Best posts made by Bob Pixley

This past Saturday evening, I played the Christmas carol concert I mentioned in an earlier post. Our group had a couple trombones, a couple baritones, a couple clarinets, a couple saxes, a bassoon, an oboe, a tuba, and exactly one cornet - me. We played rapid-fire (maybe 15 seconds between songs) Christmas carols for 30 minutes straight, took a 30 minute break, and did it again. I was a little worried about making it through the whole thing with nearly constant playing and no one else playing the part, but things went well. I played my Bach 184 cornet with a Connstellation 5C-W mouthpiece, the largest Connstellation mouthpiece made. Man, that mouthpiece really suits me and the Bach - it has a beautiful cornet tone with great intonation and endurance. I was pleased.

Installing the mouthpiece receiver on a Getzen Super Deluxe...lol

Practice time!

1890 F. Besson London A/Bb/C cornet still life photo, yesterday in my living room. The Bb configuration is shown, along with a couple pages of “Bride of the Waves” cornet solo.

@BigDub said in How about a "Random Meaningless Image...let's see them string"?:

Pure class...

I'm sad to hear that. He was also on a TV show named "Run Buddy Run" and sang some of the old "Schoolhouse Rock" commercials.

I'd give a 10.5C a try. It's not as small as the number might lead you to believe, and in my opinion, is a much better mouthpiece than the 7C. Nice rim, plenty deep enough, and inexpensive (especially if you buy a used one).

@JorgePD said in Researching old instruments:

Horn-U-Copia has a listing for a Knickerbocker Trumpet and describes it as a "Conn Stencil." From what I can see the engraving is different but otherwise they look like the same horn.

https://www.horn-u-copia.net/show.php?selby=+where+instrument%3D"Trumpet"+and+maker%3D"Knickerbocker"

I used to have a Crusader trumpet that looked almost exactly like the one in the original post, except for the valve buttons and caps. I believe it was a Conn stencil, but didn't have the knurled buttons and caps.

Very nice Conn 22B New York Symphony trumpet, made in 1929. The silver plating, both satin and polished, is in excellent condition, practically no dings in the horn. The A loop in the rotary tuning slide is dented, though, and the gold wash inside the bell flare is faded.

All the original accessories are there, including the small screwdriver to adjust the valve spring tension. Valves are in great shape, all slides, caps, etc. are free. The A stop rod and screw are missing. Case is in nice shape, too, but the handle is worn.

There aren't too many of these around in original nice condition this complete. I'm asking $375 plus $40 shipping/insurance to the lower 48 states. PayPal only, no international sales.

After a long layoff, I played with a local community band for a few years to get my chops back in a low-stress situation. Home practice is a great thing, but you can't measure your progress very well without playing in a group of some sort, preferably populated by better players than you are. It was great fun.

Conn short cornets, left to right - 1962 9A Victor, 1969 76A Connquest, 1962 5A Victor (custom).

I wear an old Bulova Aerojet self-winding watch.

Here we go...

Trying to turn a crappy horn into a good one is a waste of time and money. Usually, the higher pitched the trumpet, the worse the cheap ones are.