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.

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

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.

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

@fels For teaching a beginner I suggest you watch on youtube Mr Bill's Trumpet First lesson. This is the best instruction I have seen.

I do not encourage lip or mouthpiece buzzing as I feel this introduces excessive chop tension. Feel free to chat if you would like to discuss further,

Regards, Stuart.

@acb The Wiss has been my main horn for three years now, I have used it in the community symphony orchestra, big band and wind symphony, my initial impressions have not c,hanged, it is the best horn I have ever played, I have had no problems blending with a section of Bachs and other makes, I have carefully checked the tuning with an electronic tuner and found a maximum error of +- 6 cents from the even tempered scale over my range (2 1/2 octaves). AT 5500 euro it was not a cheap horn but commensurate with other hand made horns. Regards, Stuart.

I have made several sets of inlays from 1/8" black bakelite sheet, cut octagen shape. glued to end of rod with melted shellac and turned to size in the lathe, rounded top edge and polished, glued into button with Super Glue Regards, Stuart.

Sassenach, ye no ken the pipes. Regards, Stuart.

@barliman2001
Ebay seller Gmu-6 often has F alto rotary valve trumpets, some time ago I bought an Amarti piston valve alto trumpet in Eb from him. takes a standard trumpet shank, cut 150mm out of the loop in the bell tail to bring it up into F, one of these days I will shorten the valve slides to finish the job. Regards, Stuart.

I have only stretched one set of springs, I think it was a Conn 22b that belongs to a friend, the problem was the valves were not returning to the top, stretching fixed this. I have a Courtois French Besson trumpet that came from the factory when they moved out of France, I believe it was a prototype that never went into production. The valve springs were so strong it was painful for my arthritic fingers to press. Searching the stock of 2 repairers did not find suitable. The springs the original were 12mm internal diameter, I thought I might be able to expand a smaller dia one. A set of Yamaha Flugel horn springs were about 10mm id and had a lot of turns, forcing the springs over a 12mm rod and tapping all round with a small hammer until the spring released its hold on the rod gave me a spring of the right length and strength, a 100 gm weight will depress the valve 1/2 way which seems to be common on several of my horns. ( Could someone please tell me how to paragraph a post) Regards, Stuart.

No prices given. but if I have to ask the price I cannot afford it. Regards, Stuart.

From the FAQ on the website saxophones made in China and Taiwan, reasonable assumption trumpets are too.

@trumpetsplus Congratulations Ivan on the new venture. your new website is not recognized by Google, I get taken to Prof.Dr Matthias Bertsch alias Dr Trumpet. Regards, Stuart.

@dr-go WOW!!! great glisses.

Regards, Stuart.

@barliman2001 Curious about the 4th valve loop, my Selmer G the 4th valve only drops a tone to F.

Regards, Stuart.