Short and Long Tuning Slides

Following up on my recent post on Seasonal Intonation Issues, some of you may have noticed that with the change of seasons you have to move your slides around a bit, especially the main slide. The reason why is because temperature impacts the speed of sound; sound moves more slowly through cold air. As a result if your horn is cold it will play flat, or if it is hot it will play sharp.

Here in Arizona over the summer the indoor temperatures I often practice in are a bit over 80 F and in the winter down toward 65, so I am looking at a temperature difference of more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus I find that my main slide position has to change a good bit from season to season.

As purchased my triple in particular had slides that that to be pulled quite far to be in tune in the summer. I had longer slides made for the horn. The long main slide I later had to shorten a bit, it was too long, but the long high F slide was actually not long enough. Thus the longer high F slide in the photo was made by shifting around slide legs from the first valve slide. Also, while I was working on it, I added the water key.

I almost changed over to the short slides a few weeks ago then it warmed up on me again. We are still hitting daytime highs above 80 degrees F out here in beautiful Arizona! In a week or two it will cool off again and I will switch to the short slides.

One amateur group I used to play in had much better intonation in the winter. I think they thought they got more in the groove or more tuned into each other but I believe it had a lot to do with slide position, the change of seasons, and some of the players keeping their slides the same place all year around. They do move, and you will need to move them to keep your centering feeling the same as the seasons and your performing locations change.