Best posts made by Seth of Lagos

@barliman2001

I recognise a few familiar names here.

...and what would christmas be without a sprinkling of Leroy Anderson

All the best to you all from sunny Lagos!

@administrator

Pretty impressive intonation I thought .......

..... and then I heard David Bruce explain what's really going on here.

Wow!

@trumpetb said in Difference between trumpet and cornet:

Simplicity and beauty is very important in nature, with the DNA double helix for example, before Watson and Crick the explanations offered of the structure of DNA were all excessively complex and convoluted in their attempt to explain a complex system. Watson and Cricks double helix was both simple and beautiful.

Is it a coincidence you chose this example?

As @Trumpetsplus correctly states, the pressure wave seeks the shortest path available to it.

But not necessarily so the air. If you could watch the airflow through a tuning slide section from upstream, the right hand half would be rotating clockwise and the left anticlockwise (rather like two 'D's facing each other).

Our very own double helix.

@moshe said in "Star Trek Next Generation":

Captain Jean-Luc Picard had a French name but a British accent,
and 500 years in the future there still was no cure for baldness?

Morris / moshe

Curiously, over 2,000 years ago, he was Roman, had a full head of hair, and spoke Latin with an impeccable English accent.

Youtube Video – [44:05..]

By coincidence, I've been rewatching this series after 40-odd years. It also stars Patrick Stewart's great friend Brian Blessed (as Augustus) who likewise had to ditch his broad Yorkshire accent to get acting work with the BBC in particular.

I raised my family only a little down Leeds road from where Patrick Stewart was brought up, and many saturdays my son would report seeing 'Captain Jean-Luc' in the stands watching Huddersfield Town.

Would have loved to see him say

"Ayup, Geordi! Mek it 'appen!"

It's all a compromise.

If you've a lot of serious above staff forte+ stuff to deal with in a normal performance, you pick the piece to best survive the gig and keep the conductor off your back.

If you haven't, you amuse yourself by scaring the 'bones with a Wick 1.

@trumpetb said in Valve Springs:

Fixing the spring by making it stronger almost without exception means stretching it.

Making a spring stronger by stretching it is proven by anecdotal evidence, empirical evidence, and is also explained by the correct application of Hooke's Law.

A stretched spring is no stronger in its overall travel but because it is longer it becomes effectively stronger at the small changes of length at the extreme compression end of its travel which is where we typically use it.

I think you've got away with murder on this thread.

If you feel you need to increase the preload on a valve spring (which is what you're actually doing) then wouldn't it be better to insert a spacer to increase spring compression a little rather than destroy the mechanical integrity of the spring by stressing it beyond its elastic limit?

Just a thought from an actual engineer.

Thanks, Guys.

As Barliman says, things have become a little hectic over here, but I hope to drop in from time to time and provide some more 'unique input'!

While I'm here, Mrs Seth and I are in Kuala Lumpur next month visiting family, and I was wondering if Schlub Brass Works was still going in Singapore. The web site is a little ambiguous ...

... and Mrs Seth hasn;t had any new jewellery for a while.

Pure crystallised independence of spirit!

Is it really 56 years ago? (Anyone remember Rowdy Yates?)

@BigDub

Mrs Seth saw our flight reservations for Kuala Lumpur the other day, and became quite anxious about the baggage allowance:

"45 kg / person included"

It just now occurred to me that Edwin Astley and John Barry created very similar sounds (at least the way I hear their arrangements). I wonder if there were musicians who played in both men's orchestras....

Got to remember that the top flight of British trumpeters are almost exclusively classically trained with probably a majority from a BBB cornet background. So they aren't generally limited to a particular musical style (as maybe more the case in the US) and would be expected to play whatever is put in front of them in whatever style was appropriate for the music.

So any similarity between the Edwin Astley and John Barry sounds really tells you very little about who's actually blowing the instruments.

Having said that, your Bond sessions link mentioned 3 of the 4 I did. I recognise a couple of other names there, but also remember that it's clear that all these guys knew one another. If one session was short-handed, anybody in town at the time could have got the call to fill in.

One notable name that's not been mentioned so far is Kenny Baker who could well be a distinct possibility. Again, technically near faultless due to his BBB background and probably best known as the real 'voice' of Kay Kendall in Genevieve.

Youtube Video

For me in the Netherlands, Saturn is about to reach opposition in about 15 minutes and it's a crisp, clear night so good viewing conditions.

Opposition means that the Sun, Earth, and planet in question all line up (a gorgeous word for this is syzygy) so it's generally the closest and brightest we ever get to see it.

Easy to find this time. For those in the Northern Hemisphere, the brightest thing in the southern sky at the moment is Jupiter, low in the sky and pretty well due south at midnight. Saturn is the not-quite-as-bright golden 'star' just a little to the left.

Way over to the left at the same time is Mars rising in the East.

Off to have a look!

@ssmith1226 I don't know the piece, but I see the crux of the problem!

There's no way I can see them, but I thought I'd check the current positions of the outer planets out of curiosity using https://theskylive.com/planetarium.

Turns out that Uranus and Neptune are a tad East and West of Mars respectively, and even Pluto is out there nestling between Saturn and Jupiter.

So when Mercury rises around 4:30 am, all eight of them are going to be in the night sky at once, which is a pretty rare event.

Comments based on past ownership of a Holton MF st307, Wild Thing, Inderbinen Alpha C trumpet and a good blow through a Schilke s22 (which only confirmed what I felt about the other instruments).

The first time I switched from a standard bore instrument, and attempted to play it as I would the standard bore, it was an awful lot louder and pulled significantly more air. Just as the mythology says. But after a while, I wised up and eased off on the oral pressure to better match the volume of the standard (then as now, the Yamaha 6335H II). The physics tells me they should still draw a little more air for a given note, but not so much as I could notice the difference. The difference I did notice is that they became distinctly more mellow in sound (which those of you familiar with my postings will know is not a good thing in my books - I don't play cornet).

I rather unenthusiastically tried to brighten the sound with a smaller piece, but, as with J. Jericho's experience, ran into problems with mismatching between cup size, throat and bore resulting in a more 'strangled', less resonant sound. Not good.

Best compromise piece I have found is the Wick 4C, which has the added bonus of being a little less punishing on the lip than the birdbaths I used to play. But you do lose something of the full force of these instruments played through a proportionally large throat. Hypothetical anyway - I just can't do that anymore.

What I ended up doing is splitting my repertoire. The stuff which called for a brighter sound like baroque classics etc, I played on the ML Yamaha or Severinsen - the more mellow (or just louder) stuff - I played on the Wild Thing.

I do find the Wild Thing remarkably easy to play. Ideal student trumpet in my view. And that is not a criticism - just an observation based on playing it for nearly 20 years. When I'm working on tonguing and flexibility, I reach immediately for the Wild Thing because that's the instrument I'll crack the problem with. But I don't think this has much if anything to do with bore size - more the resonant design. The stronger slotting instruments like the Yamaha are for me much less helpful in problem solving. They're maybe more for those whose technical issues are behind them. But I digress.

@grune said in Opinions on Valve Oils?:

Care to post your opinion/s about valve oils?

re Cass.
FWIW... I have used the Bach oil since time began. Reason; it's fast. But... Bach is petrol based, so it is 'aromatic' and 'volatile': which implies it smells and evaporates quickly, which implies re-oiling every 2 hours or so. Seeking to avoid the smell and evaporation, I tried a bottle of Al Cass Fast, which is 'synthetic'. This Cass is indeed odourless and clear, as claimed. But Cass is not 'fast'. Cass viscosity feels significantly thicker, which causes valve action to be slower and require more finger-muscle. The viscosity makes the valves feel smoother, but at the expense of slower. But it is very much less volatile, so valves feel well oiled for many days. pros and cons.

Synthetic oils have a very low viscosity index (the viscosity doesn't change much with temperature), and they don't change characteristics over time due to evaporation of light ends - unlike the distillates, they don't have light ends.

So their performance is stable over time in a variety of conditions. You still need to pick one with the performance characteristics you and your instrument prefer, but that's for you to discover via trial and error.

I tend to change oil at every use simply as good preventative maintenance practice, so I don't particularly see all the benefits synthetics have to offer, but I still use them (doesn't stop me using up old bottles of distillate oils).

I like Tromba T2 but sometimes hard to locate. I'm perfectly okay with Wicks.

@djeffers78 said in Wonder which Valve Oil they use.:

Love the sounds of real skin drums!

Thrilling aren't they.

Reminded me very much of the Drummers' Dream Gig scene in Ben-Hur.

@Kehaulani said in A little humour:

What do you call the four corners of the Earth? Ever see a sphere with four corners?

Ever seen a map of the earth?

@ButchA said in Rock, Pop, Classic 70's "Horn Bands" from back in the day?:

Here's a topic that I think people might enjoy discussing...

Instead of the common orchestra setting, symphony setting, "community band" type of setting, does anyone else appreciate the classic rock 70's type of music that had a "horn section" in it?

Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, Ides of March, Lighthouse, Tower of Power, and of course the soulful sounds of Earth, Wind, & Fire...

Is it me, or has this type of genre faded away?

Still alive and kicking in one of my favourite Lagos venues:

It gets quite lively sometimes

Femi Kuti is, of course, son of the late, great Fela.