Posted by Klaus on March 27, 2002 at 11:52:48:
In Reply to: Which Sousas for High School Marching? posted by dmmorris on March 26, 2002 at 15:33:04:
At the bottom of this thread I made a posting on a quite good smaller Conn sousa, that I tried two years ago.
I took the occasion to call the Copenhagen store of Marno Sørensen, where I tested it, to hear, whether it was still there. It was long gone.
With a saying of my country, I might be kicking my own shinbone, but in some ways you US Americans are not all that wise.
Yamaha, Amati, Besson, the French, a lot of Germans, even Orsi of Milan, have tried to build sousas. My terms for some of these attempts would disqualify my posting from this board.
I am a confessed, repeatedly and swashbuckling, owner and player of two Conn sousaphines from the late 20-ties, a 26K 3 valve Eb and a 40K 4 valve BBb.
There is at least one US person, who digs out the treasures of "discarded" instruments in the store rooms of US school bands. And ships them to Europe every time he can fill a container.
According to my ideology you US Americans should make yourself aware of this treasure. By realising, that hardly even the modern US sousas can compare to the old ones.
I know that some German dealers have outsourced their repairwork to Hungarian shops. Why do you not invite East European repairmen to the US? They are trained to make the best out of just about nothing. They might be old-fashioned and might be hard to communicate with. But do not underestimate their skills.
I most certainly appreciate the developments in the best modern instruments, but in some cases the historical instruments are really worth the costs of restoring them.
Klaus