Posted by Klaus on October 25, 2002 at 08:24:08:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Symphony helicon posted by Kenneth Sloan on October 24, 2002 at 22:33:41:
Be warned! Long posting:
Dave H has described the bit to receiver situation on King necks, where your problem for you is the "oversize" neck receiver.
I have been through a parallel situation, as I for years played my smaller brasses through my French horn mouthpiece. That is manageable with anything, that has a trumpet receiver. But I never found a horn-to-cornet receiver.
My temporary solution with all "missing adapter" situations is to take a strip of paper, magazine covers being the best donors, and roll it around the stem.
But for a period I played my Eb cornet so much in band, that I got tired of the paper solution. As I did quite a bit of lay-out work at that time, I could have any number of used aluminium type master sheets from offset printing.
That material worked well, but for the fact, that the chemical reactions with my spit made it erode quite fast.
To get a more stable material I turned to the local club, that builds model replicas of old trains. There I got some strips from a very well annealed copper sheet (0.2mm thick). That was easy to work with and very durable.
I also have worked with brass strips, 0.5mm thick and not annealed. But that material is not flexible enough, so that it is very hard to get a tight seal. At least with my limited set of tools.
Any such solution is less than permanent, but good temporary solutions can let one get the experience, that allows for very precise attempts to get permanent solutions.
Your remark on the stretched octaves make me wonder, whether this is an instrument or a mouthpiece related problem.
I find that there is a little test, that can be done:
The octave most likely to be stretched is the one between the 2nd and 4th partial Eb's. That can be caused by either horn or mpc.
What about these octaves:
Low F (1+3) to middle F (1))?
Low G (1+2) to middle G (open)?
If these two octaves are stretched, then you have a mouthpiece problem. But I find it unlikely, that they are stretched, if no slide pulling is involved.
Honestly I think, that it is the 2nd partial Eb and its fingered derivatives, that are too flat. And that you coming from the BBb tuba have fallen into the very tempting trap, that the "biggest" sound can be found in the lower end of the intonation slots, that these low range notes offer.
Joe S and others have said, that the old US Eb instruments behave at their best, when played with fairly small old style mouthpieces.
I understand that. I started out on my Conn 26K Eb sousa using my Bach 1G bassbone mouthpiece. Passing through some stages involving the Conn Helleberg and the Denis Wick 1L, I 9 years later landed on the PT-50. Which I fell in love with immediately, because it allowed me to control the 26K in a way, that I never experienced on that instrument up till then.
Joe S in any sense of the word is a stronger player than me. He is a pro, where everything shall work with the highest level of security.
I can allow myself another attitude, that is much more Zen like. If I in a relaxed way can warm up through 4 or 5 octaves, play scales in all 12 keys trough 4 octaves, and can play perfectly in tune with my desired sound. And if I can double- and triple tongue my way through things like the Tyrolean song variations in Arban, then that is OK with me.
Your problem, and the problem of us all, is to find out, what type of player each of us are and in which musical environments we want to move around.
I have been in environments, where sound, balance, intonation, ensemble, all coming out of a profound understanding of the music were the marks to be met.
I have been in environments, where the outmost modernity of the repertoire was the goal, and where the actual sound output was a lesser consideration. That ensemble did not survive even if it had many good players.
In my local environment the big stars are players, that can rattle off bunches of notes in very short time. If they are asked about their intonation and their sound, then they point to their instruments, as these aspects are no personal concerns of theirs.
I have heard players say: "This is good enough for jazz!" But try to listen to ensembles lead by Thad Jones and Bob Brookmeyer. They have set some benchmarks, that can only be met by very exacting players.
As usually I was less than precise, but hopefully I have hinted towards some frames of reference for optimising ones personal choices.
Klaus