Posted by bloke on February 27, 2004 at 13:45:32:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Raising the Pitch of a Horn posted by Alex C on February 27, 2004 at 12:25:16:
Nevertheless, without looking at the instrument, my advice stands.
The entire instrument is tapered - from the mouthpiece throat to the bell opening. Mouthpiece changes are astronomically more effective bore changes than removal of a 1-inch piece of pipe that tapers from (just as a non-existant example) .720" to .726" and another one that tapers from .796" to .802", yet folks almost make a hobby out switching mouthpieces around on a regular basis.
Changing the overall ratio of cylindrical tubing to conical tubing (by removing/adding cylindrical tubing) - at least in my limited experience - changes all sorts of things as much as does anything else.
I also stand by this statement (that I've made in the past, when discussing reasonably subtile changes in instruments - and technical grammar errors aside):
"It's nearly impossible to make a bad instrument play good, and it's nearly impossible to make a good instrument play bad."