Dry instrument vs Wet instrument

[Dale Proctor]

Have any of you noticed that when you pick up a horn you haven’t played in months, it doesn’t seem to play as well as it should? Sort of unresponsive, maybe the tone is a little lacking, etc.? After you play it a bit, it seems to improve, and then if you keep playing another day or two, it seems back to “normal”? Does moisture have anything to do with it, or do you think it’s just a lack of recent familiarity with the horn (even though you’ve played it a lot in the past) that makes it seem sub par?

[J. Jericho]

A good test would be to swab out the accumulated moisture from a horn you play on a daily basis, and try to detect a difference. Play. Swab. Play again.

[Dale Proctor]

@J-Jericho said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:

A good test would be to swab out the accumulated moisture from a horn you play on a daily basis, and try to detect a difference. Play. Swab. Play again.

I don’t think swabbing it would make it dry enough. It has to set up a while and really dry out.

[Kehaulani]

If it were me, I'd guess I was overthinking it. If you've been playing another horn and adopting to it's idiosyncracies (sp?), I would expect to feel a difference if I picked up a horn I hadn't been playing for a while.

[stumac]

This morning I played my1931 King Silver Tone trumpet for the first time in over 12months, the valves were free and smooth, I did not oil them (shame) and found as Dale the tone was dull and lifeless, after about 10 minutes of playing the tone was much improved and sounded more like me. I will try it again tomorrow after playing my usual horns.

I have not noticed this on any of my other horns that get played on a regular basis.

Regards,Stuart.

[J. Jericho]

@Dale-Proctor said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:

@J-Jericho said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:

A good test would be to swab out the accumulated moisture from a horn you play on a daily basis, and try to detect a difference. Play. Swab. Play again.

I don’t think swabbing it would make it dry enough. It has to set up a while and really dry out.

I use rolled-up paper towels to dry the insides after cleaning; they're dry when I'm done. To dry the bell crook, judicious use of a hair blow dryer so as not to cook the horn would take no more than a few minutes.

[GeorgeB]

I only have 7 horns and each one gets played ( for 3 days ) on a rotation basis so I guess they don't sit unused long enough to affect how they play because they all perform just fine.

[ROWUK]

Moisture! The speed of sound in moist air is different than in dry and in the microcosmos of the trumpet, that is a big deal. Intonation and targets change.
Granted, if one has minimal chops, other issues may mask the effect.
A „moist“ instrument is different than just running water through it first (although that does help some).

This is such a fundamental thing for me that I will not risk playing a gig on a dry trumpet (even although it is only dry for the first 10 minutes or so). When testing trumpets, the first 10 minutes do not count.

[Dale Proctor]

@stumac said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:

This morning I played my1931 King Silver Tone trumpet for the first time in over 12months, the valves were free and smooth, I did not oil them (shame) and found as Dale the tone was dull and lifeless, after about 10 minutes of playing the tone was much improved and sounded more like me. I will try it again tomorrow after playing my usual horns.

I have not noticed this on any of my other horns that get played on a regular basis.

Regards,Stuart.

Thanks for the confirmation, Stuart.

@ROWUK said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:

Moisture! The speed of sound in moist air is different than in dry and in the microcosmos of the trumpet, that is a big deal. Intonation and targets change.
Granted, if one has minimal chops, other issues may mask the effect.
A „moist“ instrument is different than just running water through it first (although that does help some).

This is such a fundamental thing for me that I will not risk playing a gig on a dry trumpet (even although it is only dry for the first 10 minutes or so). When testing trumpets, the first 10 minutes do not count.

Thank you for the info and confirmation, sir!

[stumac]

I did notice this when I blew a few notes on a 1941 York Custom that I had not played for some time, thinking I do not remember it being this bad I put it down intending to investigate later. Mystery solved.

Regards, Stuart.

[Trumpetb]

I will offer a different reason

I believe that there is a circle of sound

We form pitches in our embouchure and they exit the bell then we hear the pitch we just created and subconsciously compensate for it and our embouchure subtly changes over time and we approach our own native tone on the setup we play on, or as close as we can achieve to it.

This is I believe the mechanism that defeats a mouthpiece or horn safari, after changing mouthpiece or horn and experience a profound change in timbre our old familiar sound that we left behind before the safari began, begins to emerge again.

After picking up an old instrument we have not played in a while this process happens as we settle back into it slowly and over time we recover the tones we were familiar with on it.

Until that process has completed we will be unhappy with the tones we create on it, once it has completed we are ready for anything.

[Seth of Lagos]

@rowuk said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:

Moisture! The speed of sound in moist air is different than in dry and in the microcosmos of the trumpet, that is a big deal. Intonation and targets change.
Granted, if one has minimal chops, other issues may mask the effect.
A „moist“ instrument is different than just running water through it first (although that does help some).

This is such a fundamental thing for me that I will not risk playing a gig on a dry trumpet (even although it is only dry for the first 10 minutes or so). When testing trumpets, the first 10 minutes do not count.

This. Sort of.

On a microscopic level the inner surface of a brass pipe is quite rough and it will not reflect pressure waves, especially the higher frequencies, straight and true. You could say the speed of sound is 'reduced', but more in the sense of being sent on numerous detours. This will tend to push the sound towards dull and lifeless.
A bit of moisture on the other hand will tend to fill in the valleys and present a much smoother surface, truer wave reflections and richer sound.

[Kehaulani]

Let's see. You don't play your horn for a year and now ~IT~ doesn't play as well as it used to. What am I missing?

[Trumpetb]

@Kehaulani

Or maybe we dont perform as well as we used to.

I think there are lots of reasons, I like your direct and no messing about way of expressing yourself Kehaulani, it is very refreshing.

[Dr GO]

Then there is the art behind emptying the spit valve. Love the point of moistening the sound just to the point before it becomes a crackle.

[Dale Proctor]

@kehaulani said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:

Let's see. You don't play your horn for a year and now ~IT~ doesn't play as well as it used to. What am I missing?

The point of this thread wasn’t meant to refer to a horn playing differently when the player hadn’t played his only horn in a long time. The cause of that is pretty obvious…lol. It was meant to address the phenomenon I perceived when playing an extra horn that had been unplayed for a long time (weeks or months) and was dry as a bone inside.

[barliman2001]

@dale-proctor So we can conclude that wet is always preferable to dry - a sentiment shared by glasses of whisky.

[Dr GO]

@barliman2001 said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:

@dale-proctor So we can conclude that wet is always preferable to dry - a sentiment shared by glasses of whisky.

Not entirely true, there is something to say about a dry blended whiskey . Now that's how you wet a trumpet .

[Kehaulani]

@dale-proctor So we can conclude that wet is always preferable to dry.

[Dale Proctor]

This thread has officially jumped the shark…