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Military bugle in B♭

The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments; it is essentially a small natural horn with no valves. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure, since the bugle has no other mechanism for controlling pitch. Consequently, the bugle is limited to notes within the harmonic series. See Bugle call for scores to standard bugle calls.

American naval bugler in 1917.

A French marine bugler at a ceremony in Kuwait City celebrating the success of Operation Desert Storm in 1991

The bugle developed from early musical or communication instruments called "horns" because they were made of animal horns. (Cf. Shofar.) The word "bugle" comes from the Latin word "buculus" (young bull) via the French "bugleret". The first bugles developed as hunting horns. They were shaped in a coil -- typically a double coil, but also a single or triple coil -- similar to the modern French horn, and were used to communicate during hunts and as announcing instruments for coaches (somewhat akin to today's automobile horn). Predecessors and relatives of the developing bugle included the post horn, the Pless horn (sometimes called the "Prince Pless horn"), and the bugle horn.

The first verifiable formal use of a brass horn as a military signal device was the Halbmondblaser -- literally, "half moon blower" -- used in Hanover in 1758. It was U-shaped (hence its name) and comfortably carried by a shoulder strap attached at the mouthpiece and bell. It first spread to England in 1764 where it was gradually accepted widely in foot regiments. Cavalry did not use a proper bugle, as a rule, but rather a trumpet; this might be mistaken for a bugle today, as it could lack keys or valves, but it had a more gradual taper and a smaller bell, producing a sound more easily audible at close range but with less carrying power over distance.

The bugle is used mainly in the military and in drum and bugle corps, where the bugle has evolved away from its military origins, growing valves. In American drum and bugle corps, G is considered the traditional key for bugles to be pitched in. Civilian drum corps were founded using equipment sold off by the military in the early 1900s, and the last official change made to the military bugle (before its role as a signaling device was rendered obsolete by the radio) was to standardize them in the key of G. Bugles in other parts of the world typically were pitched in B flat or E flat.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bugle.

The cornet is sometimes erroneously considered to be the "valved version" of the bugle, although it was derived from the French cornet de poste (post horn).

19th century variants based on the standard bugle included keyed bugles and valved bugles. Keyed bugles were invented in England in the early 19th century, with a patent for one design, the Royal Kent bugle, taken out by Joseph Halliday in 1811. This bugle was highly popular and wide in use until c1850, so for example in works by Richard Willis, later bandmaster of the United States Military Academy Band at West Point. This variant of the bugle fell out of use with the invention of the valved cornet.

• Evolution of the Bugle