Sackbut modern orchestra sounds out of tune, but it tunes perfectly well on in a sackbut choir if everyone plays natural harmonics. Plenty of musical understanding can be gathered from reading the original music print. Publishers such as SPES and Arnaldo Forni Edition provide facsimile copies of plenty of music for trombone from this era. To read these it one needs to become familiar with the old clefs, time signatures, ligatures and notational conventions of the era. The sound of sackbuts (and trombones) has long been thought especially solemn and noble, had an association with death and the afterlife. The instrument
Sackbut the sources: it is either derived from the Middle French "sacquer" (to pull) and "bouter" (to push) or from the Spanish "sacar" (to draw or pull) and "bucha" (a tube or pipe). The term survives in numerous English spelling variations including sacbut, sackbutte, sagbut, shagbolt, sacabushe, shakbusse and shakbusshe. Closely related to "sackbut" was the name used in France: "sacqueboute" and in Spain, where it was "sacabuche". These terms were used in England and France until the 18th century. In Scotland in 1538 the slide instrument is referred to as "draucht trumpet" (drawn trumpet) as opposed to a "weir trumpet"