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.

I had a problem last night and again this morning on this laptop with Firefox, OK on another, solved by reducing zoom to 100%.

Regards, Stuart,

I have started to put my Big Band and Orchestra music into my 12" ipad, my previous Big Band book was 800 pages, got too heavy to lug around. Use an Air Turn bluetooth pedal for page turning.

Regards, Stuart.

Where are you in Aus, the Bond would not be much of an upgrade over your present instrument, save up for aFlugel if thst is really what you want.

Regards, Stuart.

Certainly makes replying to a post easier.

Regards, Stuart.

Format has changed, now have a quick reply panel below last post.

Regards, Stuart.

Fine here.

Regards, Stuart.

Looks good here.

Regards, Stuart.

I must admit to liking the music of Earl Scruggs and The Foggy Mountain Boys.

Regards, Stuart, (Puts on Tin Hat and retreats to cellar.)

I did notice this when I blew a few notes on a 1941 York Custom that I had not played for some time, thinking I do not remember it being this bad I put it down intending to investigate later. Mystery solved.

Regards, Stuart.

This morning I played my1931 King Silver Tone trumpet for the first time in over 12months, the valves were free and smooth, I did not oil them (shame) and found as Dale the tone was dull and lifeless, after about 10 minutes of playing the tone was much improved and sounded more like me. I will try it again tomorrow after playing my usual horns.

I have not noticed this on any of my other horns that get played on a regular basis.

Regards,Stuart.