Best posts made by Dale Proctor

It’s also a useful technique to use when you have to come in on a pp note, especially after a significant number of rest measures.

@GeorgeB said in What is this Conn? Should I purchase?:

@Dale-Proctor

Whatever model it is, to me it looks like a WW1 relic...

Here’s the nice one I recently sold. A 1929 model, sold it locally for $350. The buyer said he planned on offering me less, but after seeing It and playing it, he paid me the full price.

@bigdub said in Traits that make a great sight reader?:

@dale-proctor said in Traits that make a great sight reader?:

What we really need is an app that just plays the dang trumpet for us...

I know you don’t want that

Of course I was joking, but I don’t want to follow the bouncing ball on an iPad that turns the pages for me, either...

To me, cornets, trumpets, and flugelhorns of multiple keys are all in the same subset of brass instruments that are played with similar diameter mouthpieces. Tubas, trombones, baritones, tenor horns, French horns, etc, aren’t.

I agree - the Bach 1-1/2C lends itself to producing a much nicer overall sound than the Bach 3C. In my experience, the 1-1/2C isn’t significantly more demanding to play than the 3C, either. I was surprised to discover that when I bought the 1-1/2C. The cup doesn’t really feel any wider than the 3C, but is a bit deeper. Disclaimer...your mileage may vary...lol

Welcome to the forum! Glad you picked up the instrument again and joined us.

@Curlydoc said in What is this Conn? Should I purchase?:

Does the extra tuning slide lower the pitch, an by how much?

On the 22B, the tuning slide with the rotary valve places the horn in the key of A when the valve is turned one way, and in Bb when turned the other way.

The Marine Band, “The Presidents Own”, is basically a professional band with no boot camp or other military service required. I believe if a person auditions and makes it, there’s just some military etiquette and uniform instruction required. No PT, firearm training, etc. All the other service bands require the members to be regular military, whose primary job is to play in the band.

@matt-ward

Check out this site. You may want to contact them for some insight on your cornet and register it on the site so there’s a historical record of it. They registered my 1890 F. Besson and gave me some good info on it. They were pretty slow to respond, though.

http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/am/gdnj.html

Here’s a screen shot of the page containing instruments from that serial number era.

And another thread jumps the shark...

Best of luck for your return to trumpet playing. You’ve got the tone, so the rest should follow with a bit of work.

@Kehaulani
That’s pretty tempting, but I’ll pass for now...lol

I played in church last Sunday (socially distanced quintet), and my wife and I just got our 2nd Covid shots this morning. Already scheduled to play in a brass choir on Easter and have a probable July 4th gig in the works. Playing opportunities seem to be picking up a bit, and my worries about catching or spreading it are fading fast.

Here’s a link to more 19th century Besson history and serial numbers. Your cornet may be a few years older than you think. This is excellent reference material.

http://www.pocketcornets.com/English_Besson.pdf

@Kehaulani
If I remember correctly (it’s been a year or two since I did it), I noticed more of a difference in response than anything else. I left it that way for a few weeks and never warmed up to the change. I did the alignment on 4 or 5 instruments - one was perfect the way it was so I didn’t change anything, one or two seemed to play better, and one or two played worse to me.

Trumpet capos are literally a figment of the imagination...lol.

1960 6B Victor, original lacquer. Great instrument, just like the one I had in high school. Basically a Connstellation without the trigger and nickel plated bell.

I’m trying to break the pinky ring habit as we speak, and also paying attention to my posture and breath support while playing. As I’m getting older, I need to stop making things harder than they need to be.

@matt-ward

Yes, they fit the valves to a specific horn, so they stamped them with matching numbers to keep them together during the manufacturing process. They will always start with a 1, or a +3 number - 1,4,7,10,13,16,19,22,...etc. How high they go depended on the number of like instruments in the production run. The next production run would start at 1 again.

@tmd
Yeah, my homegrown valve alignments weren’t PVA, in the sense that I didn’t use rubber “felts”. I just used an assortment of regular felts to do mine. I wasn’t worried about any long term felt compression - I could tell right away if I liked the result, and kept the old felts in the correct order in case I needed to undo the new alignment.