@Newell-Post said in Some Encouraging Voting News:
FWIW, I appear to have won my campaign for election to the city council of my small-ish Silicon Valley city.
Local politics - wow, that brings back memories. My congratulations now and condolences when it sinks in.
Hope you have a strong liver!
Wow. What amazing work. It may scare some people into thinking its not real. You wouldn't have seen that level of perfection originally. (just look at the serial number - that's typical Martin precision).
Better than new!
Ummm, anybody ever notice my avatar?
full disclosure though - I'm planning a second edition that will be about 20% larger, hopefully this spring.
@Dale-Proctor said in Books about Trumpets:
Yes, I have a rotary valve cornet, and there are return springs. Not on the valves themselves, but springs are involved in returning the valve to the straight through position. I was just responding to the bad joke Dr. Go was making a few posts ago.
Allen valves. Every time I see one of these (given how remarkably well some of these antiques still play) it really makes me wonder about valve alignments being mostly placebo. . . .
@Bertie said in Christmas Services:
I did a chamber music program for the patients in a hospital here in Munich (some Gershwin, Brahms with piano, and Milhaud, Ewazen with my trio violin, trumpet, piano). Sunday will be a Messiah Open Sing in a church... and that's it for this year
Munich. Nice!
If you ever get a chance to head SouthWest to a little town perched on a bluff above the Ammer River called Rottenbuch, what was referred to in English for us as the Church of the Nativity (Klosterkirche Mariä Geburt) at the end of a former monastery that now seems to serve as something of a municipal center, has the most amazing acoustics to play in thanks to all the rococo plaster work beneath the vaults. Getting up to the organ loft is a bit of a challenge though if you like to have your legs straight - they carved the stairs out of the stone base for the steeple/town-clock-tower at a time when people must have been very small (our tuba player had a rough time of it!) The service was in Latin when last I was there - incredible playing experience.
@Bob-Pixley said in King Liberty:
@Niner said in King Liberty:
The King Mini Liberty Trumpet was the most rare. Only a hundred were produced as rewards to various people ...probably dealers mostly. But..... apparently they worked like the real one...except for the sound. When this video starts off it sounds more like a clarinet.
I saw one of those on display in a music store in St. Louis years ago. I did get to hold it, but didn't get to play it. It's basically a not-so-good Bb piccolo trumpet. Hey, I know Jeff Stockham, too. He's a fantastic trumpet, cornet, keyed bugle, and french horn player.
Its only a few seconds, but 28 seconds into this video you can here Jeff playing that mini in a classical style - actually a half-way decent picc sound I thought.
Hope you guys can make it work. If I didn't already have 3, I would have jumped on this. One of the very, very few instruments of that vintage that still has mainstream uses today.
OK, I just added a basic content thread - company timelines. Lets see who adds to it. I only covered 4 makers - there's a lot more out there.
@Bob-Pixley
If it were any normal gig, you would probably have been frustrated - but Christmas carols is just too much fun, isnt it? And there is nothing better when the spotlight is on than knowing you have great equipment. If I were alone on a cornet in that setting, next to my Stratodyne, my next choice would be a Bach 184 I think. Glad you had a good time!
Sorry, I overlooked the second part of the questions.
My personal opinion is that the only advantage in the real thing, or a precise match for the average of the real thing, would be historical authenticity.
Benge improved on forming and tempering of bells still in that French profile, adding color and depth to the sound.
Schilke improved on the native intonation with his input to Benge and arguably his own B series - though they are not horns I consider in the same French style.
Autrey built on the work of those two refining the leadpipe tapers and at times even the bell to further optimize the overall bore progression and thus both intonation and tonal complexity/flexibility.
Give me a modern horn please! (at least if I'm going to be heard playing it)
As with all things Committee, a lot of this comes down to what one desires.
As far as playing, I prefer the original Handcraft, but I am in the minority - and also suspect I might like the new one best if I could afford one...
The heavier feel, if more than just psychology, cannot be the plating. That much silver would leave the horn dead. It is a little surprising it would be heavier than a Deluxe, given the difference in trim, but the first thing to check would be the wall thickness of the tubing. It is possible heavier stock was one of the things RMC used to cut costs (as backward as that sounds, but more rugged means fewer QC fails - plus would allow for commonization of stock with student builds)
Back when these were built, lacquer would certainly play different than raw brass, plating shouldn't have any effect (see the Schilke paper in the surviving loyalist material). At the end of the day, the silver plating looks great, and could only be critiqued as making the horn lighter, brighter and more responsive than it would have been with original lacquer - just as if left raw.
As a player or a display item for a collector, this horn seems excellent (just not representative for a historian)
I'm nudging this thread again in light of recent unfortunate events.
The thread regarding the merits of investing in grad school is exactly the sort of content that this site needs to be of value to a broader community. Unfortunately, it devolved into something regrettable. I would have liked to make some counter points to the excellent first opinion that had been offered there, but another had taken a view in the opposite direction from my own and proceeded in a manner that is certainly contrary to the intent of this thread here (well, unless looking to attract Springer fans).
Now it is locked, and thus an opportunity missed - unless, with the offending party no longer participating, perhaps it could be either unlocked or restarted ?????
@OldSchoolEuph said in BAC Plaza:
Kanstul DNA
Is there anything particular about this model that shows a Kanstul heritage? I assume you're seeing details either in the picture or description that I'm overlooking.
If we look at the description of their Paseo 'Z72' Model Trumpet, they leave not-so-veiled hints. Not sure why they couldn't use the trademark, I guess that was not included in the sale. Anyone know exactly what model they mean by "one of the more popular commercial models"?
https://www.coolisbac.com/paseo
The tooling used for this instrument came from a very respected American workshop in Anaheim, CA, and was one of the more popular Commercial Models produced among studio and session players.
I had missed that on the website. That was the first derivative (a fairly direct one) they worked on. I didn't see it had gone public too. Yes, the "Z" stands for a well known name, who's slightly altered version of a Bach 72 that horn uses. I would say it is a 1503, except that it is important to recognize BAC is making their own horns. Mark Kanstul sold the Benge annealing ovens before BAC came along, and with the criticality of working-annealing schedules in bell making (and that the schedules themselves were gone pre-sale when I had inquired), BAC has had to work out their own version and alter the design accordingly to mesh with the bell.
@Kehaulani said in Company Timelines (Besson, Diston-Keefer, Frank Holton, Vincent Bach):
Fascinating. Could you tell me why the pre-WWII French Bessons were legendary, how Benge and Schilke came into this mix, and what modern trumpet would be the closest to the Besson? Thanks.
This question is purely an opinion. Some may feel that the pre-war F.Bessons are nothing special, others connect with a mystique that dates back a century.
Around 1880, the Besson trumpet we think of as a Brevete, was the first valved trumpet that was practical. Prior to that time, and for most makers well after, “trumpets” came in a variety of keys, could be pitched with crooks like the inventionshorns they were, and had bores often made up of cornet parts. The Besson design captured the sound and feel of a natural trumpet – probably by being a compact (and half-wave) version thereof with the addition of a valve block. Until 1911, if you came into a serious orchestra, chances were that the conductor would not tolerate the sound of cornets and these half-breed trumpets. They would only tolerate the pure trumpet tone of natural trumpets, baroque slide trumpets (played at an angle with a 1.5 step slide on a plunger that pushed back past the face, not soprano sackbuts), vented natural trumpets like Haydn wrote for, or Besson chromatic trumpets.
Which would you choose to play?
Then in 1911 the Holton company introduced their New Holton Trumpet. By today’s standards the tone was thin, bright, and a bit harsh. But it was a trumpet tone. With the right mouthpiece, it could be a clear, crystal penetrating and semi-strident sound in keeping with that of a natural trumpet. By 1920, Holton moved on to the Revelation concept which proved more suited to swing clubs than concert halls, but Conn picked up with the 2B and the amazing 22B. This and the rise of Courtois, Couesnon, and ultimately Selmer in 1932 in France really bit into the market for Fontaine-Besson. Besson production tapered off from WWI to WWII as sales tapered even further (this is why we have the overlap of old and new designs in the serial numbers in the 90-99,000 range as parts and whole horns were stashed for later sale).
For American orchestral trumpeters, the scarcity that resulted from contraction at Besson in the 1930s – and which brought about the sale of the firm to SML – left serious players with aging instruments and no new ones in the market that had the pretentiousness of a “French Besson”.
That will bring us to question #2
Elden Benge was originally a cornetist, as his father had been a minor celebrity cornetist. He famously wrote a letter to HL Clarke asking about switching to trumpet to adapt to societal change which in his response to, the noted virtuoso equated “Jaz” with the closest thing to Hell and the Devil. Benge studied with Edward Llewellyn, principle trumpet in the Chicago Symphony, and ultimately succeeded him when Llewellyn’s teeth failed. Llewellyn was still acting as an orchestra manager and road man for Holton when, a few miles from an 8 year old Byron Autrey’s home in Texas in the early 30s, he slept in the passenger seat as his wife drove toward an oncoming truck with pipes on a rack overhead. The truck drifted into their lane and Mrs. Llewelyn attempted to pass on the wrong side. But as the truck drifted off the road, the driver awoke, overcorrected, and the two cars met in an offset frontal impact which sent pipes flying forward decapitating Llewellyn (story courtesy of Byron a few weeks before he passed).
At the same time as he became one of the world’s most visible trumpeters, Benge found himself with a Besson that was wearing out. Benge had a friend, nieghbor and fellow CSO trumpeter named Renold Schilke. Schilke had apprenticed at Holton in the mid 1920s and in 1927 studied advanced instrumental acoustics for a year in Belgium. Upon his return, he collaborated with his teacher on the Llewellyn model Holton, concepts from which he would apply in 1937 to the design of the Committee for Martin. Benge asked Schilke for help, and Schilke taught him the fundamentals of brass making in a garage workshop. Benge then dismantled his favorite Besson and used it as a template for making parts to repair others.
Before too long, Benge, probably with input from Schilke, Llewellyn, Holton designers and others, was making “improvements” to the basic Besson bell tapers and working/annealing cookbook (the “Resno-tempered” concept). It motivated his transition from modifying/resurrecting old semi-sacred at the time Bessons, to making better Bessons.
After serving in the Navy in WWII, Byron Autrey, who evidenced a natural feel for the scientific basis of tone production that Schilke preached as gospel, came to work with Benge as his first road man and technical collaborator. Perhaps Byron’s talent for bell tapers was learned from Benge and Schilke, but it was Byron who was the master of leadpipe design in perfected pairing with the bell taper (a personal passion of Schilke’s). Byron took Schilke’s ideas and was able, largely by innate feel, with some numbers thrown in for psychological comfort, to adapt them to tweaking Besson leadpipe tapers to achieve the ever moving target Benge had of a “Better Besson”.
When Benge died in 1960, it appeared that ongoing evolution would end, but Byron lived on, and took as his inheritance that passion for a better Besson (among other makes such as Bach, Reynolds, Martin, Edwards, Kanstul, …).
That brings us to question #3.
Irving Bush had been another collaborator with Elden Benge. When Benge died, he stepped in and took over QC for the company and was instrumental in its survival. He was the one who preserved the pieces found in Benge’s workshop from that first Besson so that Lou Duda, master maker and father of John Duda who carries on the Calicchio tradition toady, could reassemble it. Bush, of course, interacted with Schilke and Autrey as time went on, but the company itself was doomed by the market forces that consolidated almost all the great makers out of existence. As it spiraled out, Zig Kanstul, an apprentice of Foster Reynolds (an apprentice of assorted long lines of masters), Harper Reynolds, and Benge himself, briefly tried to salvage that heritage directly before bailing out and ultimately partnering with Elden’s son and heir Donald Benge (the same one famous for board games) to produce Benge/Besson heritage horns in 1980.
That venture inspired Kanstul to buy the former Benge plant with all the tooling still sitting there, and not only stencil those horns for “Burbank”, but sell them under the Kanstul name and ultimately make perfectly faithful Besson Brevete and MEHA replicas under contract to the owners of the Besson (ironically English Besson not French) name. Byron Autrey joined the effort, as was his style quietly but dominatingly, behind the scenes. Zig Kanstul relied on both the extensive research he and R. Dale Olsen had done together at Olds with vintage Besson bells and leadpipes as part of the “Olds Custom” project, and on Byron’s improved interpretations in the spirit of their mutual friend Benge. Byron adjusted the bell for one model, and the leadpipes for all, making them embody, yet improve on as Schilke always sought, the performance of the Besson originals they sounded exactly like.
When the end came at Kanstul in 2019, the Benge/Besson heritage was still strong. Just before Mark Kanstul threw in the towel, the firm had moved forward plans to once again reintroduce these models to a market still hungry for them. In the ensuing chaos, priceless assets like the Benge annealing ovens went for scrap prices on EBay. Eventually, the upstart BAC Musical Instruments, with its charismatic front man and founder backed by the business acumen and finances of the leadership of “Rent my Instrument” with which the firm had previously merged, and supported by the advice of John Duda, stepped in and bought what was left after those EBay sales and some transfers to a long time Kanstul employee.
To augment and complete the hodge-podge of tooling, documents, models and parts, BAC was put in contact with the estate of Byron Autrey. From that channel, they secured priceless tools, experiments, personally optimized Benge horns and other resources. The final crowning element came when they successfully secured rights to the Benge trademark.
The BAC Benge is a Benge, which is a Besson. It is the culmination of 140 years of developing the French Besson concept of trumpet sound – the original chromatic orchestral trumpet sound. The “Chicago” leadpipe option is a faithful recreation of an optimized Besson pipe in the Benge tradition. The “Burbank” pipe, is the final ultimate achievement of all of these masters working over nearly a century and a half up until shortly before Byron’s sudden death just last year. It is faithful to the French Besson concept, but improves upon the consistency, intonation, and flexibility far beyond what the originals offered a player. Of course, the more any technology can do for you, the more it can do to you, so the choice between Chicago and Burbank is one between more and less stable – or more and less constraining – depending on your desires/abilities as a player.
Obviously, I feel, based on the history and upon the testimony of those who have played them, that the answer to your third and I suspect primary question is the Benge Trumpet from BAC.
Although I was pretty active on TM, I haven't spent much time using this site. This has been firstly because of the non-functioning nature of much of its content using either IE under windows 10 or Safari on an old iPad, but also because of it only recently not tripping security filters various places.
Out of frustration with TH, and the heavy-handed "moderation" that obliterated incredibly valuable socio-cultural artifacts in the form of real time discussions of events such as the Kanstul into BAC saga because some moderator didn't like something someone said, I popped in here today to see what was new. Imagine my disappointment that one of the first threads I see is a notice that content has been deleted.
He who controls the press controls the truth. It is sad, but it is the truth in the adage that history is written by the victors.
People have opinions, and at times opinions can be biased, or even offensive. I also believe most people have the ability to recognize what should be ignored - especially if respected posters counter-post politely.
I take time and effort to post content that might be of use to others; to share and to make available resources for information within the industry and academia that I am very blessed to have (or is "fortunate" more PC to say?) available to those seeking answers online. When threads vanish, I am left wondering "why bother? ". If others, including all those smarter than me, start to feel the same, what does that imply for the future value of content here?
Yes, content that is truly defamatory cannot remain because of the liability that incurs, but why not remove that content only? Why not act against the offender rather than the offense when possible?
Censorship is transforming in an Orwellian manner more and more these days into a "defense" of free speech. Surely a community of musicians can find a better way.
The unequaled expert on all things Bach, Roy Hempley, passed away last week after a long illness. I'll post here what I added to the thread at TH:
The last conversation I had with Roy was one of our rare actual conversations. Those who know me, know I am an email and IM person, but when Roy responded just saying “it’s too hard to deal with the computer, just call me”, I knew things had gotten bad and, of course, switched to the phone.
When he invited me to join him at the Bach plant in late 2017 to look over all of the new investments Paulson was making with Tedd as our host, he was already struggling and the sense of urgency, as if it might be his last time at the plant he loved, told me what he would shortly after, that the situation was indeed not good.
Roy was an immense help to me with my research, website and book - and really to all of us. He was our conduit into Conn-Selmer and the now faceless Bach corporation that with Tedd’s retirement and Roy’s illness and now passing, will simply be less open to the community it depends upon. The debt Conn-Selmer owes to Roy for being their connection to the Bach community all these years is something that no company can possibly hope to repay.
I encourage everyone to read, make notes on, and maybe even save your own cached copy of all of the papers at vincentbachsworld.com. These papers are the history of Bach. If you want to understand Bach, these are the foundation on which to build. Roy’s engineering precision allowed him to develop an understanding of the technical differences that only Vince himself would have been able to match.
So long as Conn-Selmer continues to respond to requests for shop cards, Bach owners will keep benefiting from Roy’s dedication to the art and to Bach. Every shop card you have seen with a black background, that is thanks to Roy. It was Roy who spent the countless hours to scan 30,000 shop cards for Conn-Selmer. With his passing, I don’t know if I will ever buy another vintage Bach – I always went to Roy to find out how it was built before I bid. . . (he had his own copy of the data)
Roy was an engineer – but he was a musician behind that veneer. When the two came together, we all got a music historian with the technical mindset and discipline to both not accept anything as fact without data, and the experience and resources to then go get the data. Roy taught me the three key things every Bach aficionado, and every instrumental historian for that matter, needs to always remember:
I was working on trying to better quantify the significant break-points in Bach’s design with Roy’s help. It is far more difficult than you can imagine as there simply are not break points. Roy was cautious for that reason, but generously provided me with tremendous support even while fighting his illness. At a minimum I will have to follow through on my commitment to rewrite the Bach page on Wikipedia to more accurately reflect that approach rather than factory locations defining periods. (just have to get to it). There simply is no-one else who truly understands the mind of Vincent Bach the way Roy did, and for those of us in the field of instrumental history, his loss is immeasurable. Now we will have to figure it out for ourselves. Roy’s dedication of his experience, skills, considerable funds, and most of all so much time, is something I don’t think we will see matched again soon – and so far beyond what even any maker was ever willing to commit to support its loyal customers.
Roy’s only reward for dedicating his post-employment life to the legacy of Vincent Bach, and let’s make no mistake, he gave the majority of his retirement hours right up to his final days to that endeavor, was not in any recognition (sorely lacking) from Conn-Selmer, nor in any form of profit (he spent a fortune), nor even in more than passing recognition by fellow enthusiasts. Roy found his reward for his actions in his personal interactions with, often very young, new trumpet players, often with their first hand-me-down Bach, who found joy in better understanding their instrument, or in his help in discovering one that fit them even better. Roy manifested the exact opposite of the selfishness endemic in the American society he has just left.
Roy was a mentor, a colleague and a friend. I will miss him greatly.
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.
@Niner
Despite its early-90s appearance, trumpet-history.com is maintained. The virtual museum has grown by a number of interesting examples in the last few months including a lightweight 22B early, finally a decent picture of a King 3B, an Olds Military, a Holton Herriot, a Holton slide cornet from the 20s that I cannot find in catalogs, and a NY wrap early Mt.V 37 with a one of a kind Autrey pipe.
The piece on what is happening at the Bach plant from 2 years ago remains relevant as well, though who knows what will happen in days to come as the fake Bachs continue to damage the brand and now Tedd has retired too. Still, one of the better, and newer, reads on the site in my opinion.
No argument that the owner of the site has every right to do as he pleases, but if the goal is to create a place for exchange of ideas and sharing of information with those seeking it, it then becomes a challenge for the host to moderate in moderation. The owner of a site can use it like Getty used his newspapers, as a King-maker (or in that example, destroyer), if that is his goal. I have not had the impression that that was remotely the case here.
There is a difference between maintaining civility and suppression of ideas/information. I started this thread with an observation that was nothing more than. As I learned of the thread that triggered the particular notice, I came to understand the moderator's action. I intended this thread more as a conceptual discussion than a protest of any specific.
Why do geologists collect rocks, or paleontologists collect rocks with things in them? It is the only way to research, learn and grow in understanding of the subject.
Here is what I said about the topic on the back cover of A Timeline of Trumpets:
"... The story of these instruments and their makers has been obscured by apathy and accident, lost to fires, theft, and deliberate destruction - even through false histories developed by some makers as marketing hype.
Rediscovering their story then becomes an archaeological exercise, with EBay as a virtual dig site and the horns a fossil record. Sparse catalogs become Rosetta stones.
Trumpets have been a part of our culture since before there were humans. They have served as expressions of emotion, tools of the hunter-gatherer, tools of the warrior, and ultimately once again as a means of expressing that emotion from deep within the human soul that manifests as music. To look at how the trumpet has transformed in its role in human society is to look at how human society itself has transformed. And, as a material object once adapted from nature, but which took new forms as the successive technologies of metal-working, component sub-assembly fabrication, machining, high-force mechanical forming, and ultimately automation transformed the abilities of humans to make objects for their use, it is a microcosm of human technological and socio-economic evolution."
That's why I collect.
