Posts made by ROWUK

@Dr-GO said in Who did it better??:

@Kehaulani said in Who did it better??:

Yeah, but Chicago doesn't have the brunette.

BTW, mellow? Diane Kral is mellow.

I'll take Diane Kral over the brunette any day (or night).

No doubt in my mind that Ksenia is the real thing. I checked out her solo videos too. I really enjoyed every video with her. She, like everyone else in the band just seems to have such a great time. I think that I would have a nicer time with her than Ms. Krall.

For me, Diana Krall is associated with demo music at audio shows. Nice safe productions that sell to the easy listening crowd too.

Very, very polished. Technically and musically more than what I was used to hearing from the original band. BUT and this is a VERY big but: the original band created the venue, charts, market. Let us see how much original new material will be composed...

I don't think that Lee Loughnane could have played these trumpet parts. I have a slight preference for Peter Ceteras voice and Terry Kaths guitar.

I was not aware of this band - thanks for the link!

In my world there is no "best" or even "beginners" mouthpiece. The Bach 7C is popular because it is not too big, not too little, it has a slightly sharper inner rim which in my opinion works well with chops that simply don't get enough practice. The critical part for beginners is NOT buying a bigger or smaller mouthpiece, rather getting them lessons with someone who cares enough to lead them to superior body and breath use. The faster that they let their playing ride on that flow of air, the faster they will have little dependency on mouthpiece to fill the job (sound great, play in tune, blend in school band).

Anything smaller than a 7C or bigger than a 3C, I consider to be a specialty mouthpiece and one should know themselves why they chose them. I only played for a year on a 7C. Then it was clear that I was on track for classical playing. I was playing cornet at the time and switched to a 1C with only a week or two of acclimation. That is only proof that my trumpet teacher did his job (and that I practiced a little more than required)!

New Years Eve: Spectacular baroque D- Major (actually in historic pitch so it is glorious Db major)

New Years (and the rest of January): New Years concerts with operetta works from Strauss father and Son, Lehár, Bizet, Liszt, Kálmán, Stoltz plus musicals.

@ButchA said in Not really a "mouthpiece safari" but the need for a "saving grace" type of mouthpiece...:

In review:
Bach 10¾CW - arguably the easiest MP to play both low and high without any straining.
Bach 3C - a fantastic MP with a full sound, but after the high A, I start straining.
Curry 3M. - a really amazing, custom, MP that is (according to Mark Curry) in between a 3C and a 3D. I went right up to the high C with minimal straining.

In my world, no direct mouthpiece comparison has any meaning at all. We need to acclimate and that takes time. I have played mouthpieces (like the 14A4A) that were 15 minutes of bliss then caved because my lips bottomed out. I certainly could have solved that problem, but at what cost? Only a couple of months can tell!

We are the sum of what we repeatedly do. Regular and intelligent practice helps us create reliable playing targets. Mouthpiece searches - especially for those without well trained embouchures are a crap shoot!

I recommend picking ONE MOUTHPIECE and sticking with it for a couple of months. At that time, if you have been taking notes, you should be able to come up with the next step (stick with the mouthpiece or change).

As far as your comparison, it sounds like it was done in a small room. When trying to fill up larger playing venues, small mouthpieces can be a lot of work.

Please do not confuse what works for strong players with recommendations for weaker players.

@Kehaulani said in Not really a "mouthpiece safari" but the need for a "saving grace" type of mouthpiece...:

rowuk tell me if I'm off track. I would just add these observations.

Shallower cups (not diameters), can emphasise the upper partials and de-emphasise the lower ones, aiding the sound to being more easily heard if playing lead or in an electric combo. This is an acoustic phenomenon, not a range building one.

Actually the cup is an acoustic filter between the lips and the resonance of the instrument. A deep cup filters the upper harmonics creating a darker sound. That being said, a shallow cup has more "compression" creating a "stiffer" cushion against our lips. This in fact could aid properly trained chops in the upper register. The idea is equilibrium - our blow and the air cushion of the cup create a fluid instance where the lips can freely open and close. IF our embouchure is not developed enough, we apply armstrong and all bets are off about attaining equilibrium. You see, when our blow is stronger than the backpressure of the cup air cushion, our lips protrude more deeply in the cup, changing the geometry of the embouchure and possibly even bottoming out. With slighly deeper "standard" mouthpieces, this danger hardly exists.

Deep cups, for many, are just harder to sustain playing high notes over a long period of time, and generally enhance the roundness or depth of the tone, pushing out the lower partials at the trade-off of the upper ones.

Only when we are leveraging our face muscles instead of letting the horn do the work!

And some mouthpieces just enhance a certain sound preference.

This is a HUGE issue. As I have often posted, how we hear ourselves determines what we believe that the trumpet is doing. Play in a nice room - get the warm fuzzies, then take that same trumpet/mouthpiece and attitude and play outdoors in an open space - endurance goes down, the amount of work seems to go up - although all that has changed is how we hear ourselves! I will maintain that most players have a VERY WARPED concept of what they like and what is good for them. That underdeveloped "opinion" limits their playing in serious ways!.

This doesn't mean that any of these factors can't be "overcome", in and of themselves. To use an analogy though, you can get from New Hampshire to California in a BMW or a Volkswagen Beetle. It just depends on how you want to travel.

***I am not sure that nature needs to be overcome. The rules of engagement are very clear - get a daily routine for maintenance (not improvement) and stick to it. This is like treating diabetes. If we regard the ceremony of injecting insulin as "overcoming" the symptoms of diabetes - we have already lost the battle. Our bodies are screaming for a different type of eating ceremony and we just apply a bandaid. In May this year, my own diabetes got worse. I got a new diabetologist and we decided on a new strategy. Inside of a month, I was able to reduce the quantity of insulin by 50%. I changed the eating ceremony - was never hungry and have been losing about 1 to 2 pounds per month. I currently have the best medium term results since 2011.

It is no different with the trumpet. There are so many "microfactors" that we need to commit to "second nature". This is why I am allergic to mouthpiece discussions and embouchure changes - not because they have no value, rather because our bodies are telling us what we need to know and we are not listening or able to hear - so we come up with "hairbrained" schemes that simply satisfy our urge to "do something" but NEVER give us the results (if we are taking notes).

The single greatest improvement for the casual player is the daily routine. Like with diabetes -> when the input is right, the output is far less invasive.***

This is a thread where it is very easy to be "unkind"...

The fact that you "absolutely CANNOT play 1st chair, screaming high, Maynard Ferguson, Bill Chase, style of music" puts you in the same boat with just about everyone else here. Even if there were a mouthpiece that "aided" the high register, there are many compelling reasons not to share that "secret". Maybe so much - your Bach 3C and Curry 3M CAN cut it...

Endurance is not a function of a 3C or Curry equivalent. It is the result of us reducing the amount of tension necessary to play. That is accomplished with superior breathing and body use techniques as well as a LOT of very soft playing to train lower embouchure tension.

The width of the mouthpiece is not indicative of a specific range or endurance and there is most certainly a "cost of business" when we start switching around.

The Bach 3C is as close to standard magic as it gets. It has a slightly sharp inner rim to get the sound started more easily. It is average in size in relation to rim, cup and backbore. For commercial type playing, it is certainly not a bad choice. If you are having a rough time with it, I would not expect another mouthpiece to perform "better". I would focus more on the basics of sound production and get those habits in line with your dental situation. I am facing a dental situation myself and look forward to practicing what I have preached - even to students with braces.

@djeffers78

Nice post - but why is it in the Home/Instruments/Discussion/Bb & C Trumpets part of the forum?

I play a german Bb tenor horn and BBb Tuba in addition to Bb & C trumpets - only because it is fun!

This is approaching at the speed of light. Any comments about the ordeal, preparation and comeback? It is just lower jaw - for now. The teeth are fine but the bone...

My favorites where I have done regular business or have close friends working there and occasional business:
Thompson Music in Omaha
Thomann in Burgebrach, Germany (yes, they have an awesome storefront)
Musik Bertram in Freiburg, Germany
Rainer Jordan in Limburg, Germany
Long&McQuade in Toronto, Canada

In my world, the difference between a trumpet and cornet are 99% inside the head of the player. Cornet players have a more "intimate" approach. Great cornets allow you to play the 16 repeats that Clarke writes into his technical studies...

I have several "the ones". It all depends on what I am playing. Big band (Selmer Radial), Modern symphony/brass quintet(Monette), early classical (Haydn, CPE Bach, etc.: Saurle natural trumpet copy), romantic german(Heckel rotary Bb), baroque (Haas natural trumpet copy), rennaissance (cornetto). I have opportunities to play most of these genres on varying instruments, but the mentioned horns are my personal preferences. Not every booking gives me a choice about which instrument to use.

That being said, my Monette Raja is the horn where playing involves the least amount of conscious effort. It "speaks" on a whisp of air, sonically goes anywhere that I think about and because of the built in mouthpiece - leaves no room for question marks.

@tjcombo said in Structure of the Trumpet by Yamaha:

@Trumpetsplus

@ Rowuk, I guess this is totally the wrong thread on which to be pedantic and point out that pedal C on a trumpet is resonating at a half wavelength (of the horn). It is relevant to how a trumpet works.

A small hint - it is resonating at the whole wavelength but because of the strength of the first overtone (due to the horn function of the too small bell) we hear the overtone - not the fundemental. If one end were closed like on Gedackt organ pipes, then the wavelength would fold. Get a spectrum analyser out and see what frequencies are present. I have been there and done that

I remember the Buzz/Phooey discussion at TrumpetMaster. It went nowhere fast.

The lips open and close like a valve at a rate related to the length of the trumpet. Each fingering has multiple notes based on the wavelength being played. The pedal note is one wavelength in the instrument. Low C is 2 wavelengths, G is 3 wavelengths, third space C is 4 wavelengths. This continues until our lips are no longer able to open and close - due to pressure, tension or lack of being supple.

I consider the buzz or alternate start of lip vibration to be an insignificant semantic argument with no redeeming value. We are talking about the same thing: ignition of the lips, initialization of the vibrating mode. Regardless if one calls it Phooey or a buzz, fact is, we blow air through the lips with a certain amount of lip tension and they resonate. This blow can be a relaxed exhale to a forceful expulsion of air. Articulation comes later when we modify the start to "speak". To speak a "phoo or foo" we would need our lower teeth on the upper lip prior to ignition. That certainly does not line up with most embouchures - especially considering that most have an overbite (upper teeth in front of lower teeth). Perhaps for players with an underbite (upper teeth behind the lower teeth) phoo would be what at least they "think" that they are doing. Considering that ignition needs freely vibrating lips, beyond the exhale, it really does not matter.

Some players have trouble with a free buzz. That is in most cases insignificant as we always play trumpet through a mouthpiece. Some players have trouble with a buzz through a mouthpiece. This is also in many cases insignificant as we rely on the resonances of the horn to modulate and stabilize pitch. Some like buzzing free, on the mouthpiece or with some resonance enhancing scheme (leadpipe or P.E.T.E). Good for them. It never helped my playing and I never taught it. I certainly would not criticize another teacher with good experience in buzzing however-as long as the player is getting a well balanced routine every day.

I found the arguments at TrumpetMaster regarding this to be little more than annoying as the real issues of getting the sound started are masked in senseless arguing.

If we can't get our semantics to line up, then beating a dead horse is not productive. Let us just talk about ignition instead.

As far as Yamahas claim to deeper cups being more mellow, science backs this up. The more cup volume, the more it acts like a low pass acoustical filter - reducing upper harmonics (compared to a cup with less volume). Less harmonics is a "darker/more mellow" sound.

The throat/backbore indeed also has great effect on sound and intonation as well as efficiency. That has nothing to do with Yamahas claims at the mentioned website.

We should never forget that the target audience determines the semantics. The casual reader really could care less and at least gets some valid pre-chewed recommendations. As they advance in perception and capability, they go elsewhere for mor detailed info.

We should never forget Maurice Andrés Hora Legato!

@Niner It was never "my" problem. I moderated happily at TrumpetMaster - in spite of a lot of challenges. I only visit here occasionally as there really is little "new" or "stimulating" where I want to get more involved.

I disagree with just deleting "offending" posts. Often the offense is just a moment of stupidity and does not apply to the whole post or the person in general. But to each his own. You certainly are within your constitutional rights ˝to favor whatever you like!".

Håkan is trying to unlock her ears and brain. She is a well accomplished technical player BUT she is not listening to the result of her playing in the room. She is playing "safe" inside her head. It will take time to develop these additional talents. She shows great promise!

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

So I'm a little confused.

Could we summarize, then, in layman's terms, that the amount of air required doesn't necessarily depend upon what the bore size is but, rather, upon the collective design of the horn which includes a myriad of factors?

In other words, do some horns take "more air", horn-by-horn, depending on how it's constructed rather than on bore size alone?

Exactly this - horn by horn, depending on how it is constructed, how we hear ourselves, the efficiency of the entire body/mind/mouthpiece/trumpet/playing environment system. Even the term "amount of air" is not correct as our bodies have no measure of this except running out before a phrase is finished. We can believe that the horn is a loose blow indoors, we take it out to an open lake and the same system is like blowing into a brick wall!

@Dr-GO said in Frustrated:

To me Rowuk was the role model of moderators. Tough love is the best!

Thank you, but I was not trying to be a role model. I was just trying to keep the fluff out. There was nothing to prove - except that discourse needs more than a weak opinion.

@Niner You misunderstood me... The moderator very much decides if the content is malicious and then calls the shot to delete/edit or not. I disagree with deleting the whole message if there is otherwise worthy content. All or nothing is too much of a fundamentalist standpoint and very contrary to life in general. Even at TrumpetMaster, I often edited posts, retaining the original intention without the ugly. Malicious posts with no redeeming value did get deleted however - at the cost of abuse that comes with the territory.

As far as what the job of a moderator is, I suspect that we are miles apart - but not as you seem to believe. Moderators in my world have a very active role in the way things work. They should be active publicly and behind the scenes. It is better to defuse escalations rather than editing posts afterwards. For those in the community unwilling, there should be defined instances on how to regulate and when to terminate. I am very content here to have a completely different role than at TrumpetMaster. No more accusitions by the lazy for being a moderator and having a public opinion too! I never was interested in lowest common denominator or general concensus. There is simply too much BS posted at trumpet sites.

This is not a moderated site like some of the technical ones that I visit. There one submits a paper for approval after which it is published or denied. There is no "ad hoc" posting. That would not be my (or probably anyone elses) model for here - but on the other hand, a reason that we have a relatively low MegaByte to Content relationship.