Raising pitch of a euph slighly


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Posted by Urbie Watrous on March 27, 2003 at 11:04:30:

I just acquired a Holton 185 euph (a pretty good 3-valve horn; old, but similar to their current B601), and used it on a jazz gig last night. The intonation is good, but I had trouble getting my pitch quite up to 440 (assuming the pianist's digital rig was set to standard pitch, which I think it is). With all the slides pushed in, I was right about on, except on one or two partials, which were ever-so-slightly flat.

If I wanted to raise the pitch of this horn a few Hz, what's the easiest/best way to do it? I hate to mess with a horn I just got, but wondered what would be the result if I milled down my mouthpiece shank a shade, so it would go 1/4" or 1/2" further into the horn. That reduction in horn length is probably all I need to get the horn in tune with the band, and it would seeem a better alternative than hacking up the horn (e.g. cutting the main tuning slide or some such). But I've never tried something like that.

What do you usually do, in such a situation?

Urb


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