Horns I’ve Played

Julia Rose has had the last three days an interesting series in her blog on her evolution in terms of equipment.

I have played a lot of horns. I switched to the horn in high school and first played a school 6D and then an 8D. Soon my parents helped me purchase a Holton H177. In college however my school owned a number of nice horns including four Elkhart 8Ds, and I switched over to a school owned E series 8D and then later purchased a 500,000 series 8D. I played that horn through schools into my Doctoral studies with some work to the horn (cut bell, valve work), then had an opportunity to purchase an early Paxman triple. I loved some things about that horn and it was my primary horn for a while, but after about a year and a half I sold it and purchased a Holton descant and also a Yamaha 667. That was the combination of horns I used when I won the third horn audition in Nashville. After I got tenure there I switched back to the 8D, which by then had been tweaked further with fully rebuilt valves, a Lawson leadpipe, and a Lawson flare (as, at the time, the Nashville section had become mostly Lawson, but when I was hired was mostly Chicago style brass horns). After I left Nashville I noticed that the first branch was caving in on that old (1955) 8D so I went looking for horns again and purchased the Paxman 25A that remains my primary instrument, although I did for several years use a Paxman 83L triple as my main horn, up until late this past summer in fact. This photo is of the 25A when it was shiny and new.

If you see me perform at the Southeast Horn Workshop next weekend I will however be playing on an old model Paxman descant (a “pre-40”). It is a great horn for the Telemann concerto, which is the main solo work I am playing there.

As to mouthpieces, I have played seriously on dozens and I own at least 50 and probably close to 100. I like in Julia’s post that she notes clearly that certain mouthpieces work better on certain horns. There is no one best mouthpiece that works the best on all horns; you have to be open to a little experimentation. Right now I am very happy with my Laskey 80J, if you are looking give the Laskey G and J cups a try, they are great mouthpieces.

UPDATE 2011: At present I have “gone home” to a custom Geyer style horn (similar to the 667) but with a custom copy of a Conn mouthpiece that I kept going back to. A great combination, and I hope the last horn I will feel I need to buy.