Best posts made by ROWUK

The adjustable ring is yet another reason why student instruments do not respond as well as more "professional" ones. Play a series of octave slurs at medium loudness (especially second line G to top of stave) and you will notice a HUGE difference with and without the adjustable ring.
I have NEVER had a student that needed a ring in a different position. In the beginning the pinky goes in the ring and during puberty (when the third slide becomes more important) the ring finger. If the third slide is well maintained, both fingers work well enough!
While we are at it, we teachers have to insure that the valves are not held with a "grip of death", rather just squeezing enough for stability. This also improves response dramatically!

Username, if you live in Germany, get in contact with me. I live near Frankfurt/Main and we could go through all of the motions BEFORE you decide in which direction to go. It makes no sense to "import" a trumpet if you are just getting started. Germany has enough instruments available with no customs issues.

@djeffers78 you will have to be a bit more specific about what you do not understand. There is no debate about Covid being transmitted by contact of droplets and aerosols. There are enough professional studies performed where actual orchestral players and their instruments were tested. A lot of these things have made a careful opening of concert venues possible in Germany.

If for no other reason than the constant reminder that a virus NEVER sleeps makes this bell cover interesting. The study presented in the link is compelling and similar to one conducted with the Bamberg Symphonic a couple of weeks ago.

We should not forget that it is not Covid that causes lockdowns. It is the Covidiots that think that they are immune and just end up getting thousands infected. America is doing an especially poor job of containing because of the "perversion of individual rights". Fact is, if everyone simply practices good hygiene, distancing and wears a mask whenever possible, we could be well on our way to recovery - which has struck the music industry in a devastating way. Everyone has access to facts. The first wave, how various countries handled it - and which countries simply are failing and why.

Selfish attitude is not "propaganda". Infections just do not happen - they are caused. Non-cooperative people are a danger to society in general!

@curlydoc Wyntons classical recordings are relatively old. I remember the Hummel on a Schilke Eb and the Picc stuff also on a Schilke.
I think that if he were to make a current recording, he probably would get a made to purpose horn from Dave Monette.

@administrator said in Does a large bore horn take more air?:

Well, at some point it does (think tuba). However, I doubt the difference between .438 and .444 is a matter of air volume. Seems to me that the whole horn has an effect, and changing the bore size will contribute to that effect. To some, it may seem like it takes "more air," but this is often an issue of perception and not reality.

The tuba needs more air because it is a far less efficient system which starts with the large mouthpiece throat and less efficient embouchure due to the low frequencies.

In theory, the trumpets are already full of air. We only need air to sustain the buzz and modulate it for sound quality and volume. Some horns are more efficient than others (speak more quickly and give the player more feedback). Those are not functions of valve block size (where the bore is measured). Artisans can pack any sonic features into a reasonably sized bore instrument.

Brass instruments adhere to standard characteristics of physical laws. If we look at the series of partials (the notes that we can play without changing the valve pressed), they each represent a resonance mathematically related to the fundamental. Pedal C is the fundemental, low C at double the frequency, 2nd line G at 3x the fundamental frequency, 3rd space c at 4 times the fundamental...

In addition, based on the construction of the horn we have a "quality" of resonance (in physics called "Q") that determines how easy or hard it is to bend the note. If the Q is high, we have to exert a lot of energy to bend a note. If the Q is low, our chops have to provide the stability. Anyone that has been forced to use alternate fingerings on a Bach C trumpet, has firsthand experience about the Q of the 4th space E, Eb and 4th line D being too strong. The horn "wants" to play those notes very flat. Many trumpets also have a top of the staff G too high in pitch and a high C too low. That forces us to compensate with body tension - something that hurts our overall playing and sound.

Slotting is NOT the Q, at least not directly. Because we need to hear ourselves to tune, there is a perceived pitch and resonance that we call "slotting". The artisan building the trumpet must optimize the "targets" that we play, allowing moderate bending of pitch but a sense of security at the same time.

The resonance pattern of the trumpet also determines its tone in the various registers. Our brain reacts to a thinner sound of equal pitch with the sense that it actually is going sharp - we compensate by forcing the pitch lower - even although it is wrong. The opposite happens when the sound gets thicker - we force the pitch up.

My whole point is that "slotting" as a concept is flawed. We have to break down what affects pitch, tone and security. Players that "brag" about the "slotting" of their horns, generally play out of tune...

Now to confuse the rest, the "Q" of a trumpet is based more or less on bell flare shape (slotting is additionally affected by the mouthpiece, bracing and thickness/hardness of the bell). Standard horns are most efficient between low C and 2nd ledger line C above the staff. Above and below that, the Q goes down very quickly. Because Q is resonance, we have to work harder above the staff because the trumpet helps us less. A larger bell like on the higher Monette models, extends efficiency to lower notes. There is a cost of business however...

Our central nervous system is a very fickle thing. It can remember things that we did decades before and can "store" "rewards" for things that we have done. There are many schools of thought on how to deal with these hard wired reactions. Some recommend seeing a shrink, others start yoga class or Alexander Technique lessons. Others (like myself) find a Feldenkrais or a Cranio Sacral therapist. This method actually deals with helping us get a new inner organisation. The therapy is very gentle and everyone that I know that has taken it seriously has reaped large benefits.

In your case, you did the right thing first: checked for physical damage. Now I would recommend going to https://www.davemonette.com (no, I am not trying to sell a mouthpiece or trumpet - and he will not either). Click around the site and see if anything rings. If yes, then click on "Contact" and write a short description of your situation. Then either call or wait for an answer. You can also google Moshe Feldenkrais if you want to know more about some of the background

I am convinced that this is a very good way to get over this. There are no painful massages or physical rehab punishment. Normally, we notice "improvement" right away but many times, we need more time to get out heads around what is going on. Dave is very in tune with brass players. He is very to the point about the way things work in his world. You can write if you have more questions, I will be on the road this week on a business trip so I will not be monitoring 24/7.

We should never forget Maurice Andrés Hora Legato!

@Bay-Area-Brass: Here are 260 registered brass players with Yamaha - just in the US. Kind of a "Whos who". What I meant by "smoked": Yamaha has become THE first choice for the symphony player (just look at the sections in US symphony orchestras) and the list of commercial players is certainly not small. The amount of university professors and teachers with Yamaha support is very large. Schilke has made no inroads to the classical player, in spite of the heavy model.

As far as innovation goes, the Xeno redefined what a trumpet could be. Less core than a Bach, but a wonderful brilliance and above all superior intonation and blow.

In any case, Yamaha is defining what artist support means and they certainly are setting the standards very high.

@masterwannabe Used trumpets are a buyers market - with very few exceptions. I would have no personal interest at all for me or my students. It would make a nice lamp - that is what I will do with my Monette Raja C when I retire from trumpet playing.

@georgeb I am playing professionally on full upper and lower dentures. It IS possible, but it is different and will require making new habits concerning tongue position, articulation and fine motor embouchure activity.
I got my final implants/dentures last July (2022) and by September(2022) was back to performing. I invested at least 2 hours per day to retrain and still do today.

Should be either notated a 4th higher or, if in concert pitch a 7th higher. The slurs are not original. No valves is the way I like to hear it, and play it. There are 3 notes that are challenging on the picc...

@Kehaulani said in Kanstul -- Any News?:

I'm wondering (jazz-wise), that, if you want a Committee sound (whatever that is), that all you need is a horn in the ballfield, the right mouthpiece and the right attitude and you can have it. I wonder if the sound-image in one's head is not given enough credit.

Absolutely! I think that we have a luxury issue here. How can we separate “being able to” and “having to”. If we have a Committee, how much of the sound is real and how much is in our imagination? Aren’t dreams sometimes self-serving? I think that on trumpet websites our voice is almost neglected compared to hardware. We really want to believe that a Committee is 50%+ of Miles or Tills “Voice”. I consider that insulting. Just think of all the notes that we did not get because of the things that a Committee did not do.

@oldschooleuph
And as fine of a horn as the Bach 180 Stradivarius is/was (when yours found you), the "build quality" in the 60s/70s/80s was worse than a student Ambassador or certainly a Schilke. Lacquer and silver plate usually developed blemishes within 3 years. For heavy players, the valves were worth refurbishing every 5 or 6 years to get compression back. Precision valve alignments had very noticable effects (sometimes even negative). Perhaps the valve wear could have been minimized with synthetic lubricants - or cleaning more often and repeated application of "Al Cass" per day. Standard for me was oiling when the horn complained or after the weekly bath.

Although there were hundreds to thousands of possibilities, Most everyone that I knew went to a store to pick one out of stock. I know of one single trumpeter that actually ordered a customized horn directly from Bach. In my opinion even today, Bach=play before you pay.

@barliman2001 I have been there and after 4 years, am almost back to where I was before. In my case, an accident knocked the 4 front jaw teeth loose beyond repair. In addition, that started a chain reaction that ultimately resulted in me losing all of my teeth. There seems to be bacteria in the mouth just waiting for trauma.
Dentures were the first step and I learned all about dental cremes and other methods to "glue" them in. I learned that a cup of hot coffee dissolved those dental adhesives, so my diet changed during that time too. As the dentures were pretty much the same as the teeth preceding them, my playing was stable. After the gums all healed (6 months), implants were the solution. After that, the geometry of the mouth changed only by microns, but it still was a very dramatic change and it took a year to get back on track. Fortunately, that was during the Covid pandemic so I did not disappoint any of the people that book me.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Here we go again - uncontrolled empirical evidence called a "solution".

I have no personal grief with any embouchure method. I do have trouble with players that attain upper register without the common sense required to use it.

One thing that I would like to offer here:

If there is any truly killer method for developing the stratospheric register: WHERE ARE ALL OF THE KILLER LEAD PLAYERS USING IT?

Think about this for a minute. Any of the popular methods have hundreds - if not thousands of followers, but we still do not have hundreds of killer lead players. Why might that be? I have thought for at least 40 years about this and here is what I came up with:

1. not enough common sense
2. maybe physiology IS too individual to allow any system to have advantages
3. maybe the sound concept needed is not part of the method - a lead sound is a lot different than a 2nd Brandenburg, Richter, Michael Haydn sound - although the notes are the same
4. maybe all methods are very incomplete
5. maybe musicality and context must come first
6. maybe success is all natural talent (upstream/body use/teeth formation) and luck to find a method that does not muck up the talent

My own teaching searches for the goals of the player. If one of my students wants to be a lead player, then I am the wrong person to bring them there. I can give them enough basics and range, but then they need a real lead player for attitude and context. I do not preach any embouchure method dogmatically and in my over 50 year career, I know of more players worse off than before after attempting to "change their embouchures". The most success has been through evolution, not revolution. I avoid teachers preaching revolution.

@Dr-GO said in Does a large bore horn take more air?:

@ROWUK said in Does a large bore horn take more air?:

Simply, NO. it is not the bore that needs air. It is the resistance and that has nothing to do with the bore.

Thanks Rowuk. I've been trying to convince others on this thread but they all seem to be reluctant to appreciate the physics of a propagating sound wave through various materials. I guess my having a PhD in quantum chemistry doesn't qualify me, but your understanding of Trumpet physics truly blends with my training in wave forms.

The simple observation that if it was air transmission dependent, we would not be hearing the sound until seconds after a note was played. I hope people reflect on these concepts as I do feel this understanding can enhance the performance we get from our horns.

I have experimented with a headphone speaker glued to a mouthpiece. The trumpet needs no air flow. Only the players lips need enough air to get them to open and close by overcoming lip tension. The smart players learn to reduce tension, that reduces pressure and the amount of air flowing.

To be honest, I think that the air discussion has more to do with mine is bigger than yours than with serious intelligent practice. If a trumpet needs more air, the phrases that we play become shorter.

@oldschooleuph Even at the end of Mt. Vernon, the horns simply did not have the build quality of the "competition". That does not necessarily have anything to do with playing "well". Even a "bad" Bach had that magic core and adjusting to the playing characteristics was just something that we did back then.

The perception of the Mt. Vernons today is considerably different although the lacquer and valve issues are the two things normally necessary when refurbishing. Either the Bach lacquer was not so good or the horns were not prepped properly.

There is a swiss artisan Rene Spada that disassembles Bachs and rebuilds them with swiss precision. In my view, they are what Bach should have been all along. The Spada Bachs are simply that much better using only Bach parts. Even if I had a Mt. Vernon, I would have it disassembled, cleaned and put back together with Spadas precision and attitude. There are other artisans. I use one Rainer Jordan who has his shop close to Frankfurt.

I have had 3 Bach trumpets. A 180 B172* (new picked at Giardinellis in New York but rebuilt by Spada), a 180 B25 and a C229H (also bought from Giardinellis). I still have the 229 although in the mean time, it has been completely disassembled and rebuilt without tension as well as getting a tuning bell and a new leadpipe.

https://www.bacmusicshop.com/collection/?sort=featured

In the shop there are some horns with prices.

This whole thread is just like every other one where somebody thinks that they are on to something and are completely blinded to reality. The long repetitive posts are a sure giveaway.

I posted this once before - if there was ANY killer system, where are all of the killer players using it? All of the blah, blah about teeth, lips may work for a "few" but a disciple is usually the WORST person to have. They simply lack the holistic view of the world as it is.

The biggest joke is the so called opposition to the method. Just because we do not believe "Sound Advice" does not mean that we discredit Stevens or Costello. I generally oppose zealots of any color. Just let him have his rant on this thread. I really see nothing to discuss.