Clarion (instrument)

The word clarion has changed meanings over centuries and across languages. Today, in modern French clairon refers to the bugle, As technology improved the ability of trumpets to take pressure and reach more notes and higher notes, that higher pitched sound became the focus of the term clarion. By the 14th century, it was described as high pitched, shrill, or clear sounding. In general (and not all early writers agreed) the clarion was a shorter trumpet with narrower bore. Rather than braying, the trumpets took on the sound of courts, sounding much like the modern fanfare trumpet. During the development process, longer "shrill" trumpets such as the añafil or buisine trumpets were folded into more compact forms. By 1511, Virdung had published engravings of these folded instruments, one labeled "clareta", which became the clarion. The first made were the añafil in Spain and buisine in France and elsewhere. Then Europeans took a step that hadn't been part of trumpet making since the Roman (buccina and cornu); they figured out how to bend tubes without ruining them and by the 1400s were experimenting with new instruments. Whole lines of brass instruments were created, including initial examples like the clarion the natural trumpet, slide trumpet and sackbut. These bent tube variations shrunk the long tubes into a manageable size and controlled the way the instruments sounded. Shorter instruments with narrower tubing became the clarions and field trumpets (the clarions being the narrower of the two). In comparison to the busine, the trumpet pictured is shorter. The añafil (Spanish renaming of Islamic Nafir, also called buisine was between 4 and 7 feet long. Calling it "clairon," Nicot said the nafir at 4.25 5 ft long served as treble for the Moore's other trumpets, which sounded tenor and bass tones.]] "Clarion" derives from three Latin words: the noun clario (trumpet), the adjective clarus (bright or clear), and the verb claro (to make clear). Throughout Europe, an eclectic set of variations on clarion came into use. The meaning of these variations was not standard. It is not clear whether they are meant to refer to an actual instrument or simply the high register of the trumpet. Clairon become the most commonly used version. In The Knight's Tale, Chaucer writes, "Pypes, trompes, nakers, clariounes, that in bataille blowen blody sounes", which adds to the notion that clarions must somehow be distinct from trumpets. This idea was bolstered by artworks of the time, which show a variety of trumpets in different shapes and sizes. There are even records from trade guilds like the Goldsmith's Company of London which specify that a clarion is 70% lighter than a trumpet. However, there is no precise understanding of what any of these variations meant. The fundamental confusion is over whether or not they refer to an actual instrument or to a style of playing in the high register of the trumpet. Even the Spanish historian Sebastián de Covarrubias confused the meaning in his Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, writing that the clarin was a "trumpetilla", a tiny trumpet capable of playing in the high register or that the term could simply refer to the high register of the trumpet.

The confusion over the usage of these terms seemed to mainly dissipate in the Baroque era, when "clarino" (plural: "clarini"), and its variants, came to be specifically understood as the practice of playing the natural trumpet in its high register.