Plucked The cornet (/ˈkɔːrnɪt/,[1] US: /kɔːrˈnɛt/) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality.

[4] The instrument could not have been developed without the improvement of piston valves by Silesian horn players Friedrich Blühmel (or Blümel) and Heinrich Stölzel, in the early 19th century.

While not musically related, instruments of the Zink family (which includes serpents) are named "cornetto" or "cornett" in modern English, to distinguish them from the valved cornet described here.

This shape is primarily responsible for the instrument's characteristic warm, mellow tone, which can be distinguished from the more penetrating sound of the trumpet.

The conical bore of the cornet also makes it more agile than the trumpet when playing fast passages, but correct pitching is often less assured.

There is also a long-model, or "American-wrap" cornet, often with a smaller bore and a brighter sound, which is produced in a variety of different tubing wraps and is closer to a trumpet in appearance.

Without valves, the player could produce only a harmonic series of notes, like those played by the bugle and other "natural" brass instruments.

These notes are far apart for most of the instrument's range, making diatonic and chromatic playing impossible, except in the extreme high register.

Fanfareorkesten ("fanfare orchestras"), found in only the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France, and Lithuania, use the complete saxhorn family of instruments.

Likewise, the cornet has been largely phased out of big bands by a growing taste for louder and more aggressive instruments, especially since the advent of bebop in the post-World War II era.

[13] Cornetists such as Bubber Miley and Rex Stewart contributed substantially to the Duke Ellington Orchestra's early sound.

Other influential jazz cornetists include Freddie Keppard, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, Ruby Braff, Bobby Hackett, and Nat Adderley.

Notable performances on cornet by players generally associated with the trumpet include Freddie Hubbard's on Empyrean Isles, by Herbie Hancock, and Don Cherry's on The Shape of Jazz to Come, by Ornette Coleman.

The use of valves meant they could play a full chromatic scale in contrast with trumpets, which were still restricted to the harmonic series.

Hector Berlioz was the first significant composer to use them in these ways, and his orchestral works often use pairs of both trumpets and cornets, the latter playing more of the melodic lines.