88 keys on a piano keyboard, 6 or 12 strings on a guitar but 3 valve slides on a trumpet? Only 3 yet the lead trumpet in an orchestra or band can hang with the best of them. To someone like me who does not play the trumpet, the idea of performing beautiful music...some times very mellow with a mute and some times frenetic and fractured up and down the scale is a miracle. Where does the range of notes come from? In the hands of Louis Armstrong or a private first class...When the saints....or Taps, the brass section draws our attention and holds us until the last note. The beautiful performance of a solo trumpet with three valve slides is like painting the Sistine Chapel with a mop. I envy both the painter and the performer.