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.
@rowuk said in $800 Box of Mouthpieces!:
We are creatures of habit and I firmly believe that THIS is the #1 reason for mouthpiece safaris not working.
I believe that we need MONTHS to determine if a mouthpiece is good for us. The process is called acclimation. We must practice, adapt and perform to cover our use cases.My personal practice is, and has always been to cold turkey switch and stick with the "new" for at least 2 months - no switching back to the original. After that two - three months, I retry the original and note the differences. My last switch was in 1996.
I can generally tell within a day or two (sometimes much sooner) if I don’t like a mouthpiece, but yes, it takes quite a bit of playing one in different situations to tell if I REALLY like one. I’ve played a 3C on trumpet since the early 1980s, but I did switch from a Bach 3C to a Curry 3C. about 6 years ago, and haven’t looked back. It was familiar to me, so the transition was easy, and it was so much better! I generally play a Curry 3BBC. on cornet, too. I accumulated all those cornet mouthpieces over the years partly due to curiosity, and partly due to keeping some of the mouthpieces that came with horns I bought and sold.
A trumpet playing friend of mine recently decided to dig out his old Conn 76A Connquest cornet and play it on cornet parts in the church orchestra, because I’ve been leading by example. 
I offered to let him try out a bunch of my seldom-used cornet mouthpieces to get an idea of what might best work for him on his cornet. He kept them a couple weeks and returned them to me after rehearsal last night.
In the box were eight Bach pieces (1C, 1-1/2C, 3, 3C, 6, 6BM, 7C, 10-1/2C), two Connstellation pieces (5C-W, 7C-W), a Conn 4, since that’s what his cornet originally came with, and a Wick 4B. I told him to be careful with that box of mouthpieces, because the replacement value was probably close to $800…
I didn’t include my Curry 3BBC., Curry 3C., and Wick 4, because those are what I’m currently playing. Out of all those, he said he preferred the sound and ease of play combination the Bach 6BM provided, since he plays trumpet on a Bach 5C. Unfortunately, I don’t own any Bach 5 size mouthpieces for him to try, because I never liked them.
Nice! I played that with a couple other trumpet players at an outdoor community concert band concert about 40 years ago. The other guys weren’t really good double-tonguers, so I played the solo version while they played the 2nd and 3rd trio parts.
@kehaulani said in Trumpet playing Christmas marathon is over!:
Is that a 38-B?
It’s a 1960 6B Victor. Same architecture as the Connstellation with the wide wrap and large bell flare, but less the slide stops, trigger, and some of the nickel plating.
I just finished playing a 3-hour dress rehearsal, five 2-hour concerts, two 1-hour concerts, and a church service over the past 5 days. 1st part on everything except for 2nd part on Rutter’s Gloria. That, and 10 to 15 other pieces (many of them pretty demanding) every concert. Man , what a blow…I began to worry if I’d make it through the whole thing since I basically took 2020 off, didn’t play much in 2021, and have been trying to get back into shape this year. Rutter Gloria 10 times in 5 days…lol
So, what have all of you been playing/rehearsing for the holidays?
I’m a moderator on a couple Facebook pages, and the first back and forth name calling I see gets the comment(s) deleted, and if the originator of the post is the instigator, the entire post is deleted. They are “PG” sites, and extremely foul language and/or images also gets a comment (or entire post) deleted.
@tjveloce
Yes, that finger ring on the 1st valve slide is something a previous owner installed. Since the slide tubing is arranged for a saddle, It probably had a saddle on it originally. The really old Strads generally had no intonation aid on the 1st valve slide.
An “extended” 3rd valve slide is actually just a longer stop rod to allow the slide to be extended farther to play the low F that’s found in a few pieces of music. There’s a set screw in the bottom of the post that holds the rod, so it’s easy to switch a stock one with a longer one. Yours looks to be the stock length, though.
@j-jericho said in Elkhart Bach 37:
Just a quick couple of additional observations: The 3rd slide threaded rod has been shortened, and the tuning slide appears to be a silver-plated round slide, rather than the usual D-shaped piece.
The 3rd valve slide is extended, so I think the rod is the normal length. I beat you to the draw with the rounded tuning slide comment…lol
The bottom valve caps are Bach “heavy” caps, and the tuning slide is an accessory rounded one. The stock tuning slides are more of a “D” shape. Here’s my mid-1970s model for comparison.
The reason older cornets sell for less than their trumpet counterparts is that significantly more people play trumpets than cornets. Lower demand equals lower prices. The people who really want a cornet for performance use are generally in the market for a modern one with intonation aids and a richer tone than many of the older ones from the mid 20th century. Those older cornets are primarily American wrap instruments and are mainly bought by hobbyists and casual players who aren’t willing to spend a lot for an instrument.
Of course, there are exceptions to my diatribe, and a good example is the Conn 9A cornet from 1962 that I own that’s an exceptional player. If a person is educated on which older cornets are the really good ones and is diligent, there are models out there that are nice deals for those looking for a relatively inexpensive cornet that plays without compromise.
@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.
Many years ago, my experience with stretching valve springs was that a large percentage of the time, they compressed a bit crooked afterward and made noise scraping the inside of the valve casing. Lesson learned, and I’ve not stretched any more springs. A short spring is inherently stiffer than a longer spring, as long as all the spring’s other basic characteristics are the same, so stretching one and then preloading it by compressing it to fit it back onto the valve does pretty much nothing to make it stiffer.
The middle trumpet has a very distinctive brace
Is that perhaps an early Besson
It’s an early 1970s King Tempo trumpet.
How about this one! My two brothers and I performed “Ring of Fire” at my brother’s (the one playing trumpet) daughter’s wedding reception in Tennessee a few years ago. It was a surprise to everyone there, as we were the only 3 who knew about it. While the wives were at a luncheon, we put it together in one of our hotel rooms about 4 hours before the wedding…lol
Frederick Fennell had just told us a funny joke right before we were to play at a band festival in Kentucky. That’s me on the far right.
Since we’re posting old photos, here’s one from early on in the Civil War band I played in for more than 20 years.
As for the picture, I must say, Dale, you look like a very distinguished gentleman indeed.
George
I was trying to appear so…lol. That was about 40 years ago, but I’m still playing!
