Nickel Silver and Horns

One question that comes up periodically is that of what nickel silver is and why some horns are made of nickel silver and some of brass. Silver musical instruments are seen fairly often outside of horn actually but normally they are brass that has been plated with silver. Nickel silver is a different material that in brass instruments is not often seen outside of the horn world.

To understand nickel silver you have to first know what brass is. Brass is an alloy or mixture of copper and zinc. The Wikipedia gives a good overview on brass, noting in their first sentence that “Brass is any alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.” A wide variety of alloys are listed in their article. In terms of horns made since WWII the most common type of brass is yellow brass. According to the Wikipedia again, “Yellow brass is an American term for 33% zinc brass.” Before WWII things were not as standardized.

Nickel silver is similar to brass in that it is an alloy of copper and zinc but with nickel added to the mixture. Returning to the Wikipedia, “Nickel silver, also known as German silver, paktong, new silver or alpacca (or alpaca), is a copper alloy with nickel and often zinc. The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc.”

But that is just the Wikipedia version; there is a bigger picture. There are many types of nickel silver and if you look you can tell that different horn makers use different types of nickel silver or even over a period of years have used different grades of the material. See for example this big list of types of nickel sliver, with most alloys listed having 65% copper but from 10-18% nickel.

What it all impacts in practical terms for us as horn players is sound, look, and ease of construction.

In terms of construction, I have been told it is harder to make a horn out of nickel silver–the material is harder to work with–and also the raw materials needed are less available in small quantities. This is why nickel silver horns are usually factory made items and also they are often slightly higher priced than the brass version of the same horn.

In terms of look, they look different! I personally especially like the look of the patina of an older, unlacquered nickel silver horn and grew up around nickel silver horns. Some however just by looking at it know they don’t like the sound of a nickel silver horn. There are some strong viewpoints out there.

In terms of sound actually nickel silver is brighter. But this observation only holds up if all dimensions of instruments being compared are otherwise the same. If you made a horn with a small bell throat out of nickel silver it would sound rather bright and shrill; making this horn out of brass rounds out and darkens the sound. By the same token, a large belled instrument made out of brass can sound dull and colorless while if made of nickel silver it will have a bit more life. This is why nickel silver works well on large bell instruments such as the Conn 8D.

To further expand on the last point, Richard Merewether had some great comments on the topic that were cited in this prior post. Read more there, but the money quote is the following.

The writer feels no doubt after many years concerned with nickel-silver horns of every size and make, that this metal distinctly brightens and ‘condenses’ the tone, affording in addition a sound-spectrum of shrill overtones. A contrary opinion for many years existed in America, where it was held that nickel-silver brought a so-called ‘dark’, rich sonority to horns. The reason for this is that the instruments in that metal which became widely available there were of very much wider bell-taper than the medium ones they had been used to until that time, and naturally seemed richer in sound; this was wrongly ascribed to the alloy rather than to the instruments unfamiliar contour and response.