The mock trumpet is a single-reed woodwind instrument popular during the second half of the seventeenth century, especially in England. By the 1720s, the mock trumpet was documented in use in the New World.^[1]

The mock trumpet predated the chalumeau and may be one of the primary predecessors of both the chalumeau and clarinet.^[1] Thurston Dart wrote that the mock trumpet was the name for the chalumeau in England, and that music was published for it in 1698.^[2]

Mock trumpets are keyless reed-pipes, closed on one end by the natural joint of the cane and wrapped in leather. The reed is idioglottal, meaning that it is a tongue cut but not detached from the reed itself. The reed was placed on the upper side of the instrument and vibrated against the upper lip; the pipe had six tone holes on top and one in the back.^[3] Early chalmeaus used idioglot reeds, as shown in the debate as to whether to install reeds up or down.^[4] Rice said the idioglot reed was installed with the split going from the top downward (anaglott).^[5]

Documented music for the mock trumpet primarily includes tutors and method books, indicating that this was an instrument studied in the Western Classical tradition.^[1]

• 
  Example of an idioglotic reed pipe with a wooden body (center instrument), Central Asia, circa 1869. From the left: zurna, bülban and dozaleh.
• 
  Example of an idioglot reed in a reed body, the sipsi.
• 
  Reed pipes in which the idioglot reeds were carved into the same reed as the rest of the pipe. Reclam de xeremies.
• 
  Marin Mersenne's illustration of a chalumeau made from wheat stalks, split to create an idioglot reed.

Tuning

The instrument as played in England was in the key of G.^[2] Content from The Fourth Compleat Book for the Mock Trumpet, "published between November 1706 and October 1708" showed the available notes to be G₄, A₄, B₄, C₅, D₅, E₅, F₅, G₅.^[2] (Converted to scientific pitch notation.) While this is almost a diatonic scale in G major, it would need an F^# for that. Rather this is C major, with the music included written in that scale.^[2]