Trumpeters often don’t use their nose to play.
That was my first thought but can dolphins breathe out of their mouths?
*Searching say no. Can I say duckduckgoing? Ducking? Ducking says no. Separate breathing and feeding tubes. We should do that.
**More ducking says “Until recently it was thought that dolphins could not breathe through their mouths in the same way as people can, only through their blowholes. However, in 2016 scientists discovered a New Zealand dolphin with a damaged blowhole who had learnt to breathe through his or her mouth.”
I just say search, but Kagi brought me to this.
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/oceans/whales-and-dolphins/mouth-breathing-dolphin-makes-history/
I’d just like to add that the colloquial interpretation of “mouth-breathing dolphin” is kinda funny. Like Kevin the Dolphin.
Huh, interesting. This article has a scratch of the cross section of a dolphins head: https://hakaimagazine.com/news/scientists-discover-mouth-breathing-dolphin/
*What do you reckon the past participle would be? Google/Googled is easy. Duckduckgoed sounds wrong. Duckduckwent is probably correct. Ducked might be easily misinterpreted/misunderstood.
You are correct that a dolphin’s blowhole is not its nose in the traditional sense, but it does serve a similar function in that it is used for breathing. However, the reason a dolphin would play a trumpet with its blowhole rather than its mouth has more to do with the anatomy of its airway than with the function of the blowhole itself.
Dolphins are mammals and breathe air into their lungs just like humans do. However, unlike humans, dolphins do not have a direct connection between their mouths and their lungs. Instead, their airway consists of a long, narrow passageway that leads from the blowhole on the top of their heads down to their lungs. This passageway is called the pharynx, and it is not connected to the mouth or the digestive tract.
This unique anatomy means that dolphins are not able to inhale or exhale through their mouths, and they cannot control the airflow through their mouths in the same way that humans can. Instead, they use their blowhole for breathing, and they have excellent control over the muscles surrounding the pharynx, which allows them to produce a variety of sounds for communication.
So, if a dolphin were to attempt to play a trumpet (or any other wind instrument), it would have to use its blowhole rather than its mouth because that is the only way it is physically capable of controlling the airflow to produce sound. The dolphin would essentially be using the trumpet as an extension of its own respiratory system, blowing air through the instrument with its blowhole and using its pharyngeal muscles to modulate the airflow and create musical notes.
In conclusion, while a dolphin’s blowhole may not be a “nose” in the traditional sense, it is the functional equivalent when it comes to breathing and sound production. And due to the unique anatomy of a dolphin’s airway, it would indeed use its blowhole, rather than its mouth, to play a trumpet.
… there is another …
Unlike most of these sorts of things, this one has a definite answer: 2. They cannot blow air out of their mouths. However, since they have no hands to work the valves, it wouldn’t sound too good, assuming they could get it to stay in place to begin with.
assuming they could get it to stay in place to begin with.
Perhaps the mouthpiece would serve as a “flared base,” as it were.
Valves aren’t needed to “sound too good”, they’re needed to get more notes. Without valves, you’ve still got the harmonic series. Any piece played on bugle could also be played on trumpet. And the majority of classical compositions up until the late 19th century. (All classical compositions until the early 19th century.)
Probably not. I’m not a brass player or a marine biologist but as I understand it the way a brass player’s embouchure works would not be replicable by a dolphin’s blowhole (it’s not just “send air through the tube”, it’s more like blowing a raspberry). They wouldn’t be able to play any note, let alone different notes.
From what I know about dolphins, they’re more likely to fuck it than play it.
Knowing about dolphins - neither, they would just fuck it.
