A cornet and a flugelhorn are both pitched in B♭, both use three piston valves, and both are built from about four and a half feet of tubing. Every note is fingered the same way on both, and the same way again on a trumpet. Hand any of the three to a trumpet player and the right notes come out immediately.
What separates them is where the tube starts widening and how wide it finishes. The bell gives it away across a room — 6″ on a flugelhorn against under 5″ on a cornet — while the bore figures overlap so badly between makers that they settle nothing at all.
The cornet is a section instrument, the flugelhorn is one color
A British brass band seats ten cornets and one flugelhorn. That ratio is the honest answer to which one to learn: the cornet is agile, secure across its whole range, and there is always a chair for it. The flugelhorn does one thing — a soft, covered, almost vocal sound that will not cut through anything — and it does it better than any other brass instrument. Nearly everyone who plays one plays trumpet or cornet first and picks it up as a second horn.
The numbers, with a trumpet for scale
| Cornet | Flugelhorn | Trumpet | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Key | B♭ | B♭ | B♭ |
| Valves | 3 pistons | 3 pistons | 3 pistons |
| Fingerings | The same on all three | ||
| Bore | .459–.462″ | .401–.460″, no standard | .459″ |
| Bell | 4⅔″–4⅞″ | 6″–6½″ | About 4⅞″ |
| Bore profile | Widens from about halfway | Widens almost the whole way | Cylindrical until the bell |
| Mouthpiece | Cornet shank, deep-ish cup | Deep funnel, three incompatible shanks | Trumpet shank |
| Top register | Secure | Slippery above written G5 | Secure |
| Brass band seats | 10 of 28 | 1 of 28 | None — there are no trumpets in one |
| Orchestra | Real parts, mostly written before 1950 | A handful of pieces | Standard |
| Decent one costs | From about $800 | From about $700 | See trumpet prices |
The trumpet and cornet figures are Yamaha’s for the YTR-2330 and YCR-2330III, and Bach’s 184 cornet agrees at .459″ or .462″ depending on which you order.
The bell is the reliable difference; the bore is not
Cornet bores barely move between makers: .459″ on Yamaha’s student cornet, .459″ or .462″ on Bach’s 184, .460″ on Blessing’s BCR-1230. Flugelhorn bores are all over the place. Bach’s 183 is .401″, Jean Paul’s FH-430 is .441″, Yamaha’s YFH-631G is .433″, and Getzen’s 895 Eterna is .460″ — wider than the bore of Bach’s own cornet. Six hundredths of an inch of disagreement is a lot on a tube you can close your hand around, and it means a bore figure on its own will not tell you which of the two instruments you are holding.
The bell will. Cornet bells run from about 4⅔″ to 4⅞″, which is the same range a trumpet lives in. Flugelhorn bells start at 6″ — 6″ on the Bach and the Yamaha, 154 mm on the Jean Paul, 6½″ on the Getzen. No overlap, no borderline case, and it is why you can settle the question from across a room without picking either one up.
What the two facts add up to is the taper. Take the same four and a half feet of tubing, keep the starting diameter roughly similar, and finish one at 4⅞″ and the other at 6½″: the second has to spend far more of its length widening. On a flugelhorn the valves sit right up against the leadpipe, leaving nearly all the tubing after them free to expand into the bell. A cornet keeps a longer straight leadpipe and puts its valves after the first bend, so a good half of it is still cylindrical. A trumpet holds one diameter until the bell throat and does the whole flare in the last few inches.
A long taper feeds energy into the lower harmonics and starves the upper ones, which is what “warm”, “dark” and “mellow” are describing when people reach for those words. The cornet is the middle case and sounds it: rounder than a trumpet, brighter than a flugelhorn. There is an old rule of thumb that puts the cornet at half cylindrical and half conical and the flugelhorn at one third to two thirds — no maker builds to it, but it gets the ranking right.
The wide bell does something on its own account too. It throws sound in a broad, diffuse pattern rather than a beam, which is why a flugelhorn blends into a section instead of sitting on top of it, and why it is almost impossible to make one sound aggressive.
The cornet is the agile one
Of the three, the cornet moves fastest. The conical bore makes it more agile than the trumpet through quick passages, and the trade is that correct pitching is less assured — the note will let you place it slightly wrong without complaining. That combination is exactly why the nineteenth-century cornet repertoire is full of variations that no trumpet player would attempt, and why Jean-Baptiste Arban wrote his method for it in 1864.
The flugelhorn takes both halves of that further. In the middle of the staff it is the most forgiving brass instrument there is. From about written G5 upward the notes stop locking in, because the partials above the bell’s cutoff frequency are no longer well defined and the lip has to find them unaided. Continuous glissandi are possible on a flugelhorn, which is a charming party trick and a fair warning about how loosely it holds a pitch.
Low D and C♯ run sharp on any three-valve B♭ instrument, because the third valve slide is a compromise length. The fix is an adjustable third valve slide ring or a trigger, and it is the single feature most worth checking before you buy either horn — the difference between a cheap instrument and a decent one is usually that ring rather than anything about the tone.
The mouthpieces do not interchange, and the flugelhorn’s is worse than that
A cornet mouthpiece has a shorter, narrower shank than a trumpet’s so that it fits the cornet’s smaller receiver, and its cup is usually deeper. It will not go into a trumpet and a trumpet mouthpiece will not seat in a cornet. Bach settles this with the catalogue number rather than the model name: 351 is the trumpet series, 349 is the cornet series, 342 is the flugelhorn series. A 7C exists in all three and they are three different objects, so read the part number.
The flugelhorn is the difficult one, because there is no single flugelhorn shank. There are three in general use and they are not compatible.
| Shank | Also called | Horns that take it |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Large morse taper | Yamaha, Getzen, Conn, King, Adams, Benge |
| Bach | Small morse taper, American | Bach, B&S, Besson, Courtois, Holton, Selmer, Schilke |
| French | Couesnon taper — no taper at all | Couesnon, French Besson, Kanstul, Miraphone, Flip Oakes |
A French shank is not tapered: the last inch is cylindrical with a shoulder that stops it, so it will not seat properly in anything else, and nothing else will seat properly in a French receiver. A standard shank is too big for a Bach receiver. A Bach shank will physically go into a French horn’s receiver but sits at the wrong depth. The rule is simple and expensive to learn the other way: buy the mouthpiece for the instrument, not for yourself, and find out which shank yours takes before you order anything.
None of this applies to the cornet. One cornet shank, all cornets, and the mouthpiece that came in the case is a fine place to start.
Bach 3497C Classic Cornet Mouthpiece, 7C
- 349 cornet series
- Cornet shank
- Medium cup
- Medium-wide rim
- ~$60
A 7C is the size most cornets are supplied with and the one nearly every method book assumes, so this is the replacement rather than the upgrade. The part number is the point. 3497C is the 349 cornet series; a 3517C is the trumpet version with the same rim on a shank that will not go into a cornet, and the two sit next to each other under names that differ by nothing you would notice.
If you have been playing a while and the top of the staff is a fight, a shallower cup will help more than a new 7C will. If you have just been handed a cornet with no mouthpiece in the case, this is the one.
- Right shank for any cornet, with no compatibility question to answer
- The size the instrument and the books were built around
- Cheap enough to keep a spare in the case
- A middle-of-the-road size — it will not fix a struggling upper register
- No improvement at all if your cornet already came with a 7C
Yamaha 14F4 Flugelhorn Mouthpiece
- Standard shank
- 16.76 mm inner diameter
- V-shaped cup
- Semi-flat rim
- ~$55
The cup is a true V rather than the shallow bowl a cheap flugelhorn tends to arrive with, and that shape is doing most of the work in making a flugelhorn sound like one. The wide rim suits it: this is a mouthpiece for long lines, not for pecking at high notes.
Yamaha states the taper outright — standard shank — which is more than most makers manage, and it is why this is the one worth naming. That covers Yamaha, Getzen, Conn, King, Adams and Benge. Check your own receiver before ordering: a Bach, Besson, Courtois or Schilke takes the smaller Bach taper, and anything French takes neither.
- The shank type is stated plainly, which settles the only hard question
- Deep V cup — the flugelhorn sound rather than a soft trumpet one
- Extra-thick silver plating, so it survives being carried loose
- Wrong shank for Bach, Besson, Courtois, Schilke and every French-taper horn
- 16.76 mm is a wide rim; coming off a small trumpet piece it will feel like a lot
Where each one actually gets played
The brass band, which is the cornet’s home
A full band is twenty-eight players. Ten of them are cornets — nine in B♭, split four solo, one repiano, two second and two third, plus one E♭ soprano on top — and exactly one is a flugelhorn. There are no trumpets in it at all. The cornets carry the melody the way first violins do in an orchestra, and the flugelhorn sits between them and the tenor horns, softening the join.
If the reason you are reading this is that you want to join a band, that paragraph is the whole decision. Ten seats against one, and the flugelhorn chair usually goes to a cornet player the conductor already knows.
The orchestra, where the cornet has been quietly replaced
Berlioz scored two cornets into the Symphonie fantastique, and added a solo cornet line to his autograph score that was never published in his lifetime — it is thought to have been written for Arban, and it is usually cut. Stravinsky’s 1911 Petrushka gives the Ballerina her toy-trumpet tune on a cornet. When he revised the score in 1946 he removed the cornets and handed that tune to a trumpet, which is the history of the instrument compressed into one editorial decision.
The flugelhorn has a shorter orchestral list and a more interesting one: Vaughan Williams’s Ninth Symphony, Tippett’s Third, Stravinsky’s Threni. Vaughan Williams called it “a beautiful and neglected instrument not usually allowed in the select circles of the orchestra”, and noted that once inside them it would have to play straight, without vibrato.
Jazz, where the flugelhorn actually lives
Joe Bishop was playing one in Woody Herman’s band by 1936, but the instrument arrived properly with Miles Davis’s Miles Ahead in 1957 and Clark Terry’s work with Ellington around the same time. Chuck Mangione then spent the 1970s playing nothing else, which is unusual — the normal pattern is a trumpet player who keeps a flugelhorn on a stand for ballads and reaches for it two or three times a set.
That is worth being blunt about, because it decides whether you buy one. The flugelhorn is a doubling instrument. Almost nobody’s first horn, and almost nobody’s only horn.
Which one to buy
Joining a brass band or a school band: the cornet, and the ten-to-one seat count is the whole reason. Already playing trumpet or cornet and after the ballad sound: the flugelhorn, bought as a second horn rather than a replacement. Wanting one instrument that will do everything asked of it: neither — a trumpet.
On either horn the feature worth paying for is the third valve slide. A ring or a stop rod lets you pull low D and C♯ down where they belong; without one you are lipping two notes into tune every time they appear.
The cornet
Blessing BCR1230S Student Cornet, Silver-Plated
- .460″ medium-large bore
- 4⅞″ bell
- Monel pistons
- Third valve slide stop
- Hard case and 7C mouthpiece
- ~$800
Built in Elkhart, Indiana, which is where most of the American brass industry has always been, and specified like an instrument meant to last a decade of school use. Monel pistons rather than nickel plating — monel does not gall as it wears, so the valves stay fast instead of getting sticky in year three. There is a first valve slide thumb hook and a third valve slide stop, and that stop is the difference between a cornet you can play in tune and one you have to fight.
The outfit is complete: molded hard case, Blessing 7C, valve oil. Yamaha’s student cornets are the other standard school answer and are built to the same .459″ bore, but they cost roughly twice this and are no easier to play.
- Monel pistons at a student price
- Third valve slide stop, so low D and C♯ can be tuned rather than lipped
- Hard case and mouthpiece in the box — nothing else to buy
- Made in Elkhart rather than assembled from unmarked parts
- Thumb hook on the first valve slide, not a trigger — you can nudge it between phrases, not during one
- Silver plate wants wiping down after every session or it marks
- $800 is a committed purchase; renting for a year costs a fraction of it
The flugelhorn
Jean Paul FH-430 Flugelhorn
- .441″ bore
- 154 mm bell
- Stainless steel valves
- Cupronickel slides
- 7C mouthpiece and semi-hard case
- ~$720
The bore sits in the middle of the range flugelhorns are actually built to, which matters more than the number itself: it is neither the very tight Bach profile that wants a strong player nor the wide Getzen one, so it responds the way a beginner on the instrument expects. Bell at 154 mm, comfortably past the 6″ mark that separates a flugelhorn from a large cornet.
Jean Paul lists it at $799.99 themselves and it usually sells for a little under that, so there is no premium to hunt for. Stainless valves, cupronickel slides, a 7C and a semi-hard case in the box, and a year of warranty from the maker.
The unflattering half: a flugelhorn at this money is loose in the top octave, and that is the instrument rather than the price — a $3,000 one is looser than a $700 cornet up there. It is also not a first horn. If you do not already play trumpet or cornet, buy the cornet and come back to this in a year or two.
- Bore and bell both sit where a flugelhorn’s should
- No premium over the maker’s own list price
- Complete outfit — case, mouthpiece, oil
- A year of warranty from Jean Paul themselves
- Vague above written G5, which is the instrument’s nature and not a fault of this one
- Low D and C♯ need lipping unless you fit or work the third slide
- A doubling instrument — a poor choice as anyone’s only horn
FAQs
What is the difference between a flugelhorn and a cornet?
Both are B♭ instruments with three piston valves and identical fingerings, built from the same length of tubing. The flugelhorn has a narrower bore — .433″ against the cornet’s .459″ on Yamaha’s figures — but a much larger bell, 6″ against 4⅔″, because its tubing tapers outwards for almost its whole length. That long taper gives the flugelhorn a soft, covered sound that blends rather than cuts. The cornet sits between the flugelhorn and the trumpet.
Is a flugelhorn harder to play than a cornet?
In the middle of the staff, no — it is the more forgiving of the two. Above about written G5 it is considerably harder, because the notes stop locking into place and the lip has to find them without help from the instrument. The cornet is secure across its whole range and moves faster through quick passages, which is why it is the one taught first.
Do a cornet and a flugelhorn read the same music?
Yes. Both are in B♭, both sound a whole tone below what is written, and every fingering is the same. A cornet player can read a flugelhorn part on sight and the other way round, and both can read trumpet parts unchanged.
Can I use my cornet mouthpiece in a flugelhorn?
No. A flugelhorn takes a longer, more deeply funnel-shaped mouthpiece, and there are three different flugelhorn shanks that are not interchangeable with each other either — Standard, Bach and French. Find out which one your instrument takes before ordering. Bach’s catalogue numbers separate the families: 351 for trumpet, 349 for cornet, 342 for flugelhorn.
Which is better for a beginner, a cornet or a flugelhorn?
The cornet, without much argument. It is secure across its whole range, it is what beginner method books are written for, and a brass band has ten cornet chairs to the flugelhorn’s one. The flugelhorn is almost always taken up as a second instrument by someone who already plays trumpet or cornet.
Is a cornet just a small trumpet?
It is the same length of tubing wrapped more tightly, so it is shorter end to end, but the bore is the thing that differs. A trumpet holds one diameter until the bell throat; a cornet widens gradually from about halfway along. That is what makes it sound mellower, and it also takes a different mouthpiece, with a shorter and narrower shank.
Can a flugelhorn replace a trumpet in a band?
It can play the notes, but it will not do the job. A flugelhorn is built to blend and will disappear underneath a section rather than lead it, and it gets unreliable in the register where trumpet parts spend most of their time. Substituting one for a ballad is common; substituting one for a whole concert is not.
Why are there no trumpets in a British brass band?
The instrumentation was fixed in the nineteenth century around conical-bore instruments, when the cornet rather than the trumpet was the standard soprano voice, and it never changed. A full band of twenty-eight uses nine B♭ cornets, one E♭ soprano cornet and one flugelhorn on top, then three tenor horns, two baritones, two euphoniums, three trombones, four tubas and percussion. The trombones are the only cylindrical-bore instruments in the room.
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