SubCategory Archive (tags): ‘Modifications’
See the complete archive.European Shank Mouthpieces
Several mouthpiece makers catering to the North American market now produce mouthpieces with a European shank. It is a topic a lot of horn players and teachers still seem somewhat unaware of and is actually quite important to consider depending on the model of your horn. Laskey, Moosewood, and Osmun all make European shank mouthpieces–I [...]
Lawson on Lacquer and on Freezing
I was recently pointed to the Lawson Horns website looking for some information in their print publications on trying mouthpieces and leadpipes, but those do not appear to be online at this time. But there is still some useful information to be found, including notes on the topics of lacquer and of freezing of instruments. [...]
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 [...]
More Debunking the F Horn for Beginners
Occasionally I like to peruse Google Patent Search, looking for cool and far-out concepts in horn design. A complete article last year uncovered some interesting designs. A recent find is Patent 6207884 from the year 2000 – a single B-flat French horn designed with an adjustable valve lever cluster. I like this sentiment of this patent very [...]
From the Mailbag: My Water Key is Worthless
QUESTION: I must be a total idiot, but I cannot get my spit valves to work on any horn I have tried. It seems that if I wait until I have “water-noises”, then open one or both valves and blow soft, medium, or hard, then it doesn’t seem to work. I end up with water [...]
A Bell Front Descant Horn?
One thing I do is periodically look over the search terms that bring visitors to this blog. This time of year the numbers of searches for “mellophone” pick up a lot. The last few years have seen a number of positive developments for the mellophone due to DCI money but even the best instruments have [...]
A Strap-on Fhrap (TM) for Your Horn
For some years I have used a version of a strap or flipper or duck’s foot on my horn. While the other straps I have used have had a button that soldered onto the horn to hold it in place, there is a version that just straps on the horn with Velcro. I finally purchased [...]
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