player in the near future but still feel quite confident of my abilities and look forward to more playing opportunities on it.

This is a picture of the tenor sackbut that I own.  The sackbut is a copy after Sebastian Hainlein, 1632 made by the workshop of Rainer Egger in Switzerland.  These are really well made instruments and are fun to play on.

This picture is of the bass sackbuts that Egger makes.  These instruments are copied after Isaac Ehe, 1612 and I own one in F and have a slide that will put it into Eb.  The original instrument is in Eb.

For interest in these instruments you can check them out on Egger’s website.  The web address is: www.eggerinstruments.ch/home.htm. These pictures are from his website and there are also more of the other instruments as well.