Best posts made by Trumpetb

Here are three players cutting a rug, Al Hirt on trumpet Pete Candoli on trumpet and Red Nichols on cornet.

I am not sure the instruments that Pete and AL played on in this clip but I believe Red played on his regular 1937 Olds Super L.A. cornet.

I dont see how trumpet players would have a problem with a cornet they have the same range and both have the same 3 valves that work in the same way.

Why should they be different as long as the mouthpiece for each is selected with care.

And on the topic of the thread, I believe there is no reason to believe the committee cornet to be in any way inferior to the committee trumpet

@Dr-GO yes indeed white for silver and red for brass I am glad to see you are on board with this.

On the topic of cost of the bottle, if you buy a 12 dollar cork you get a free bottle of wine with it and that cant be bad.

On the other hand a performer of your quality and reputation may prefer to select a cognac bottle to source an appropriate cork

As a middle of the road player myself I favour a robust cabernet sauvignon or a good shiraz for legit, a good sauternes for jazz, but I would heartedly recommend a dom perignon for a performance of the nutcracker.

If my eyes do not deceive me that would be the 22b New York Symphony early model with top sprung valves.

That is a peach and very desirable.

For me it is simple

Playing
Listening
Hearing

Listening and hearing are not the same, listening allows me to hear what I am doing in fine detail and in the hearing I understand what I am failing in and what needs immediate attention.

The playing gets me warmed up and ready to play well the correcting of the errors I hear in my playing gets me ready to play to my highest level.

I want to eradicate the mistakes as soon as possible or I end up practicing errors and if I practice errors without immediately correcting them, then I consolidate bad habits and poor playing.

I want to consolidate good habits not bad habits.

Word

from rowuk

Absolutely fabulous and a good collection

I too firmly believe that holding a broad collection of mouthpieces is the way to go.

I cant understand the philosophy that some players appear to hold, of owning just one mouthpiece and then if they want to try something new they spend weeks or months asking for advice and debating which mouthpiece they might buy in order to try out a different mouthpiece.

That seems such a waste of time and effort spent in choosing when they could be playing.

It only takes 10 seconds to grab and try one out if you already have it with you.

I also have a couple of mouthpiece cornet/trumpet converters and having these has allowed me to try all my cornet mouthpieces in my trumpets as well as all my trumpet mouthpieces.

This approach has allowed me to settle on a wick 4 cornet mouthpiece on trumpet with the converter as my go to daily player combination.

This combination does everything I need and I would never have been able to discover it without having a cornet mp collection and a trumpet mp collection and a converter.

Not only this but you helped a musician friend by providing a collection for him. What could be better than this

Way to go Dale

This I have never seen before however I have not seen everything of course

The name appears not to be Ciicel but Cusel and the u is the umlaut u as seen here in the explanation of the umlaut below.

Umlaut (literally "changed sound") is the German name of the sound shift phenomenon also known as i-mutation. In German, this term is also used for the corresponding letters ä, ö, and ü (and the diphthong äu) and the sounds that these letters represent.

This is similar to the umlaut u in the name of the instrument maker Rudy Muck who has an umlaut u in his name.

Rudy Muck should I believe should be pronounced Rudy Mook so this makers name perhaps should be pronounced Coosel

Rudy Muck is a well respected maker familiar to many and is of German extraction and he emigrated as I understand it to England and then to the USA.

The general appearance of the instrument has a look of German or Czechoslovakia instruments of between 1910 and the modern era, this means little quality wise as many of them are good instruments, but some admittedly are not so good.

The engraving style is typical for example, of many ancient instrument makers that ultimately were gathered under one company name in the eastern block.

Hornucopia has nothing under Ciisel or Cusel but that means they simply have not seen one yet, the chance of it being a stencil is high.

Selmer London for example around the 1930s routinely purchased high quality instruments from Europe specifically Germany and Czechoslovakia and had those engraved as Selmer and we would not question the high quality of those instruments today.

On a personal note and as a warning This instrument has similarities to an older European instrument I owned some years ago, the valves were problematic and would bind because each part of the valves were individually manufactured and fitted by hand and some past owner had disassembled all the parts and mixed them up so you had a stem from valve one fitted into valve two etc etc.

These days this would not be a problem but the valves would not run sweet until all the parts were swapped around and the original configuration hit upon. After that the valves were buttery smooth and sweet as a nut.

This would never happen in a modern instrument parts on modern horns can usually be interchanged freely.

I mention this just in case you have valve issues in this instrument. Each little part of each valve may need to be in its original factory fitted position to work well.

The play test is everything and try several mouthpieces they can be very mouthpiece specific, and all the usual applies, chem clean, corks and felts, and a good lubrication.

@Dr-GO

Wise words Dr-GO, musicianship in general and trumpet playing in particular is a very good therapy and is recognised as such.

When I am feeling down, and I generally do not suffer from this condition, I play and the problems evaporate.

Stress I feel comes in part from unrealised personal expectations.

Expecting high pay for our great skill and yet receiving low pay for that great skill is one cause of stress.

If we lower our expectations happiness can be the result.

I have very high standards but very few expectations other than being allowed to have a ball playing for both appreciative audiences and for myself.

Do we musicians deserve to be raised up. No, Doctors deserve that, charity workers deserve that, the emergency services deserve that, the armed forces deserve that.

So many in the world who are starving or have no water or are caught up in wars or suffer horrific injury deserve so much more than I do.

For a musician to complain because they dont earn enough money is taking yourself too seriously in my opinion.

We are all in this life together and so many suffer so much more than I or we musicians do.

I am not rich in money, I am enriched by music and will always be grateful to have my music and to help others through their lives by the meagre skills that I possess.

It is a privilege to be a musician.

@ Dr Go

Do you need a Triangle player????

I would liken mouthpiece, instrument, and player, to car and driver.

A new or inexperienced driver does not have the skills or experience to benefit from driving different cars. They desire a change to drive faster or better but they cannot fully extract higher performance from the cars they drive.

A seasoned driver with huge experience understands the car and their abilities far better and they know how to extract good performance from the car and they can successfully change vehicles and extract high performance from each one they change to.

In other words the seasoned professional can acclimate quickly to a new car, when the inexperienced driver cannot.

I cannot speak for other players but my personal experience is I can now acclimate quickly to a new mouthpiece or new instrument, where before when I was far less experienced, it took me a long time to acclimate following a change.

I also believe that failed mouthpiece safaris may be at least partly due to the player embarking upon the safari at a point in their playing when they are less able to benefit from the changes in the safari.

I have myself never gone on a safari, I have known there is a problem, and known what mouthpiece size and shape is likely to help resolve the problem and then made a change to see if I am right. Usually I have been right.

Having a collection helps me in doing this.

Knowing your playing, knowing your equipment and knowing what effect the change will make goes a long way to making the right choice when changing and having a collection enables test changes to happen easily instead of having to wait to acquire a test mouthpiece you do not possess.

It was obvious to me just as soon as the wick 4 that I use now was in the breech, that it was the right choice partly because I knew before trying it that it was more than likely going to resolve my issue at the time and why it would resolve it.

No acclimation was needed. It has been good from the first note and has since performed faultlessly for several months and for hundreds of performances in all styles from salsa to blues to jazz to legit to baroque and to opera.

Know yourself, know your equipment, know what difference a change will make then there is a good chance the change will take you at least part of the way on your journey.

Like a journey from arizona to washington, knowing where you are, knowing where you need to be, and having a good map, helps to get where you need to be and helps stop you getting lost on the way.

Apologies for jumping in about the possible replating of the valves on this.

Replating could cost between 350 and 500 dollars depending on the shop or tech.

It is a difficult decision and I would want to be convinced that the instrument would be worth beyond this figure before embarking upon it.

Many well respected and known fabulous pro grade instruments from makers such as Olds Besson Conn Martin Bach Selmer Shilke Yamaha Bouescher can be purchased relatively inexpensively and would be a better prospect for a valve replate.

They are well known instruments and a valve replating would be a good investment on such instruments.

On this instrument I would think carefully before going down that road.

I have refurbished Conns, Selmers, and Bessons, sometimes at very high expense and it always made sense to me, but I doubt I would replate this instrument it just doesnt make financial sense to me, in my mind it is a simple cost benefit equasion.

Will the resale value after the work is completed equal the cost of the work on the instrument.

I dont see the value in the instrument to justify the work.

I took you at your word and as an experiment half valved my cornet and the sound I got out of the bell was a realistic representation of a hippo farting in a john.

I suspect your 10,000 hours may have been far more focussed and productive than my feeble attempts.

My personal opinion for what it is worth is the only magic in Cass mouthpieces is, they are suited to certain players whose playing style suits the Cass designs.

That is all that mouthpieces really offer and we have the capability to change the way we play to exploit the capabilities of the equipment we use.

Of course rubbish mouthpieces will always be rubbish and create barriers to good playing but all good mouthpieces give us room to develop.

And when we have gone down that road as far as we can and finally hit limitations of our equipment, we can change our equipment to take us further in the direction we want to go.

An ounce of polishing of our abilities is worth a ton of polishing our equipment.

If Cass mouthpieces work for you that is great but I dont believe they are a holy grail for everyone.

I dont see many similarities with my older instrument and I want to avoid speculation on this, I can however make a few comments now that I can see a lot more detail.

The metal valve guides are robust and suggest early manufacture and high quality.

Various hexagon shaped parts have been seen on artisan models and this also suggests higher quality.

The water keys are slung beneath the tubing in the manner of a trombone and this is fairly typical of a manufacturer that has a history of manufacturing trombones prior to manufacturing trumpets.

Olds for example manufactured trombones before trumpets and adopted the underslung trombone style water key on some of their trumpets, they also adopted brass valve guides very similar to yours, although we should not draw conclusions from these two facts.

Martin adopted trombone style side action water keys on their Committee horn and you cant get better than that.

As to the hexagon shaped parts Bach used hexagon receiver ends as did Olds and several others.

I also believe I see Nickel balusters on top of the brass valve casings, this suggests the valve casings were fabricated in two parts in the manner of Bach Strads, and the Bach strad is about as good as you can get.

Additionally all the ends of all the slides are rounded like a bead, I have seen a lot of beginner intermediate and pro horns and you tend to not see this on either beginner or intermediate horns but you do see this on some pro horns.

It looks like a great deal of money and care was lavished on this instrument during its manufacture.

There are so many elements that singly do not prove quality but when all are taken together they suggest quality.

Adding everything together I have reason to believe this horn could easily be an intermediate or better instrument.

But none of this really proves anything. An instrument can be made well but still play poorly.

There are many factors that could relegate this instrument to beginner or worse quality, the resistance, the intonation, possible valve wear, bent or ill fitting parts due to damage, we cannot yet know where the gremlins are.

The only opinion that will mean anything is that of a competent player following an extended play test.

Regarding the mouthpiece, I believe that the mouthpiece and instrument should be matched to each other so as to deliver the timbre and tone that the player aspires to.

My mouthpiece is unlikely to be of any value for you I have many and can swap them to discover a good match.

You may need to swap mouthpieces out to reach the tones you are looking for.

That is well said kehaulani much time and effort has been squandered on this topic, but I believe it was right to so squander it.

This is a fundamentally important issue and in my opinion many players early technique has been damaged by misunderstanding buzzing what it is and why it is done.

It is easy to buzz and easy to buzz badly and very hard to stop doing it once you start and then you sound like a hunter calling a duck.

Some of the worst trumpet playing in recorded history is due to this issue of buzzing a note instead of playing a note, and yes there is a difference.

I hope to further expose the fundamental issue by taking the discussion out of trumpet context and into the context of early instruments of 500 years ago. Please indulge me on this it is a salutary lesson and holds a warning to us all on the topic of buzzing I think.

The Zink or cornett or cornetto is a medieval instrument that was popular from years 1450 through to 1650.

This was recognised as the most beautiful sounding instrument beyond any other and the best players were superstars.

It was also recognised as the most difficult to learn, and consisted of a small trumpet mouthpiece set into a woodwind instrument similar to an early wooden flute.

Then the black death came along and wiped out all the makers and players leaving nobody to learn this most difficult instrument from.

Records stating the existence of both makers and players that existed before the black death showed they were entirely missing from society after the black death, it is thought they all died in that outbreak.

With no good players or teachers to learn from the instrument usage completely died out then and performers had to teach themselves, it appears that they believed they should buzz into the mouthpiece cup and this makes sense, a beginner who knows no better believes that buzzing is what you do into a trumpet mouthpiece to make a noise.

For the next 300 years this most beautiful sounding instrument was reported as sounding like the braying of a cow or donkey or duck and nobody was inclined to learn how to play this horrible sounding instrument properly.

During the last 60 years inspired and serious players made great efforts to rediscover how to play this instrument properly and it has now rightly been elevated back to sounding beautiful again.

We have Bruce Dickey to thank for at least some of this work.

Even today buzzing is taught to players wishing to learn to play this instrument that can so easily sound like a cow a donkey or a duck, and I suggest that the story of the Zink could so easily be the story of the trumpet.

I believe that buzzing killed the Zink for 300 years. This topic is that important. I think that DR-GO ROWUK Kehaulani have all made excellent contributions to a very important topic and the admins have done well by allowing this to be explored.

I believe this is monumentally important and feelings can run high on this topic.

Yes Buzzing can be useful and yes Buzzing can be harmful. We are lucky we have great players like DR-GO and Kehaulani we are lucky we have great teachers like ROWUK and this site is lucky to have great admins.

Buzzing is like a two headed snake that can easily bite us but it is useful to have around.

Let us all remember the story of the Zink and beware of bad buzzing.

If you like Earth Wind and Fire you might like C.C.S.

Led by Alexis Korner, need I say more.

And by the way I agree Earth Wind and Fire were the cats bananas

I do not disagree with anything you have posted ROWUK however for myself I hear great beauty in ancient instruments.

You mentioned the Cornetto and I have some experience and knowledge of these instruments so I feel I can speak on the topic.

For example a Cornetto played in its traditional setting in a church or a cathedral with an organ accompaniment is a beautiful thing.

There is a seductive sweetness and beauty in the tone of a well played Cornetto that I have never heard in any other instrument.

Of course modern instruments are wonderful and highly developed and sit well together in an ensemble and sound wonderful in a modern setting and playing from a modern score.

But my point was and is that the ephemeral gentle and sweet alluring tone of the ancient instrument appears to have been lost in the shuffle over the last 300 years.

Is the modern instrument better, yes it is, it is in tune with itself it is consistent in tone across its range it is relatively easy to play well in all registers and its wide dynamics are helpful in developing expression.

The old instruments have issues with inconsistency of tone difficulties in controlling pitches and dynamics and sometimes it feels they fight us. But that was not really the point these inconsistencies are part of the charm of the instrument.

For all their faults the music made on these instruments is compelling and addictive. I have played recordings of ancient instruments to various members of the public and without exception they have declared the ancient instruments to have great beauty of tone.

Today for example I played a cornetto recording to a lady of advanced years and she told me that her hairs stood up on end when she heard the instrument and it touched her in her soul.

I also played a recording to a young man of around 17 or 18 and he declared it to be surprisingly beautiful.

Of course that can happen with modern instruments but it happens repeatedly and often with the ancient instruments.

I firmly believe that we have lost something precious by leaving these instruments in their cases and exclusively playing on modern instruments.

You are right ROWUK we have gained a great deal in the development of our modern instruments but we have also lost something.

It is however easily fixable by our simply obtaining examples of these instruments and including them in our practice, and I intend to do this and I hope that perhaps other members might consider doing the same.

I concur with Richard III

I would add that brass practice in general and trumpet/cornet practice in particular is closely bound to the manner in which we form our tones.

To give an example, a piano if we press the middle c key and keep pressing it until we tire the piano will sound the tone consistently and will not tire of sounding that c.

However the tone of a brass instrument is entirely and totally a result of the sophistication with which we generate the tone.

As we brass players tire and the tone begins to fail due to developing poor technique or fatigue or other similar reasons, we end up playing and practicing poorer and poorer tones.

Practice replicates and reinforces the thing we practice.

If we keep producing wonderful tones as we practice we are fixing and reinforcing beautiful tones into our muscle memory.

If we continually practice blatty and rough sounding tones due to fatigue or poor technique we end up reinforcing poor tones into our muscle memory.

The much repeated advice of rest as much as you practice is built upon this wise knowledge. Rest is critically important to good development.

Very well studied opinion.

I would point out however that for the last 20 years all manner of commercial aircraft from the humble 727 to the majestic AIrbus 380-800 have been capable of taking off flying multiple headings and landing all without human intervention.

The only reason that pilots perform take offs and landings is because the CAA and FAA demand and decree it.

Many years ago a large american carrier decided to take all cockpit recordings uttered by all the flight crews in their fleet, and enter all the phrases into a database and then filter them for the most often uttered phrase on the flight decks of their passenger and freight flights.

The most common phrase uttered by Pilots in the cockpits turned out to be "What is it doing now???"

If that is even one tenth of the number of flights then that means 2.2 million flights a year are baffling the pilots.

I find that more scary than AI that for the last 20 years a significant number of flight crews on a large number of flights have not had a clue what the aircraft is doing while the flight computer is supposedly in control of the aircraft.

With AI the only change is likely to be that pilots will cease to not know what it is doing while on board, but instead pilots will not know what it is doing from a remote location.

I dont believe this is likely to be a conversion from a Bb

It looks like the spit valves on this instrument are more conventional spit valves typical of the Special, but the Ambassador spit valves are underslung spit valves.

The end of the mouthpiece receiver is of course Fullerton Ambassador, being hexagonal.

The second slide appears to be set at a right angle to the body of the instrument whereas on Ambassadors the second slide is angled strongly back towards the mouthpiece receiver.

Due to these differences I would guess that it is not a conversion from a Bb instrument but is an independently designed instrument.

But this is supposition on my part.

For me the right angle of the second slide most strongly says this is a different instrument than a Bb Ambassador.

Olds as far as I am aware only changed the angle of the second valve in one other instrument and that was the Super, the very early supers had the slide angled towards the bell and later supers reversed this and angled the slide towards the receiver as in the mendez and the recording.

I am unaware of any other Olds with straight out second slide.

This straight out slide perhaps was needed if this was built as an Eb and required a shorter second slide than a Bb and tooling made it convenient to set the slide straight out.

I would defer to more knowledgeable members on this however.