Best trumpet books for beginners

Buy whichever method the band director named, and if there is no director, buy the Rubank. That is the whole answer for most people, and the reason is not pedagogical: a band method exists so that a room full of mixed instruments can be on page 14 together, and a book that does not match the class is a book that creates homework rather than removing it. If nobody has named one, the Rubank Elementary Method#ad is 48 graded pages, costs less than a packet of valve oil and a coffee, and is sequenced to be worked through by one person.

Every pick states its Starter Path band, and we have not played any of them — the method is on how we pick. Page counts, authors, editions and ISBNs come from the publishers’ own product pages, cited at the bottom, and each book’s ISBN was matched against the listing we link to.

Why the trumpet book question is really two questions

Almost everyone searching for this is one of two people, and they need opposite answers.

The band parent. A child has joined the school band, the supply list said “method book,” and the only thing that matters is arriving with the same book as everybody else. Here the publisher is not a preference, it is a requirement: Hal Leonard, Alfred and Kjos all number their pages differently and a director calling “page 22, line 3” is calling it out of one book. If the list named a title, buy that title. If it did not, ask before buying anything.

The person teaching themselves, or an adult restarting. No class, no page numbers to match, and the classroom pacing of a band method is actively unhelpful: it is slow because it is waiting for twenty people, and it explains little because a teacher is assumed to be standing there. This person wants graded studies in a fixed order, which is exactly what the Rubank is and has been for decades.

The picks

Essential Elements for Band, Bb Trumpet Book 1#ad is the default because it is the most-assigned band method in the United States. Hal Leonard publishes 48 pages at 9 by 12 inches, softcover with online EE Interactive media, under six named authors, and — usefully for a household with a hand-me-down copy — states that new editions still work side by side with previous ones. Buy this if the school named Essential Elements, or named nothing and the child is in a band program. Skip it if the director named Kjos or Alfred.

The Rubank Elementary Method, Cornet or Trumpet#ad is the one we would buy for somebody outside a program. Forty-eight pages edited by A.F. Robinson, graded, sequential, and with no audio, no color and no photographs whatsoever. That plainness is the trade: it is the cheapest serious method on this page and the one a private teacher is most likely to produce if a student turns up empty-handed. The matching volumes for clarinet, saxophone and flute share the layout, which is worth knowing if there are two band students in the house. Buy this if they are learning alone, or you want a second book alongside the band method. Skip it if the student needs audio to copy, or is a young child who will be put off by a page with nothing on it but notes.

First Book of Practical Studies for Cornet and Trumpet#ad is the one most often bought by mistake. Alfred publishes it as 32 pages by Robert W. Getchell, edited by Nilo W. Hovey, explicitly as a book to supplement or follow any beginning method — so “First Book” means the first Getchell volume, not a first trumpet book. On its own terms it is excellent: the studies are musical rather than mechanical, so they survive being played twenty times. Buy this if the student has a reliable sound and their reading is lagging their playing. Skip it if they are still learning to produce a note.

What we did not list, and why

Arban. The Complete Conservatory Method is the trumpet reference work and is wildly inappropriate for a beginner. It is hundreds of pages aimed at conservatory students, and a first-year player opening it finds material they will not reach for years. It is a real book to own at some point and not this year.

Standard of Excellence and Accent on Achievement for trumpet. Both are legitimate band methods and both are on this site — Accent on Achievement appears on our clarinet books page and Standard of Excellence on the saxophone one. Listing four interchangeable classroom methods on one page would not help anybody choose, because the choice is not yours: it is the director’s.

Any “learn trumpet in 30 days” title. The ones we looked at carry no named author with a teaching background and no publisher imprint we can check a page count against. We do not list books we cannot verify, which is the same reason the flute page excluded an ambiguous Rubank listing in a previous round.

The honest limit of any trumpet book

Trumpet is the instrument on this site where self-teaching from print is hardest, and it is worth saying so on the page selling the books. The vibrating element is the player’s lips. A photograph cannot show you the inside of somebody’s mouth, and a beginner who sets their embouchure wrongly does not produce a poor note, they frequently produce no note — and then conclude the instrument is beyond them. Our page on whether trumpet is hard to learn goes into what actually happens in the first month.

The practical conclusion: a school band program is the cheapest teacher most families will ever get, and a method book is the thing that makes it work rather than a substitute for it. If there is no program, budget for a handful of lessons at the start rather than a fourth book — and see renting against buying a band instrument before spending anything on the horn itself.