History fanfare

Fanfare – a brass musical instrument of the wind family. In art, fanfares have become a kind of attribute that marks a grand beginning or end, but they can be heard not only on the stage. Howling fanfares indicate the beginning of combat scenes, they are one of the main tools for conveying the atmosphere in films and computer games.

The history of fanfares dates back to the time when our ancestors used military pipes or hunting horns to transmit signals at a distance. The ancestor of the fanfare, the horn, was made of ivory and was used mainly by hunters to sound an alarm in case of an attack on settlements or signal an attack. Fanfares have been and remain an integral part of the culture of many peoples, including both Indians and Australian Aborigines, for whom they are not only a warning tool or part of rituals, but also one of the important cultural attributes of life. Shamans with the help of fanfares could bless their fellow tribesmen for a successful hunt, adding strength to them.

But time passed. During this time, the hunting horn was still used by feudal lords and kings for a long period. With the advent of theaters, the pioneers of the musical craft began to actively use primitive musical instruments, among which were the first prototypes of fanfares.

In the XNUMXth century, the fanfare acquired a finished look. The instrument was an elongated trumpet that produced short and noisy fragments with rapidly repeating chords. Fanfares were used in many musical works by famous composers, in theaters to mark the beginning or grand end of a performance, less often as a musical accompaniment to battle scenes.

With the advent of television, the instrument became in demand in cinematography. But they can be heard not only from TV screens, cinemas and musicals, with the advent of new genres in music, fanfares have found their application here too. So, some rock bands use them as chords for their songs, and the use of fanfare samples in rap has become the basis for most backing tracks of rap artists. With the advent of video games, fanfares are simply indispensable in the musical accompaniment of combat scenes, marking the beginning of the game’s plot and the epilogue of the whole story.