What is a Bugle?
The word bugle may call to mind the “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” performed by the Andrews Sisters from 1941, but the bugle’s history goes much further back than that, back to the days when it was used for hunting calls. Although they are brass instruments—like trumpets, trombones, and tubas—older bugles had no valves. Today there are valved bugles, and this newer design increases the pitches to which the bugler has access. Both the mellophone and the flugelhorn can be looked at as descendants of the bugle.
