Mellophone - Difference From The Horn

Difference From The Horn

The marching mellophone is used in place of the horn for marching because it is a bell-front instrument allowing projection of the sound in the direction that the player is facing. This is especially important in drum corps and marching bands because the audience is typically standing or sitting on only one side of the band. There are also marching B♭ horns with a bell-front configuration; mellophones also are usually constructed with a smaller bore for louder volume than marching horns. Marching B♭ horns do use a horn mouthpiece and have a much more horn-like sound, but are much more difficult to play on the field.

Another factor in the greater use of mellophones is its ease of use as compared to the considerable difficulty of playing a concert horn consistently well. In a horn, the length of tubing (and the bore size) make the partials much closer together than other brass instruments in their normal range and therefore harder to play accurately. The F mellophone has tubing half the length of a horn which gives it an overtone series more similar to a trumpet or most other brass instruments. This compromises much of the range and tone that horns are famous for, but eliminates the accuracy problems encountered while marching.

In summary, the mellophone is an instrument designed specifically to bring the approximate sound of a French horn in a package which is conducive to playing while marching. It makes substantial sacrifices in tone compared to traditional single or double horns in order to do this, owing to the different tubing configuration and grip. Outside of a marching setting, the traditional horn configuration is ubiquitous and the mellophone configuration almost unknown.