Posted by me on September 22, 2003 at 18:33:34:
recently i've been practicing a lot with a mute in my horn. when i take it out my sound is great. has anyone ever thought about buying a brass section in a marching band/drum corps a set of mutes. let the kids play with them for band camp and a lot of rehersal before they ever take them out. the sound would be so much better without overblowing. then they could use them sometimes in practice just to keep the sound up. an extra bonus is that it increases the weight of the horn by a lot. i know drum corps have put ankle weights on horns before to make it seem easier to hold the horn at attention later. just my couple of ideas i came up with today.