Posts made by Dale Proctor

@Kehaulani said in German Band:

Looks like a lot of fun.
I wonder at what point Americans will acknowledge that there is a difference between Prussian music, Bohemian Music and Bavarian Music. Bavarian Music is not German Music. FWIW,

Well, it was a Bavarian band, then...

I ran across this old picture from the 1980s of a German band I played in from time to time. We were playing for members of the Von Braun rocket team, their families, and friends at a picnic on top of a mountain in Huntsville, Alabama. I still have the flugelhorn, an Olds L-12, and the suspenders...lol

@GeorgeB said in Hello! Welcome to TB, who are you?:

@Dale-Proctor
You are quite the distinguished looking gentleman, Dale.

Thanks, George. That movie was made almost 20 years ago, so I have a few more miles on me now.

@Dr-GO
You’re too late - I’ve already autographed at least 3 or 4 CDs...lol

@N1684T said in Hello! Welcome to TB, who are you?:

I found a copy of American Drummer Boy on Ebay. Love civil war stuff.....

I ran across this screen shot of me playing Eb cornet in the movie. That’s me on the end by the stair.

The old Conn “Precision” short shank cornet mouthpieces aren’t anything like modern short shank mouthpieces. They are basically an earlier version of Conn’s “Improved Precision” mouthpieces, and had a slightly different shank taper. Here’s a comparison of mouthpiece lengths. Left to right - newer Conn 4 Improved Precision mouthpiece, old Conn 4 Precision short shank, Wick 4B short shank.

@thirkieldh said in Curry Mouthpieces:

I cannot figure out their specs. I am used to the Bach nomenclature such as 3C, 5C, 7C, etc. When I tried to contact them, I got no response.

The ones I have are from his Standard Series, which use the Bach sizing numbers. Read over this...

@J-Jericho
In the past, I had both a 3DC. and a 3TC. for cornet and didn’t like either one - the DC was too bright and I had squirrley intonation with the TC. I also had a 3Z. trumpet piece for a while and it was just too shallow and bright.

The shape doesn’t bother me (I appreciate the small amount of extra mass), but I wish the size markings were a little larger. When you have 2 or 3 of them in the case and the lighting isn’t good, it’s hard to tell which is which without playing them. As for his cornet pieces, the 3BBC. Is really nice and mellow, but for cornet playing in a concert band setting, I like my old Bach 3 better. Maybe it’s similar to your Benge 3.

Is anyone here a Curry mouthpiece fan? I currently have 4 that I use, and sold 3 in the past that I didn’t care for. Left to right - 3B., 3C., 3M., and 3BBC.

@OldSchoolEuph
Well, when you knowingly torpedo a civilian passenger ship, you probably need to be seen in a negative light...

@OldSchoolEuph
Actually, he sailed to the U.S. on the Lusitania in September 1914, and the ship was sunk by a German U-boat 8 months later in May 1915. Here’s a copy of the passenger manifest.

Old photo of Vinzenz Schrottenbach, aka Vincent Bach.

@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.

@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.

Who’s seen one of these old-school valve alignment tools before? I bought it a few years ago, and it works, but a couple of the horns I aligned played better before messing with them, and I switched the pads back to how they were. Either it was because I was used to them that way, or they actually played better with a small amount of mis-alignment.

To me, any instrument without a serial # or a name on the bell is a TSO (trumpet shaped object). Of course, one having that identification on it doesn’t mean it isn’t a TSO, either.

Anyone ever seen one of these? I think they’ve been out of print for many years, but there’s some cool stuff in it. Basic instruction on playing the instruments, field trumpet (bugle) and drum parts for 80+ calls, and even a few marches with multiple bugle parts.

@Dr-GO said in In Tune. With what?:

@ROWUK said in In Tune. With what?:

This thread will show the "foolishness" of putting "slotting" high on the list of trumpet priorities. We need flexibility to play in tune.

There is a "bible" on intonation written by Chris Leuba - a former horn player with the Chicago Symphony. I am not sure if it is still in print, but it is certainly worth having.

https://www.hornguys.com/products/a-study-of-musical-intonation-by-christopher-leuba-pub-cherry

Maybe this is my chance to be more educated with a response but is "slotting" and playing in tune the same thing?

Slotting is the tendency of a horn to center on a certain frequency on every note, and it takes more effort to lip or bend notes on them. It’s nice to know where the horn tends to go on any given note, but can be harder to compensate if it doesn’t go where you initially need it to.

With any group, you tune to the tuning note, and then you listen as you play and play in tune with what’s happening (assuming the ensemble are all doing that). I learned the extreme example of that while playing 19th century literature with a group, all of us using 19th century brass instruments. It took a concerted group effort of knowing your instrument, lipping notes, and employing alternate fingerings to play pleasing in-tune music for the audience.