Spanish Musical Instrument Stamps 2010

This article features a set of Spanish musical instrument stamps from 2010. Instruments are a common motif on stamps from all over the world. The first stamp sets featuring instruments were from the 1950s. Check out some of my other articles featuring instrument sets from Gabon, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and many more. There are many reasons why instruments are popular on stamps. They are immediately recognizable cultural objects that rarely cause controversy.

For several years, beginning in 2010, Spain made successive sets of musical instrument stamps. The subsequent stamps will feature in their own articles. This set depicts (mostly) orchestral brass instruments, which are fairly common aroudn the world. It made me want to find a performance by a Spanish brass ensemble. The piece is the La boda de Luis Alonso, a famous composition by the Spanish composer Gerónimo Giménez. Enjoy!

The Stamps

Spain made sets of musical instrument stamps each year between 2010 and 2013. For my money, the 2010 set of Spanish stamps featuring musical instruments is the most boring (both in design and topic). The first set features four wind instruments, three of them brass: trumpet, orchestral horn, and tuba; and the fourth a woodwind, the saxophone. By comparison, in 2011 the theme was for stringed instruments, including folk instruments such as the bandurria. Then, in 2012, the theme was string instruments from across the world including a banjo and a balalaika. Finally, in 2013, Spain made a set of five stamps with percussion instruments including both folk and orchestral instruments.

The 2010 set features four self-adhesive stamps with a single instrument standing against a bright red background. All four of the instruments are made of brass (including the saxophone, which is a woodwind instrument), which makes a striking appearance against the red.

The Instruments

The first stamp in the set features a trumpet. The trumpet is the soprano, or lead voice in the brass family. This example features the modern orchestral trumpet with three valves. There are a ton of trumpet stamps from all over the world, you can see more on my trumpet stamp board.

The second stamp features a concert (or orchestral) tuba, or in Spanish, the bombardino. It is the bass, or lowest, member of the brass family. The concert tuba is held in a player’s lap, which is different from the marching instrument known as the sousaphone that a player wears over their shoulders. The tuba sits upside down on its bell.

The next stamp in the set is really the oddball of the group. It features the saxophone, which is not a member of the brass family. While the body of the saxophone is made of brass, the saxophone, however, is a single-reed instrument. A player places the end of the reed in their mouth and blowing causes the reed to vibrate, creating soundwaves in the saxophone body. Saxophone stamps are also popular, check out my collection of saxophone stamps.

The final stamp in this quartet of stamps depicts the orchestral horn. Notice I did not use the term “French horn,” which is a common nickname for the instrument. French makers were the ones to create the familiar circular form of the instrument, especially for earlier hunting horns. Due to this, in English, the instrument became the “French horn.” I prefer to use the term orchestral horn. The International Horn Society recommends just calling the instrument the horn.