I think there are two issues and the two issues are being conflated.

One is the unsociability of Miles and his unwillingness to deal respectfully with others.

The other is the unsociability of musicians who butt into performances and disrupt the performance.

There is no excuse for a musician to unexpectedly go on stage mid performance and spoil a performance.

I have had to deal with this many times. Mid phrase a musician suddenly starts playing his instrument and the performance is ruined.

I have dealt with it like Miles did, end the music and tell him to sod off.

In some cases the audience cat called the intruder and told him they loved me and he had spoiled their enjoyment.

Would Thelonious Monk have allowed another pianist to climb on stage and sit at his piano uninvited mid performance. No he would not.

Would the Boston Philharmonic allow a hic with a violin to get on stage and play with them during a performance of Mahlers Fifth. No they would not.

Just 2 days ago during a performance a hip hop musician decided to jump in and disrupt my performance which was going great, he disrupted it made it sound pathetic and then demanded that I play the piece faster.

This is ridiculous.

Wynton was being ridiculous.

If Miles had invited Wynton to play on stage with him there would be no issue, but mid performance to hog the stage when Miles had a performance, had a planned set and the audience had paid to hear Miles and not Wynton, is quire wrong and bordering on abusive.

Are you really telling me that any performer anywhere is fair game to have you mount the stage and start playing with them unrehearsed when they never asked you up.

I have been invited up many times and performed with the band when I did, that was cool and it always went great. But I have also been told by audience members to mount the stage during someone elses act who had not asked me up.

I was not part of the act so I had no business being on stage.

I would never do such a thing.

Or am I reading this right, you guys would have seen nothing wrong with walking up to Doc Severinsen during the Tonight show and trying to play uninvited and unexpected. The floor manager would have you thrown out of the studio. I would have you banned for it.

I respect you guys but be honest, how many performances have you guys really barged in on.

You dont know what they will play next, you have not rehearsed with them, you were not expected to perform, the audience dont want or expect you. A performance can go south real fast.

Wynton was being nasty and objectionable and Miles was having none of it.

I have great concerns about the past and the records of my past.

The internet is littered with records of me and I wince when I see them, I was so inept as a player in those days.

This site has comments I have made in the past some were worth making but some have not stood the test of time, and I apologise for them.

Before the internet people only saw us when we presented ourselves and as we grew and matured and improved people and audiences only saw us at our most developed and matured on the day they saw us. Unless we released a track a single or appeared in a movie where we had the opportunity to make it the best we could at the time.

In the studio we rarely simply play and publish and be damned whatever we play warts and all.

In movies we might make one take 5 takes 10 takes or a hundred. Only the best makes it onto the screen. That is the way it should be.

And when we released a track we could make sure that we showed ourselves well. If you come in late you do it again if you hit a wrong note or sound like a strangled cat you do it again and make it right. Then you cut a disk or a cd or a whatever.

Now instead the public publish whatever they record and then we have a record in perpetuity that will live forever of whatever they recorded and they dont care if we sound or look good.

I and many others appear on the internet having had no opportunity to reject poor sound poor playing poor cinematography.

I have worked in the studio and we spent time polishing and refining until we sounded the way we wanted, until we sounded professional.

A short clip of us taken without our knowledge or consent then published on a facebook page and then published widely or a home movie made with poor sound quality suffering from neglect or incompetence of the movie maker lives on now forever.

Am I to refuse to appear in public until I have fully developed and matured my playing and always sound great, waiting 20 years before venturing out in public in fear of being condemned forever.

We get better until we die and each performance is a snapshot of where we are, how inconsistent we are, and if we ate gorgonzola unwisely before playing and suffered with limp lips because of it.

I am far better now than I ever was as a student player, but must I be judged for once being a fool with a horn who mostly sounded like a braying goat.

The internet is a great teacher, a good school and assistance in so many ways, and yet it is also a great leveller and a bloodthirsty destroyer of careers for there is no controlling it or avoiding it.

I love the internet and I hate it, I wish there was a time machine where my present day self can travel back to my earliest days and show the world what I would eventually become.

We musicians start out as the worst example of what we can be and become over several decades the best we can be. Must we live forever with our worst and always be judged for it.

All we can really say is Que sera sera whatever will be will be and suck it up. Be the best we can be on the day and let the chips fall where they will.

This ability to play a single sustained note for 59 minutes is a game changer for me,

I thought I had too few tunes in my set when gigging, I see now that I dont need more tunes I just need longer notes.

Circular breathing opens the door to 30 minute notes for me and a larger paycheck for less effort.

I could make a tune last 24 hours with this approach.

I may pick up the drum sticks and repeat the 2370 beats per minute of that 10 year old who beat the old record, Who needs to learn rhythm when you can kick out almost 3000 beats per minute.

This performance and the 59 minute sustained note are clearly pushing the boundaries of music.

Some say we have lost real music to the sideshow but I say I cant wait until we have the 3 hour sustained note and the 10,000 beats per minute drum solo,

In your dreams Buddy Rich and Miles you guys hadnt got a clue about real music.

There are many reasons why this could be happening, but lets assume the instrument should play and you have the right valves for the instrument.

I assume from your post that the air is being blocked somehow so I will address that.

There could be some blockage in for example the ports between the valves.

Let us first try to make sure the valves are in the right chambers.

Remove all the valves.

Now blow into the mouthpipe and see if air freely exits the mouthpipe into the third chamber with no restriction.

If it does place the third valve in its chamber and secure it with valve guide located. Then blow again into the mouthpipe. If the air is blocked then you have a wrong valve or a valve wrongly fitted.

Reseat the valve 180 degrees apart and see if the air now blows through.

If you cannot get the air to blow through then it is probably a wrong valve try the others and see if the air will blow through.

If the air blows through with the third valve fitted then move on to the second.

Fit the second valve and try to blow through, if you cannot blow through then try the valve 180 degrees the other way.

If you can blow through then fit the first valve and try to blow through.

I know it sounds a bit daft but this method should reveal if the air will move through the instrument with no valves pressed, and also will check all ports between valves are clear.

Once the air blows through you can test there is no blockage in the valve slides by blowing through and then as you blow press a valve.

Once you have made sure air passes through the instrument with no valves pressed and with each valve pressed then there is no blockages.

I assume that one of these tests will reveal a blockage somewhere.

If no blockages exists then you should have the valves all correctly fitted and the instrument should then play.

If this excellent recording by the Leningrad brass sounds this good and this powerful due to their use of home made poorly manufactured instruments made from old car and truck parts then let us all play on such instruments.

I have seen so called musicians complain that they have never managed to get a decent sound out of any bach instrument and likewise other musicians say similar things of shilke or martin or conn.

I have also seen a good musician deliver a superb performance from a so called communist wall-hangar ornament.

I also believe that the communist regime were obsessed by a need to show the superiority of the communist workers over the decadent west and if the instruments really were compromising the performance and making the musicians task impossible then they would have corrected that situation.

I believe that a great musician can make even a stove pipe sound great.

A brass instrument is just a tube, it is the musician that is the heart and soul of a great performance, he does not need some thirty thousand dollar instrument to sound great. The instrument just makes it easier to sound great.

Ancient instruments often look dated and weird however when played well in a small ensemble in a drawing room or modest sized concert hall they usually sound intimate reserved gentle and angelic.

What have we lost in the last 500 years by abandoning utter beauty in our endevours to sound modern progressive and robust

Thank you Steve, Zzorse, and Barliman

I have owned many instruments and one was a peashooter.

The peashooter was often used in dance bands for 3 possible reasons in my opinion.

1 Because they typically had a very tight wrap and were slim and racy looking and audiences loved that.

2 They typically had art deco engravings that looked very progressive and up to date in the 1920s

and 3 They often had a very small bell diameter and this kept the bell flare tight.

The tight bell flare made for a very piercing tone that projected very strongly and powerfully and was said to be able to strip paint from the far wall when played.

I believe this strong projection was helpful in a large dance hall with large band with audiences dancing around and making a lot of noise.

The brighter tone was acceptable as it helped the player rise above all the other instruments much as the lead players do today playing higher brighter and louder.

The drive towards smoother richer and more lyrical instruments through the 40s 50s and 60s I believe led to the abandonment of the pea shooter as dance bands did not need such bright and strident instruments and players found they could achieve much the same effect by a sensible choice of mouthpiece for lead playing.

Peashooter says it all for me, - a thin tube with not much flare resulting in strong projection.

Ok first of all dont panic it may be that the instrument is gunged up and needs a really good clean.

I would also suggest that the corks are falling apart, and the water valves corks are probably leaking.

Bad or leaking corks can make an instrument sound strangled. I would take it to a good tech and ask them to make it playable, basically a cork and felt replacement and that should only cost a few dollars and will make a world of difference.

Also they will check the valves are all seated correctly and working correctly.

The instrument sounds like a Reynolds Medalist trumpet these were a premier student trumpet from a great manufacturer and they had many features of professional instruments. It sounds like you have a very good instrument there that is well worth having a tech check it over and it will help you to develop for many years.

@ROWUK

Again we do not disagree

My perspective is that my musical taste is classical jazz blues reggae pop baroque folk choral.

My tastes are eclectic and I love it all.

I love barbeque I love burgers I love cordon bleu I love hearty farmhouse meals and party food.

Strawberries are a wonderful end to a meal but I would not eat strawberries all the day long.

I love modern instruments I love ancient instruments I love a sprinkling of Cornetto amongst a diet of more modern fare.

My own experience shows that BIX can stand as an equal next to Chuck Berry or BB King or Black Sabbath

I am quite happy with a mix of all styles without needing 3 hours of BIX on his own.

But you know a sprinkling of BIX among more contemporary music sounds wonderful and yes I dare to say it, a medley of blues jazz rock pop and choral sounds great to audiences.

Yesterday I played a 1925 BIX composition on a period trumpet from 1924 with a period mouthpiece from 1892 and it was totally loved.

And I do believe that if I had played a Serpent or a Shawm or a Cornetto that would have been loved just as much as any 2022 acoustic guitar.

It is not what you do it is the way that you do it, thats what gets results.

I have seen too many ancient instruments that take a great deal of perseverance to sound anything other than a cow breaking wind.

I have also seen unsophisticated unpracticed members of the public pick up a wonderful modern brass instrument that is capable of great beauty, and they blow as hard and as loud as they can making a wonderful instrument sound like a pigs rear end.

A good player can make a bad instrument sound great, a bad player can make a great instrument sound bad.

That is all that is happening here.

Back in 2010 gorillas decided to blow the heck out of a tube they called a vuvuzella with the intent to sound as bad as humanly possible, and they achieved that quite outstandingly.

They get drunk and then they use aerosol powered fog horns to make as much noise as possible at football matches.

Was there any doubt that the vuvuzella would sound anything other than abominable in their hands.

I rest my case.

This is a very interesting piece that speaks of the Wagner tuba, the Engelbert Schmid Wagner tuba and the horn mouthpiece.

I note that the author mentions that the horn mouthpiece is not a good fit in the Wagner tuba, this is an extract of his piece

One thing that I realized very quickly was that the Houghton H3 mouthpiece I was currently using for my daily horn playing wasn’t ideal. The shank wasn’t a great fit for the tuba’s European receiver, and I felt that the small bore of the H3 was a bit confining. After trial and (lots of) error, I settled on an old Giardinelli B8 two-piece cup with an H1 rim. This is probably the largest mouthpiece that I’ve ever played professionally, and I couldn’t imagine it working for me on horn, but it is somehow pure magic on the Wagner tuba.

His conclusion is that the Engelbert Schmid Wagner tuba carries some differences to the Horn but there are many similarities, and they appear to be are a natural instrument for Horn players to double on.

This is the full article. It makes good reading.

https://houghtonhorns.com/blogs/articles/taming-the-beast-my-wagner-tuba-debut?srsltid=AfmBOooApdEMLJNDvAsfrhhQZfkNDJco_odKrx7F_2C993xHQlL0umqj

I will stick my neck out here

I have seen many Tenor horns and they have a conventional shape

A Wagner tuba is not a tuba it is essentially a Tenor horn

The other Tenor horn instrument that has the same timbre and fills the same position in an orchestra as the Tenor horn is the Alto horn.

Both are pitched the same and have a similar appearance.

The Wagner tuba is a quite different instrument in appearance to either Tenor horn or Alto horn.

While both tenor horn and alto horn have a traditional appearance being roughly rectangular with the valves at one end and the bell is straight on both

The Wagner horn is an oddity, It is roughly elliptical in shape and the valves are set on the side of the instrument, has a bent bell tube and has the timbre and pitch of both Tenor and Alto horns.

Looking at this image the mouthpipe is on the other side of the bell tube from most Wagner tubas

I have found one image of a Wagner tuba with the mouthpipe similarly placed to this one.

It is named the Engelbert Schmid Wagner Tuba.

It appears to be then a sub class of Wagner tuba, and I believe barliman is right it is a rotary valve Tenor horn, but I also believe it is a Wagner tuba of the class Engelbert Schmid Wagner tuba as administrator has suggested.

This is the kind of problem we encounter when creating an instrument that is a sub set of a sub class of a small group of instruments. The resulting instrument does not fit easily into any existing types.

I believe nobody who has posted is wrong we just have a very unusual and very confusing instrument here.

I am sorry but I have to speak up

I know that some players use WD40 as a lubricant but WD 40 is not a lubricant. In fact it is a complex mix of chemicals some of which are dangerous to health

The contents of WD40 read like a recipe from a chemists lab

These are a list of the published ingredients of WD40 and I hope that players will abandon it as a lubricant

Hydrotreated heavy naphtha: 50–60% of WD-40
Petroleum base oils: Less than 25% of WD-40
Hydrodesulfurized heavy naphtha: Less than 10% of WD-40, and contains xylene, 1,2,4-trimethyl benzene, and 1,3,5-trimethyl benzene
Mineral oil Similar to baby oil and Vaseline.
Alkanes
Decane, which helps WD-40 remain a liquid at cold temperatures
Nonane, which is water repellent
Tridecane and undecane, which are also found in stink bug scent glands
Tetradecane, another alkane
Carbon dioxide
Propels the WD-40 out of the can
Other ingredients in WD-40 may include:
Dimethyl naphthalene, a solvent
Cyclohexane, which gives WD-40 a high melting point
Solvent naphtha, petroleum, light aliphatic
Calcium sulfonate
Propane

Dimethyl napthalene is known to be dangerous

WD40 contains solvents whose primary role is to remove oils.

The WD in WD40 is there because WD40 was developed as a water remover. It displaces water.

That is why when it was first introduced it was used to displace moisture from electrical parts such as automotive ignition cables and distributors.

It does contain some 25% petroleum distillates but the rest are questionable and some are dangerous.

I recommend that anyone using it abandons it immediately.

There are wonderful alternate lubricants that are available.

Even raw paraffin is more healthy than this

This is what the industry says about WD40:-

WD-40 can be harmful to health if used incorrectly or for long periods of time. It can irritate the eyes, skin, and respiratory system.
Inhalation
Can cause dizziness, headaches, nausea, and upper respiratory irritation
High concentrations can cause central nervous system effects
Prolonged exposure to fumes can cause respiratory issues
Skin contact
Can cause drying of skin and/or irritation
Prolonged and/or repeated contact may produce mild irritation and defatting with possible dermatitis
Eye contact
May cause irritation, tearing, and redness

Also:-

DANGER! Extremely Flammable Aerosol. Contains gas under pressure; may explode if heated. May be fatal if swallowed and enters airways.

In short the recommendation is to keep it away from eyes keep it away from skin do not swallow it do not breathe the fumes.

It is a dangerous product

I make no excuses for calling out this dangerous product.

If the shank fits your cornets then it is more than likely a cornet mouthpiece.

There are several considerations with cornet mouthpieces.

There are several different tapers on cornets. The Bach taper is pretty standard today but was not standard back in the day.

Bach cornet pieces have more c shaped bowls very much like their trumpet mouthpiece bowl shapes

I have a Bach cornet mouthpiece and the rim measures 16.35 mm whereas the cup depth measures 10.89 mm.
I would class this as a shallow mouthpiece.

For example I have a Wick cornet mouthpiece that measures 17mm rim width and 18.37mm cup depth. I would call this a deep mouthpiece.

A rule of thumb is that modern pieces have bowls shallower than the rim width and the ancient pieces have bowls deeper than the rim width.

This is not a rigid rule many manufacturers make pieces that break this rule of thumb.

The Wick often follows ancient cornet mouthpiece shapes with very deep cup almost vee shaped whereas some Wicks have shallower cups than their rim.

I have an original cornet mouthpiece from the 19th century and that cup shape is very similar to the Wick cup shape measuring 15.9mm rim width and 17.46 cup depth.

This confirms the Denis Wick documentation that claims the Wick cornet mouthpieces originally followed early cornet mouthpiece designs.

It sounds very much like your mouthpiece is an older design than is the current trend. I cannot say for sure without seeing it.

I have a Yamaha 16E cornet mouthpiece and a Yamaha 11E4 cornet mouthpiece both of these represent well modern cornet mouthpieces and they fall fairly close to the modern Bach cornet mouthpiece design. both use the Bach taper.

One characteristic of ancient mouthpiece designs is the shape of the shoulder at the base of the cup where it enters the backbore.

If it is rounded the mouthpiece is probably a later design, if the shoulder is sharp then it is a more ancient design and could be expected to have a deep cup shape. This does not always hold true.

In short I would assume your piece to be simply a much older design of mouthpiece than we are used to seeing today.

Trying to get the root cause of this problem will be almost impossible given that
1 different valves have different clearances in the valve block
2 the valves wear through their life and the clearance changes
3 the valve surfaces lose their surface pits which normally hold oil in a stable film as they wear and become polished
4 different players use different oils with different viscosities
5 different players use varying types of oils with different additives
6 different players use varying amounts of oil some very low and some very large
7 different platers use different pressures and volumes of air as they play
8 different instruments have different resistances
8 the position of the nodes and antinodes changes as different pitches are played and this affects the pressure at the valve and this can lead to increased oil migration up or down the valve
10 changes in the pressure exerted by the player as the dynamics change during play changes the way the oil on the valves migrates during play
11 the temperature and air pressure change each day and this changes the behavior of the oil
12 the amount of condensation in the instrument varies according to the temperature of the instrument
13 the ability and efficiency of the player dramatically changes the internal pressures and volume of air

So many variables affect how the oil sits in the instrument and how it behaves that each variable would have to be tested independently for a meaningful result to be obtained.

They all compound together and we would have to test all combinations of variables.

To be very simplistic, the number of tests that would have to conducted to test all combinations and reach a conclusion could be as many as 12x11x10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3.

That adds up to 239,500,800 tests.

On the other hand we could simply chuck another felt in for a dollar, save a crapload of time, make some great music instead, and stop worrying about it.

I have faced this many times.

Felts can be washed with no ill effects.

Felt is after all saturated with water as part of the manufacturing process so how can water damage it.

One of the processes for making felt is even named wet felting. I see no issues with getting felt wet. Other processes in felt making use lots of steam.

There are many scare stories about wetting felt but I have washed felts many times and it appears now to be simply scare tactics.

Some people even claim that washing a car damages the paint.

My method of dealing with oily felts is this.

Remove the felt, press the felt between two pieces of absorbent material to remove most of the oil.

Then saturate the felt with soft soap or washing up liquid and massage it well in. This removes the oil.

Now saturate the felt in plenty of water to remove the soft soap.

Then when all the soft soap is removed by the water and the felt is clean, gently press the felt between layers of absorbent material like kitchen towel to dry it. You may have to do this several times to remove all the water.

Then refit the felt and it can air dry while in place, or leave it to air dry on a bench if it is fitted internally.

I have done this many times and it has no ill effects on the felt.

Badly compressed felt often regains its thickness by this means.

The felt may change thickness after this, so you may have to revisit the alignment although I have never had to myself.

Like all things in instruments this procedure must be carried out with care.

I dont wish to be petulant but clearly my opinion is not wanted so this will be my last post on this matter.

Well I reject your contention that I am naive. I have worked in business at the very highest level no naivete is not one of my failings.

You claim there are laws to protect the end consumer and that is correct in the west. Laws governing correct practice of manufacturers have been gained on the backs of a great many victimised customers.

In the far east and in China in particular there are no such laws. The Chinese government has been busy creating such laws in recent years following malpractice in Chinese industry.

There is an obligation in business to operate in a correct manner, however many businesses disregard customers best interests and are only brought under control by government legislation. This cannot be denied.

Western manufacturers are bound by western governance and legislation. Indian companies Chinese companies, Malaysian companies, Korean companies, Vietnamese companies, are not bound by USA codes of practice and legislation.

They operate under local laws existing in their locale.

I agreed with you and you claim that in doing so I derailed the thread.

You disagreed with me and then took issue with my supporting my own opinion in the thread in which it was questioned. Is this an attempt to shut down any opinion other than your own.

By all means disagree with me but I ask you to allow me to disagree with you.

Your expertise is music, my expertise is global manufacturing, global sales and business processes.

I have no issue with you stating your position I would ask the same of you.

I think it is misleading to say that Chinese and Indian manufacturers have their manufacturing processes under control.

Some manufacturers do have their processes under control, however many do not.

I have worked with a manufacturer in china who opened a factory with hopes of producing quality products at lower cost than in the west and therefore offering the very best, high quality products at low price.

Unfortunately after they built a factory and started producing product, a new Chinese startup copied their products and then undercut the original Chinese manufacturer selling substandard copies of those products and then they drove the good Chinese manufacturer out of business.

I would agree that they had their processes under control so you would be right, however they were driven out of business by a company who did not have their processes under control.

It is still the wild west out there.

It cannot be said that Chinese manufacturers are operating correctly when only a few are and many are not.

Having worked in manufacturing, I would suggest allowing an importer to force the manufacturer to begin making inferior products simply to win a contract makes that manufacturer a farce.

There must be standards in manufacturing or what is the point.

Would it be correct for an importer of Chinese cars to cut corners on things like suspension and brakes to achieve sales at low cost and the result is cars that kill their occupants.

We learned this in the west with the ford Pinto. Ford decided it was too expensive to make the Pinto safe when hit from the rear. So they just made the cheaper product.

A Chinese company who is willing to make instruments down to any price whatever that might be is not a company that should remain in business.

What response would Bach make to a music shop who demanded that Bach produce Strads for 200 dollars each because the customer only wants to pay 500 dollars for the instrument.

That is not how manufacturing works. The customer does not dictate the price.

As for taking a position that we should not discuss the junk available for sale to the public as viable trumpets simply because we in trumpetboards know better is not going to help anyone looking to buy an instrument.

I will quote the recent Bach Stradivarius trumpet offered by a Chinese manufacturer. The price was I believe 280 dollars. It was not an original Bach it was counterfeit. The materials were poor the intonation was bad.

It did however look great. Unfortunately many parents of would be musicians were taken in, and techs refused to work on these instruments.

I do not think it is wise to pretend that the junk does not exist, we need to be better than this, we need to be a shining light for truth and integrity.

If we do not tell visitors to the site where the traps are in buying instruments, we might unwittingly condemn them to falling into them.

I agree almost completely with ROWUKs post, one area I slightly disagree with and this is only a slight disagreement is the contention that instruments labeled "student" can be relied upon to be student instruments.

The reason for this belief is due to much experience of a variety of instruments and knowledge of the companies that made them and why they determined to call some instruments student others intermediate and yet others advanced or professional.

This was due more to price point determination and seeking to increase profits than any real assessment of quality.

Many decades ago these classifications of student intermediate and professional simply did not exist.

There were the highest quality instruments suitable for orchestral use, lower quality instruments suitable for dance and marching band use and cheap instruments suitable for beginners so those with almost no money could afford to try the hobby.

Olds for example who were known for producing exclusively high quality instruments seen in the industry as concert and professional standard took the business decision to manufacture cheap instruments intending to capture the very large collegiate and student market by offering professional quality instruments at prices students could afford.

On the other hand many manufacturers in India and in China, took the decision to market their products no matter how bad they were as professional instruments.

I am not saying that all Chinese or Indian instruments are bad, I have owned and gigged a cheap Chinese instrument and it was great.

I am saying that some manufacturers make rubbish and market it as professional quality.

In my opinion as an armchair expert there are many "student" instruments from the likes of Olds Buescher Reynolds Conn and many other traditional manufacturers in the USA and Europe, that comprehensively out perform the "professional" instruments of the worst manufacturers offering their instruments today.

I totally agree with ROWUK that an instrument correctly designed for a student is a great instrument for a student and meets their needs entirely.

However I contend that the water has been so muddied by unscrupulous manufacturers in the far east that nothing in an instruments description can be trusted.

So what is a student to do if they want a good instrument.

1 Ask your teacher what a good instrument to buy is for your standard of play.

2 Ask a qualified and experienced trumpet player which instrument to buy.

3 Ask a good tech which instrument to consider.

There is only one make that I have advised students to buy and that is Yamaha. The quality control and the level of investment that this company demonstrates means all of their lineup are great instruments and any player can progress to the highest level using only their products.

So I say beware of the labels "student" "intermediate" and "professional", I simply dont trust them.