@Kehaulani said in Caring for Silver Plate Horns:

@Dr-GO said in Caring for Silver Plate Horns:
I have noted this as well. I have kept my horns now mounted on a wall (slat board with supports) for 5 years and they do not tarnish near as often.

No tarnish but they're filled with cockroaches.

They're not as disconcerting as those scorpions...

@ROWUK said in Vernacular (of range):

Traditionally, octaves have ALWAYS started on C. The 4 foot/8 foot/16 foot registers all refer to concert C. A 32 foot organ pipe refers to a C.

If C is the start of an octave, everything else is clear once we decide what to call the C. Here is where tradition has left us with multiple options. C0 to C9 is very clear, but makes it difficult to brag to the uneducated.

For a trumpeter, it is common to refer to pedal C (2nd space bass clef), low C(one line below the treble clef), mid C (third space), high C(2 ledger lines above the treble clef) and double C (an octave above that).

The devils advocate would say that the typical trumpeters double C is only a high concert Bb...

To confuse the hell out of this: Tubas are sold as BB or CC tubas - double Bb or double C;-)

I always thought that organ ranks started with the long C pipe and got shorter from there (higher). So that system would then mean that "Low B" is in the middle of the staff, and "Pedal B" is right under "Low C" just below the staff. I dont think of a normally played note as being "Pedal", nor of notes below pedal C being "double pedal" tones. So for this system to work, and it does best in my opinion, unlike the organ, you would have to start at "____ C" and go down (adding length as the horn does, so respecting that the notes are effectively derivatives of that above).

While I certainly dont run in Rowuk's circle, pedal notes down to E below pedal C in Bb terms have been a normal, utilized, part of my playing range since I was 7 years old. I dont think discounting them is realistic.

@Kehaulani said in Vernacular (of range):

I'm not talking about how many syllables one uses. I'm talking about brevity in using one terminology that everyone understands, rather than working one's way around various terminologies.

And there we come full circle back to the problem demonstrated by abundant posts here and at TH - no one understands!

@Vulgano-Brother said in Vernacular (of range):

@Dr-GO, in contemporary German brass-lingo we called a double high C a "C5," (B4 concert pitch) and the pedal C a "C1."

International Standards (ISO) name the C below the treble staff and above the bass as "middle C." (That makes sense because it is in the middle between the two staves.) Middle C is C4. Pedal C is C3 and C in the staff a C4.

Played Bach and Handel with a couple other trumpet players on A piccolo trumpets and our first rehearsal was something by Handel, so the parts were notated in C. Took us a while to figure out that one of us was talking in sounding pitch, one in written pitch and one in A. Depending on who you asked, the same note could be a "D"," "C" or "F."

I have trouble looking at anything other than what I am hearing. I either use C parts or take extra time to fight the transposition (I have more trouble with Bb than any of the others I have had to work with) and memorize. That 1 step offset from what I am hearing just makes me crazy.

Yoda communicated just fine that way.

One can analyze the dynamics of history on many levels and many complex interactions, but such a minor distinction in grammatical form does not explain anything in that regard. The German language is perhaps viewed by some as a little more aggressive due to the frequent use of the imperative, but that is the naturally evolved compensation for that grammar and annuls any minuscule time-delay impact.

While not explaining the outcome on the battlefield, the German language, in addition to its precursors being absolutely critical to the emergence of the English language, plays a major role in the shaping of modern Europe as a geopolitical entity. Unlike many languages that derive from a single tribal dialect through conflict, conquest and assimilation, the German language is unique in that it created its society rather than the other way around. The post-Roman Germanic principalities, and there were a lot of them, largely reflected the diversity of the pre-Roman central European tribes. Religion and technology created the concept of a singular German people (far more than later psuedo-scholars would try to say Tacitus did) through Luther's translation of the Bible into a more prevalent lingual form, and the printing press facilitating the widespread availability of the Gutenberg Bible, giving peoples with very different colloquial and outright variants a common form. As late as the Franco-Prussian war, Prussian was still very different from what we know as German. Decades later it evolved into a form that took its name from Prussian script Sütterlin that only became extinct after the Allies gave Poland most of Prussia in exchange for the Russians taking much of traditional Poland.

Even today, if you put someone from Berlin in a room with someone from Munich, and they speak only colloquial forms, they have only a little more in common with each other than they do with someone from Amsterdam (exaggeration, but....)

The German language has shaped the Western world, in very positive ways. It has never encumbered or held back any society and based on history, appears to actually be what an evolutionary scientist would call a successful adaptation.

First, to the OP: so happy to hear your Mom is doing well. There are things that matter a ____ of a lot more than trumpet.

BUT: when things are going rough, sometimes it can be just what we need. When things are starting to feel busy, but normal, it can be just what we need. When things are starting to feel like a void, it can be just what we need.

There are multiple types of trumpet player (or instrumentalist, or musician for that matter). First those who work at it like any other career, obsessed with advancement, or at least security. Next, those that cannot tolerate anything other than perfection of themselves, and for whom playing becomes a nightmare of worry that "it wont be good enough". Then comes the fortunate majority (I believe) who recognize that our playing, however imperfect, can maybe bring joy to others, and certainly does to ourselves.

Most who reap the benefits of instrumental music in their lives are in that last category. We may go many years without it, but then discover what we have missed. I have had many years of constant playing, and quite a few where it was only maintaining my now 46 consecutive Christmas Eves that had me playing at all that year. I would not trade it for anything. Going and picking up a horn and playing just for me, that is reward in itself.

However much time off is in your history, it is not a liability, certainly not something to deny, it just is. Celebrate instead that music is again in your life, and when things get harder, remember all that simply accepting and enjoying the experience can bring to you in that moment.

@Dale-Proctor said in Vernacular (of range):

Well, I’d call the E and F at the bottom of the staff low E and F, since there are none lower on the trumpet (at least naturally). That would make the E and F at the top of the staff middle E and F. From there upward, the notes would be high F#, G, A, B, C, D, E, and F, with the doubles beginning with F# again. Maybe that’s arbitrary, but there’s a bit of logic to it.

When I was in good shape (as a low brass player, and in bass clef), while I could get notes a little higher and a little lower, I basically had a controlled 4 octave range bounded by 5 Fs. By your system, there would not be a single "double-" in my controlled range. So I would have high F, F, Low F, ---something----, and then pedal F. Seems like I am missing a label.

Every so often a thread comes up wherein someone mentions hitting, or missing, a given note. It is almost always followed by a post asking "which one exactly?".

In a community where a significant subset of the members determine some portion of their personal self-worth by what frequencies they can manage to squeak out without a fatal stroke or forearm tendon separation, there should be a common understanding of what "high E" for instance is.

One school of thought is that the staff determines all. If the note is below the staff, it is "low X". If above, then "high X". But very shortly above the staff we run out of guard rails. Likewise, are both Es and Fs in contact with the lines considered neither high nor low? And as if that duplication is not enough, we then have the issue of what is the note above high C? (where does double start without a graphical anchor?)

Another, more logical but less common approach is to take everything above C below the staff through C in the staff as simply the note name. That lower C down, until pedal C, is then "low X". From the D in the staff on up to our old friend (and the only term people seem to agree on) high C is "high X". Doubles begin above high C, triples above double C and so on. Much more logical, but not widely used.

So what is the answer? And why, if range is so important to so many, do we not have a universally understood means of communicating that which we are so proud of? Seems hard to comprehend.

I have a few Bachs, one of which is in my signature because it is my go-to whenever I need that standard Bach sound. The full list is:

2009/10 180SMLV72G with the 25 pipe

1988 TR-300 (when I was first trying to get a sound out of a trumpet, a good friend suggested I use this, his middle-school horn, instead of a 1919 Holton I had rebuilt from lamp parts using plumbing tools)

1970 Early Elkhart 25 (this horn is now at that same friend's home in Texas - hopefully this virus thing will pass and I can get both a badly needed vacation and a chance to play that 25 again)

1964 Mt. Vernon 180-37 (despite my supplying him several alternatives including a great AW Stage 470LT, my Dad is happiest playing this old, yet still all one could ask for Bach 37)

1963 Mt Vernon 43 (my baby)

1956 Byron Autrey's customized NY-wrap Mt. Vernon 37 (more open blow, looser slotting, sweet tone - a joy to play)

@Kehaulani said in New Player has entered the Game - Part 2:

@GeorgeB said in New Player has entered the Game - Part 2:
I practice at 5 am to 6 am mornings .

I thought 5 AM was when you were getting IN not when you're getting UP.

Some of us start work now when we used to go to sleep - "maturity" sucks!