The trumpet is one of the oldest of musical instruments, with its predecessors having been used in ancient Egypt about four thousand years ago. It can produce the highest notes of any brass instrument and can have a brilliant, powerful, penetrating, and even exciting, sound. A standard modern trumpet has a long, slender, usually brass, tube up to 1.48m in length that is bent into a paper clip-like shape and three valves. It is played by blowing air through nearly-closed lips into the mouthpiece to produce a buzzing sound that starts a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the tube. Each valve, when engaged, increases the effective length of tubing, thereby lowering the pitch. The trumpet family ranges from the piccolo trumpet with the highest register in the brass family, to the bass trumpet, which is pitched one octave below the standard B flat or C Trumpet.