Cornett

A cornett is an early wind instrument from the Renaissance period. It is a tube, typically about 3/4 metre (2 feet) long, made of ivory or wood with woodwind-style fingerholes and a small brass instrument-like (lip-vibrated) mouthpiece. Although it may thus seem difficult to know whether to classify it as brass or woodwind, it is undoubtedly brass, and the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification places it alongside other brass instruments such as the trumpet.

Cheaper modern cornetts are made in ABS resin, a plastic also used for making cheaper clarinets and other woodwind instruments.

Purist cornett players tend to use a smaller mouthpiece, whereas those needing to make a compromise--often with the need to go on playing modern brass instruments--may use a much larger mouthpiece, sometimes a trumpet mouthpiece ground down on a lathe so that only the cup and a minimal stub which fits the cornett's mouthpiece receiver are left.

To try to avoid confusion between this instrument and the cornet (with one T), the cornett is often referred to by its Italian name, cornetto.