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
Experimental musical instrument generate a range of unusual sounds and tones. The human body becomes a part of the circuit and determines the range of sounds possible; different people will generate different sounds. The neola is a tenor stringed musical instrument invented in 1970 by Goronwy Bradley Davies, Llanbedr, Wales. Plastics and aluminium were used in the design and the invention was recognized in a British Patent (registered 16 August 1972) and a Design Council award. The name "Neola" was registered for the instrument. The invention is intended as a tenor, replacing an instrument in the viol family that has been surpassed by