Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/824

 the cornet in its crude state, regulated the tube lengths, cut away rough angles in the air-passages of the valves, and made it more acceptable for artistic needs. It became popular immediately, the great Koenig and other artists appearing before 1850 to give it notoriety. In 1846 Sax also introduced his sax-horns, from soprano to bass, which were adopted in all countries, with special improvements and modifications. The brass bands of modern character—called "cornet bands" in some parts of this country—therefore became a possibility. In sax-horns and more recent adaptations of these instruments, such as the circular basses and euphonium, the same piston system prevails as in the cornet.

Bands were chiefly used for military purposes up to about 1840, when amateur and professional organizations for public celebrations appeared.



Previous to the appearance of the clarionet they were composed of hautboys, sackbuts, trumpets, flutes, serpents, horns, and various other obsolete instruments, all of a crude character, besides drums, cymbals, and pulsatile accessories. Yet the invention and adoption of sax-horns in military bands gave rise to an entirely new order of instrumentation in the abstract, but without disturbing the clarionet from the position it has always occupied.

The manufacture of brass wind-instruments in America was