Rather a horn, a mellophone has triad valves. Yet, the valves come pressed sustaining the right hand for mellophone, instead of the left for a concert horn. Too, although a bit of of a mellophone fingerings come the equivalent when people of the concert horn, it typically resemble trumpet fingerings more than horn fingerings. Mellophones come often dig in the key of F, like concert horns, a overtone series is an octave above that of the horn. Numbers of drum & bugle corps, nevertheless, have mellophones dig in G, although a total has dwindled somewhat since them major United States drum & bugle corps circuits (first Drum Corps International and then Drum Corps Associates) passed rule changes allowing use of instrumentation in any key (it should be noted that corps using mellophones pitched in G typically have the entire rest of their brass section also using G instruments, while those using mellophones pitched in F generally have the remainder of their brass section using Bb instruments).

A independent cause that a mellophone is utilized in situ of a concert horn for marching is that a mellophone occurs as bell-front instrument, thus that a healthy move into the counsel that the streaming video player is facing. This is especially crucial around drum corps-style marching, in which a audience is often standing or even sitting in just a single side of the band. the counsel of a bell, too when the lot-reduced total of tube (equally in comparison a concert horn) makes the mellophone look prefer a big trump. As a matter of fact, virtually all mellophones utilise trumpet-style parabolical ("cup") mouthpieces rather than a little, lightly, cone-shaped ("funnel") mouthpieces utilized in concert horns.

Naming issues
There is a groovy treat of confusion on a terminology of this style of horn. Though this horn is usually known as the mellophone, these are thomas more right labeled the mellophonium. the mellophone is an instrument sustaining the round diaper (rather a French horn, by having a bell facing backwards & down), with piston valves played per best h&, and dig in Eb. The farther confusion is the being of the marching French horn, which utilizes sole the French horn mouthpiece & is dig in Bb, though it appears virtually monovular to the mellophonium. Disregardless, a correct term has never caught in, & the general term "mello," or even thomas more recently, "melli," is typically utilized instead.