Much excitement today, the Jerome Wiss 6/20 arrived, the fit and finish are superb, Jerome is truly a craftsman in instrument making. The $64,000 question, How does it play. With my Wedge 3CC SST mouthpiece which has been my standard for the last 9 years, it responds with the least amount of air I can give it and the tone remains uniform to the most I can raise.

The sound behind the horn is unlike any other I have played, I find it difficult to describe, full, rich, not dark nor shrill, mind this is first impressions after 1/2 hour playing, I shall have to have a lot more time on it to get fully accustomed to it. I think it is mainly a function of the bell shape which is more conical than exponential, reminds me of pictures of ancient trumpets.

I have not yet checked the tuning, first impression nothing stood out to my ear, more to come as I spend more time with it.

Regards, Stuart.

Jerome Wiss, a French maker who has completely redesigned the trumpet including the valve block with only 2 passages through the valves, in the up position the air goes through one port in one direction, in the down position the same port in the opposite direction, makes it all himself.

He came on TH three years ago announcing his new trumpet and was driven off by people who could not understand how it worked.

I ordered one beginning of April, delivery November/December.

Regards, Stuart.

@tjcombo said in A little humour:

@SSmith1226 That was bonzer Sport! A grouse effort for a Septic!

Translation: bonzer = good, sport = mate , friend, grouse = (a small ground dwelling bird), great, excellent, Septic = cockney rhyming slang, septic tank = yank (american).

Such a shame he died at 28.

Regards, Stuart.

Spent about an hour on the beast today, washed the valves and swabbed the casings with solvent and removed the lapping compound, washed and brushed the inside.

Oiled the valves, greased the slides and reassembled, checked valve alignment, not bad, have seen much more costly horns worse. Valves quite smooth in operation, springs stronger than I like but ok.

Playing, with Blackburn leadpipes from behind not much different from my old Selmer, supplied Bb leadpipe ok, A pipe no. would suggest new leadpipes, perhaps this is a new project.

Supplied mouthpiece a strange double cup design, similar to old Selmer, does work but not my choice.

Was this an exercise in futility? I will see when I return it to its owner on Saturday.

Regards, Stuart.

Without good provenance it is just another pretty Selmer Balanced Grand Prix.

Regards, Stuart.

25 years ago I was having trumpet lessons from a retired brass teacher whose principle instrument was horn, he did not have any horn students, in a fit of mental abberation I bought a horn and had him teach me, joined a community symphony orchestra where the horn section was a girl playing an Alto Saxophone and a friend playing an Eb Tenor horn neither fitted in.

Eventually a couple of horn players joined I convinced the Eb player to go back to trumpet that was his prime instrument. After the concert tomorrow I will change to trumpet to balance the brass a little more, we will then have 5 Horns and 4 trumpets having lost 2 in the last year.

Sunday I have a 2 hour gig playing 2nd trumpet in the Big Band I have played in for 20+ years.

Regards, Stuart.

About 30 years ago I was playing trumpet in a community concert band, we had an excess of trumpets and no horns.

The MD asked me to look at a couple of secondhand horns in a music shop, not that I knew anything about horns, one was a beaten up Amarti, the other a French Selmer in excellent condition and reasonably priced,

I n a moment of insanity I bought the Selmer, then found a teacher for lessons, I played that horn in the concert band for 15 years until I moved away.

1990 I was invited by a friend to join a community symphony orchestra where the horn section was a Eb tenor horn and an Alto Sax playing transposed parts, at that time I was playing trumpet in an amateur Big Band.

Currently still playing in both groups, Trumpet on thursday nights and Horn on saturday mornings. For a while I found some difficulty with the change of fingering from one to the other, eventually no problem.

Playing 2nd horn a lot of the time I am an octave lower than the 1st, she marks my part where she wants me to go up to give her a rest and she is half my age.

Regards, Stuart

I have one that will, you cannot have it because I need it myself.

Regards, Stuart.

@bobmiller1969 They are made from plastic, I believe 3D printed, They fit between the valve casing and can be moved up or down to find the best position that gives the best effect, I find that at the top just under the caps for me. Ivan's website may have more information. www,jaegerbrass.com Regards, Stuart.

Thanks Bob, I have not had much experience with heavy caps, my Eclipse and Selmer Concept TT both came with light and heavy caps, on the Eclipse they did nothing, the Selmer dampened the higher harmonics to the extent it felt dull to me. I have a Taylor Magnum Max at 4lbs a very heavy horn that came with a Harrelson kit, fitting the original caps and buttons the response and sound is more to my liking. The best after market device I have found is Ivan's (Trumpetplus) "Resonance Enhancers" . I have fitted them to my Radials and my iteration of them to my other trumpets, in every case they have made a significant improvement. Regards, Stuart.

What changes has these mods made to the Radial in the playability and sound? I have 4 Radials, Bb, C, D and Eb which are my go to horns for Orchestra, they are great the way they are and do not want any "improvments". Regards, Stuart. (sometime Devil's Advocate)

Look online for Dulcie Holland, "Master your Theory" a series of books from basis to advanced, I see a couple of them for free on Scribed, there may be others. Regards, Stuart.

My first trumpet was a Bundy purchased cheaply from a music store closing down, sold to a student after my mother gave me a Henri Selmer B700L for my 50th birthday, I will never sell that one. Regards, Stuart

Out of interest I have checked the valve numbering on 4 of my older European trumpets. Selmer Grand Prix sn 53xx 79-80-81, Selmer Balanced sn 153xx 82-83-84, I very much doubt they are from the same batch as the instruments are 10,000 apart. Boosey Cornet 1906 13-14-15. National Musical Supply Co Ltd sn 1 ,193-194-195. Unable to find anything about this company, obviously an European made stencil.ards, Stuart.

@matt-ward Re Valve numbering, it was European practice to make valve sets in batches of 33, the valves and casings numbered 1 to 99, although I have seen one trumpet with the valves numbered in the 150s. Regards, Stuart.

These problems are symptomatic of a store/chain in trouble, I believe WWBW is part of the Guitar Center group which I heard has filed for bancrupcy.

We has a chain of music stores close here in Australia, I had ordered a Manhassat stand from them, it was not in stock and they would order it in for me. Over the next couple of months i would ask about the stand and would be assured it was on order, I finally asked the sales person would they phone the importer and ask when they would be getting them,
she came back and said I could pick it up tomorrow.
Nuff Sed.

Regards, Stuart.

That version of The Band played Waltzing Matilda is the most moving I have heard, growing up in country Australia I knew several WW1 returned men, it was very hard to get them to talk about the war, they chose to try to forget what they went through.

One did tell me that he had been a prisoner of the Germans, they were treated well and when the war ended the guards opened the gates and left, they were frightened to leave thinking it might be a trap.

I think that war touched all of my generation in some way, my wife's aunt was due to get married to a theological student when he was conscripted into the army as a stretcher bearer, he was killed on the western front 6th November 1918 5 days before the war ended.

Regards, Stuart.

Certainly agree with you George, I was taken to task when I did not like the Thad Jones solo in April in Paris, starts with Pop goes the Weasel and ends with a series of seemingly unrelated high notes.

Perhaps it is age related, coming up 83.

Regards, Stuart.