The Maalouf family

Review of Nassim Maalouf's Improvisations Orientales Video: La trompette arabe de Nassim Maalouf (non-French speakers are advised to watch up to ~4:00) His son, Ibrahim Maalouf "is noted for playing Arabic music with quarter tones on the trumpet, which is a rare skill, pioneered by his father and Don Ellis in the 1960s." Also review. They play a microtonal four-valve trumpet, with a fourth valve played by a left index finger. There are not a whole lot of close-up pics, this is the best I could find (youtube). I did find an article on trumpet modifications, tho.

The omnitonic horn

Wagner tuba vs euphonium

A few subcontrabass instruments

Buescher 400 trumpet

The other of my two main horns at the moment, the first being Holton Collegiate.

Buescher Company was active in the first part of the XXth century and is primarily known for their saxes. They made pro trumpets, as well, but these never developed a cult and so are less desirable and cheaper than vintage Martin Committees or top of the line Oldses.
"The 400" is actually a name, and based on early Buescher ads, it's a reference to the 400 elite of New York, "supposedly the number of people Mrs William Backhouse Astor, Jr's ballroom could accommodate." @
It's a nice horn, dating to 1938 - much like this, but more beat up. It cost me about $130 on eBay and it took another hundred in repairs to return it to a playing condition. I had it since July but it took a little while to get it up to speed. Cosmetically it is still imperfect, with silver plating coming off at the pistons, but the valves are fast and smooth, the response is excellent, and the upper register is quite easy. There are indeed some subtle "Art Deco" touches, like the shape of the pistons, that make it a distinctive and cool design.

Ultimately, a lot about the horn sound and feel depends on the mouthpiece. I tried my Holton 24 deep V, but it felt really strange. The notes higher than top-of-the-staff G completely deteriorated. Maybe this is because some trumpets (like my Holton Collegiate?) are supposed to "slot tight" and can tolerate hard-to-control mouthpieces, whereas Bueschers "slot loose" and need a mouthpiece that is easier to control. I tried a 7C, but eventually settled on a vintage HN White Equa-Tru.
First I was using a 32 (medium), but then got an 11 (deep) and use that now. Equa-Tru's show up on eBay quite often; usually they are 32s (their "default," I guess). I wouldn't mind getting a 34 shallow, but more for collecting purposes; I dislike shallow mouthpieces.

I also bought a genuine Buescher mouthpiece, but eBay mp purchases are always a shot in the dark - it turned out to be an extra-shallow "screamer" that ended on a shelf.

I came across some old issues of Jacob's Orchestra Monthly on Google Books, was looking through the 1918 issue, and suddenly stumbled on a full-page ad for my Couturier mellophone. Now I know what falling through a crack in the time-space continuum feels like.

I have to say that "perfect intonation" is a bit of overstatement... but it might be a little too late to complain.

Mute point

Possibly the first trumpet mute ever, 1865.
[CORRECTION: of course not. A wooden trumpet mute is mentioned in 1813 Musikschule, next entry. This is possibly the first patent for a mute.]
http://www.google.com/patents/US51363

"In all musical instruments, such as are usually made of brass or German silver, and comprised under the general term of brass instruments, it has heretofore been a great annoyance for the neighborhood, if a person commences to practice on such an instrument. The sounds produced by unpracticed persons are really distressing. It has, therefore, been a great desideratum to have what is termed a mute, that is to say, a device which will deaden the sound without altering the tune."

Bookmarks

On the invention of the valves; also Why Was the Valve Invented? as a source material

Deliberate practice

Long cornets

On development of long cornets, from Joel Treybig, A Cornetist’s Perspective on Stravinsky’s "Histoire du Soldat" International Trumpet Guild Journal, Oct02(49)

It is interesting to note that Histoire was composed at a time when the cornet was an instrument undergoing constant changes in construction and design, particularly by American makers. During the first 30 years of the twentieth century, there was a general shift away from the “short” shepherd’s crook model instruments toward longer cornets, some wound in as many differing manners as one can imagine. Some of these instruments maintained shepherd’s crook bells of varying degrees while other models did away with them completely. A 1917 article from Holton’s Harmony Hints underscores American virtuoso Herbert L. Clarke’s ideas for developing a longer model cornet:

He did not favor the long model cornet because it did not have the real cornet tone. Clarke admitted the long model cornet had some qualities that were good, but generally speaking, the tone was too broad – it lacked the compactness and solidity of tone which a cornet should have. He argued (and rightly too) that a cornet was an entirely different instrument than a trumpet and should not possess the tone characteristics of the trumpet. It seemed that band instrument manufacturers catered more to style rather than to concentrating their efforts in perfecting a genuine cornet.
The old style short model cornet had the tone, but as all cornet players know, it was out of tune – and did not have carrying power. The long model, he found, could be built in tune and had carrying power, but it did not have the tone quality he was looking for.
The thing to do was to build a cornet that combined the best qualities of the two – a cornet that would be in perfect tune, had carrying power and a tone of great solidity and compactness – of immense volume – brilliant, yet with a mellow sustaining quality that kept away from both the Flugel Horn tone and that of the trumpet – a tone belonging distinctively to the cornet.

The Holton-Clarke model cornet that was produced was at first made with a slight shepherd’s crook, then later with a standard long-bell. To judge a cornet solely by its bell crook would be to use a very cursory criterion. Rather, the flare of the bell, the flare of the tubing, the depth and shape of the mouthpiece, and the bore of the instrument all have much greater bearing on the production of a characteristic cornet tone. It is a disservice to consider such long-bell model horns as being inauthentic or inferior, as many were high quality professional models produced by such companies as Bach, Buescher, Conn, Holton, H.N. White’s (“King”) Martin, Olds, and York. While such horns were not a part of the early brass band tradition, they were widely used by American cornet players and in many American bands for many years. In fact, long-bell cornets were used and promoted by such important players as Vincent Bach, Gerard Schwarz, Frank Simon, Leonard Smith, Walter Smith, Del Staigers, Ernest Williams, and jazz players such as “Wild” Bill Davison and Nat Adderly, among others.
Later cornets often added throw rings on the adjustable valve slides, to help the player compensate for pitch problems inherent in trumpets and cornets.
____

Incidentally, it's worth noting that the ITG Journal claims the archives are only available to members, but almost all back articles can be found through Google search - and they certainly have a wealth of materials.

The human factor

The reason for the investigation of the long cornet history (next post) is a Holton-Clarke cornet I recently bought. "Wound in as many differing manners as one can imagine" is right - that thing has a very strange-looking s-shaped wrap to the tubing past the leadpipe, with no less that two "tuning slides" - one a true tuning slide and another a key change slide. Holton-Clarke seems to have been a professional model, good quality instrument, reasonably abundant on eBay and thus pretty cheap - I wonder why it is not touted as a sleeper? It seems to be very dependent on the right mouthpiece, though: I tried a few and was very unhappy with the sound I was getting; the right one seems to be the one it came with - a shallow Holton Revelation 72. It sounds very bright, not much like a cornet, but the deep mouthpieces I tried (including a Conn EZ Tone that also came with it) just don't work too well. I think there was a change in the mouthpiece shank length standard around 40s or 50s, this instrument set up for the old, shorter ones.



But the interesting part is something else: I found a handful of medals inside the case: Illinois Grade School Band Assoc. - "Ensemble," "Concert," "Solo." There are small inked numbers on the backs of the ribbons - 63, 64, then two more medals without dates but with IHSA - high school, I assume. Looks like the kid was quite invested in the instrument. I wonder if he got a new one for college and left this one behind together with the trophies, or just stopped playing altogether? He shouldn't be that old, either - finishing middle school in '64 makes him just over 60...

More gear history

From Arbuckle's Complete Cornet Method (~1880?).

THE CROOKS OR PIECES TO ADJUST THE TONE OF THE INSTRUMENT.
With each Cornet are furnished several crooks and pieces, or bits, to put the instrument into different keys, viz: the smallest straight piece marked Bb; the longest piece marked A; the smallest crook Ab; the next largest crook G; and the longest crook F. In England we seldom make use of any other than the two straight pieces, Bb and A, the proper Cornet tone being confined to those two keys, and the two smaller crooks, Ab and G. In France and other countries, however, they write for the F Cornet, and sometimes as low as E and Eb; the Cornet then becomes, in fact, a valve trumpet. The most desirable keys for the learner to use are the A and Ab.

TUNING THE VALVES OF THE CORNET.
Attached to each valve is a slide for the purpose of tuning the valve, when it is necessary to crook the instrument in any other key than Bb. The middle, or shortest valve, is never moved for any key not lower than G. You will perceive by the table, page 10, that [E above middle C] can be played with an open note or the first and second valves. To tune the first valve, sound the open note E, and then press the two valves down and sound the same note; if it accords with the open note, the first valve is in tune; if not, move the slide of the first valve until it does accord. As the third valve is equivalent to the first and second valves, it can be tuned in the same way; or, after tuning the first valve, you will perceive in the table, page 10, that the first and third valves produce the sound [middle G]. Sound the open note, and then press down the valves, and by moving the slide of the third valve make it accord in the same manner as before.

Also, a Conn and Dupont Four-In-One cornet designed to play in Eb, C, Bb, and A, and a patent for it - the forerunner of the Victor's pitch-adjusting system.

A complete assessment of a vintage horn by Tom Turner

There are some things that could have happened to your trumpet through the years that could contribute to the horn becoming even more stuffy, tight, and harder to blow. I'll list them below:

1. MOUTHPIECE TO RECEIVER GAP PROBLEMS
-- Some mouthpieces of that era used different diameters and tapers to the mouthpiece shank.
-- Additionally, even if your current mouthpiece's taper is correct, the receiver may be worn (probably from years of someone twisting in the mouthpiece or accidentally cramming the mouthpiece in the receiver and reaming the receiver out). This would cause a loss of gap.
When the correct gap is not maintained or attainable, it can really screw up how a horn plays. Take it to a good technician for analysis.

2. WORN OUT VALVES
If the valves leak due to being worn out, the horn will "go away" on the lower octave notes particularly and become much harder to play.
Again, a good technician can make sure your valves have decent compression. If they don't, the valves still CAN be rebuilt! Again, the technician can guide you in this direction. The retail cost would be about $100 per valve (possibly less)

3. MISALIGNED VALVES
Alignment felts shrink, harden and wear out! If the up and down stroke alignment is not precise the horn will play stuffy and even the intonation of notes can suffer.

4. LEAKY SLIDES AND/OR SPIT VALVES
It is amazing how many old horns now have leaky slides that kind of fit loose in a horn. And sometimes a spit valve key will be misaligned or even have bad, leaky cork.

5. STRESS PROBLEMS
If a horn is ever dropped and damaged, stress can be introduced to the horn that can totally prevent the horn from blowing free and easy! Some technicians make quick dent repairs but fail to disassemble all the parts in the area where the tubing got bent out of shape.
Horns are assembled new WITHOUT STRESS. Each part simply fits perfectly into the other without being forced into place to cause stress. It is very important that the horn NOT have any restrictive stress where bent and now ill-fitting pieces are under tension and pressure from the accident.
Again, the horn can STILL be disassembled and PROPERLY repaired so that all parts again are not under stress then the horn is reassembled. A Stress-free horn will sing but a horn with stress will be harder to play.

A NEW LEADPIPE?
I wouldn't do that until the above mentioned areas of common symptoms is professionally accessed. If all these potential problems are fixed, and the horn is still hard to blow there are two choices:
1. Leave it alone and enjoy it as what it is - a very old trumpet from a bygone era when the predominant trumpet design might still be a "peashooter."
2. Put another leadpipe on the horn that you've tested against other variances in leadpipes until you find the exact taper that makes the horn play as you like. However, by this time you'll have a lot of money tied up in a small bore trumpet that was known to be a bright-sounding trumpet anyway.

HEAVY VALVE CAPS?
This might tighten the slots a little, and MIGHT darken it a little, but this would be something that I wouldn't think would give you the best results overall. Heavy caps can just as easily lock down the slotting TOO MUCH.
Here's a cheap way to test if heavy caps will matter:
Take at least the lower valve cap with you to a local plumbing supply company and find a heavy, BRASS washer with a hole in it's center that is only slightly smaller in outer diameter than your valve.
Place it in your THIRD VALVE lower cap, slightly to one side all the way so that when you tighten your lower THIRD VALVE cap the washer will snug itself firmly between the bottom of the valve's casing and the lower cap. This, in essence, turns your conventional cap into a "heavy cap."
The washer won't cost more than a quarter or so, and is just as effective as the expensive heavy caps, IMHO.

WHY ONLY ONE 25 CENT HEAVY BRASS WASHER?
OK - since they are cheap, go ahead and get TWO. The second valve virtually never benefits from a heavy cap anyway, but the first valve SOMETIMES.
On most horns, a single washer on the third valve will tighten the slots a little. On a few horns, just a single washer on the FIRST valve slide will do the trick. On a very tiny number of horns, a combination of washers (or expensive heavy caps) on BOTH the 1st and 3rd valves will be the ticket.
Frankly though, if a horn is properly designed and in perfect playing condition, heavy caps WILL change things slightly, but NOT in a good way!!! This is because heavy caps can, and will also make the horn less responsive to play (in order to tighten up the slots - and as a by-product of killing some of the overtones).
If slots get too tight it becomes hard to do glissandos, rips and falls for jazz work.
As I said, most successful horns don't need heavy caps, for they were properly designed to balance the blow requirements perfectly so the slots would be tight enough for legit work, but loose enough for jazz.

Keep in mind though: ANYTHING one changes on a trumpet will also almost always make a CHANGE in how the horn blows or sounds - thus the popular after-market items available. HOWEVER... different is not always - or even slightly - better in the long run.

Conn Victor New Wonder

Brass instruments are such a great collector's item for several reasons:
- Commercially produced trumpets have been around for over a century, which is a long time - twice as long as electric guitars, for instance.
- If they are not abused, they last a long time - there are plenty of functional instruments from the 50s and 40s and quite a few from the 20s. The cutoff seems to be around 1915 - stuff that's earlier than that and still functional in any sense of the word is exceedingly rare.
- Many are reasonably abundant, having been made by thousands, and thus not exorbitantly expensive - this depends on what one collects, of course, but there is plenty of interesting stuff that does not cost an arm and a leg.
- There are plenty of technical challenges in making and playing brass, and in a century of development, a lot of smart people working on them came up with a variety of solutions. Some are ingenious and some are just kooky; some stuck but many fell by wayside... Now only the very-highest profile makers like Monette dare to experiment and be different; in the golden age of brass every company tried to be original and inventive.


Conn 80A (Victor AND/OR New Wonder) is a perfect fit for all of the above. They are good vintage horns, made between about 1915 and the 60s. They have a whole range of experimental features: the "opera glass" tuning slide behind the first valve, a "quick-change mechanism" ("a system whereby the slides connected to the valves are automatically pulled out the correct amount when the main tuning slide is pulled out to A"), and two sets of slides, LP/HP (for low pitch of A=435 / high pitch of A=457, see "Musical Pitch and International Agreement" by Weinstein in TAJIL as reprinted here). There is also an adjustable valve spring gadget inside the pistons that allows to regulate the spring tension - not visible, of course, but still interesting and AFAIK not implemented by anyone else.


I was fortunate enough to get one last December. Mine is from 1918 and seems to never have been through a serious repair; no major dents or anything; everything is in place and working - key-change thing, high-pitch slides, even a mute seems to be original. It came with a mouthpiece that's an exact replica of the one I am using on my trumpet - a deep V cup Holton - which makes it easier for me to switch back and forth. I think the bore is .484 (one of the largest-bore cornets ever, they say), and the sound is massive; it plays real nice and easy all the way to the top. The biggest problem is the one you would expect: valve wear. It is still playable and above the middle G it's hardly noticeable, but as you descend, the attacks start to deteriorate, and it takes a long time to warm up on it. I kept reading about leaky valves and wondering what those are - now I know...


(Most of the) quick-change mechanism is visible in the pic above. Small shafts on the tuning slide pull on the system of levers that pulls out each of the slides by different amounts, keeping the horn in tune. I don't often switch to A, although it does happen - mostly on occasions of impromptu jams in guitarist's favorite keys. The sound of this thing is already as dark as it can be without trespassing into the French horn territory, and when in A, it gets even more so, maybe even too much...
I did not shoot the extra "high pitch" slides as they are pretty much useless and just sit in the case.
Incidentally, the present value of A=440Hz was officially standardized across the European nations by a provision in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, so in a way, this instrument became conceptually obsolete at birth.



Grammar nazi says: I hate it when people call cornets "coronets".

WTF of the day

This is the second time I am seeing a contraption like this. The device in the picture above was sold on eBay without much info to go with it (i.e. "belonged to my grandfather, don't know what it is" or some such). I assume eight keys on this one are equivalent to a major scale.
I saw a similar instrument on shopgoodwill.com previously, except it had thirteen keys, arranged in a vaguely piano-like pattern (i.e. eight "white" keys on one side, five "black" on the other); not much info there, either. The absence of slides is also notable.
I am completely lost as to what this could be and how it is supposed to work... was it made for creatures with eight fingers on one hand and thirteen on the other?

Brass by mail

We were at our friends the other day and got to flip through a reproduction of a 1900 Sears Roebuck catalog, full of puzzling and amusing retro marvels. The fashion section all bristling with mustaches, the medical pages with a $0.75 "Reliable Cure For the Opium And Morphia Habit" and "vegetable cure for female weakness," livestock section with unspeakable contraptions for embryotomy (real word) and deballment etc.etc. And then I got to the musical instruments, which had me completely mystified. The picture above (from Horn-u-copia) is not from the 1900 catalog, but has most of the items. What a marvel of variety! Eb cornet, Bb cornet, C cornet, solo Eb alto, circular alto, bell-up alto, Bb tenor, Bb baritone, Bb bass, Eb bass, Eb contrabass, and any number of trombones.

Now, it took me forever to figure out the brass nomenclature, but I thought I had it sorted: Bb piccolo and a variety of high trumpets in D, Eb, F, A - Bb cornet or trumpet - Eb alto/tenor/mellophone (UK vs US terminology) - Bb baritone/euphonium (one octave below trumpet) - Bb tuba (two octaves below trumpet) - Eb tuba. Now the catalog is messing it up. What the hell is a Bb tenor? Is it the same Bb as baritone, but smaller bore? then why is it grouped with alto? Or is it an octave below trumpet and baritone yet another octave lower? That seems unlikely, given there is is also a bass (another octave lower) and a contrabass, which should boldly cross the lower human perception limits and also be pretty damn hard to play.

Another mystery is - why did all they all go extinct? They used to be common enough to be put in a catalog with bicycles and women's fashions. Now, I doubt one in a thousand even knows the word mellophone or can identify a baritone by name; not even musicians recognize it in my hands. Horn-u-copia also has a pdf with Sears catalog scans spanning 1897-1963, and you can clearly trace the rise and fall of brass. 1908 page has the most variety. Several trumpet models appear in 1927, but alto, baritone and bass are now confined to a footnote and "are unmailable", there is no tenor, solo alto, or contrabass. In 1937 there is but one trumpet, one cornet, and one trombone, ditto 1956 and 1963. What a loss!

PS: A mystery revealed! From Bob Beecher site:
The tenor and the baritone horn were both pitched in Bb (B-flat). Studying illustrations from early makers' catalogs, they also appear about the same size, except that the tenor horn has slightly narrow tubing - or a smaller bore - and a quicker flare at the bell. These differences affect the timbre of the instrument, giving the tenor horn a brighter sound. So, although it may play in the same range as the baritone, the tenor horn will not sound quite the same. Somewhere along the way, the names Tenor and Baritone Horn evolved into Baritone and Euphonium, respectively.

I don't want to turn this blog into a freak show, but this is too good to pass up:

A carved wooden French horn:



The inquiring minds want to know - how does it play? The maker speaks:
not very good to tell you the truth. It marginally worked, and the valves do register different notes. As I build more instruments and experiment with different woods, I imagine I will eventually discover a combination that makes it sound better. But just refining my technique so I can build them with thinner tubes makes a big difference on sound.
He also made a semi-playable wooden trombone and plans for a tuba and a trumpet.

Now, a real instrument - a borosilicate glass trombone:



When the saints... on the glass trombone. He say, that the glasstrombone is difficult to play and takes a lot of air - sounds good though!

Josef Lidl rotary flugelhorn

I think this horn ended up costing me at least three times its real price, and probably more. It was an impulse eBay buy, and then "just needs a little oil" turned into a $200 valve repair. On top of that it has a European-size lead pipe, needing a special mouthpiece - trumpet shank, but shorter (of course it came with a wrong one). So, custom-cut conical Parduba mouthpiece (6½ double-cup) = more money. I actually sold my guitar to cover the repairs. Even then it's not perfect - the intonation is uneven, I have to keep the third slide pulled halfway out.

Nonetheless, I am not bitter. I had it since May and I still cannot get over just how cool this thing is. It used to be lacquered, but now it's all raw brass except inside the bell; large, heavy, awkward, totally steampunk thing - look at the the valves in the last pic. Sometimes I feel like just sitting and quietly holding it in my arms. I used to think I have an incomplete Y chromosome, missing the gene that confers the ability to tell front- from rear-wheel drive... but I guess my gear obsession gene is still expressed, just in a different way.
Good people at Oakland's A&G Repair, namely Brian, replaced the valve springs, cleaned and lubed the whole assembly, so the valves are superfast and supersmooth. I find it easier to play throughout the entire register on this thing than on my trumpet, and I expected it to be the opposite - flugels are notoriously hard to control above the high G. I think it might be the mouthpiece. I read about double cup before and thought it was a gimmick, but maybe not... And, of course, the sound, the sound! deep V mp + extra-wide conical bore = deep, dark, mellow.


A thread on Lidl Flugels on the TrumpetMaster board - people mostly say good things.
Not everyone is happy with Lidls, though:
Of course, there are good rotary trumpets and bad ones, just like with piston trumpets.  I've bought a number of poor ones on eBay, all antiques, mostly from Czechoslovakia. - from Youtube comments

Let the real Slim Shady please stand up

There is much confusion as to nomenclature of the various instruments in different languages. ...most instruments referred to today as flügelhorns are actually soprano saxhorns. @ In truth, the flugelhorn has been extinct for some time. @

...we long ago let the "real" trumpet (the natural trumpet as used in the Baroque Period) be replaced by a soprano valve trombone, and that today's orchestras and bands are missing what could be a gorgeous additional voice, the true trumpet. @

The modern Bb trumpet is not a trumpet... The real Bb trumpet, in fact, is and always has been the Eb contra-alto trumpet whose useable range is identical to the Bb cornet. @

Torricelli’s trumpet is obviously not a ‘real’ trumpet, it is a 2D surface which is described by the equation x²(y²+z²)-1 = 0, x belongs to [1,∞) and can be formed by rotating the curve xy=1 around the x axis by 2π. @

By the way, a bazooka is not only a weapon, but also a wind instrument!

While a trumpet is not only an instrument, but sometimes a weapon:
Musical Instrument Adapted to Emit a Controlled Flame

This trumpet includes a gas cartridge and spark mechanism triggered by the musician. The gas is routed so that a flame is emitted from the bell of the instrument. @ @

Holton Collegiate

My main horn as of right now. I think is is the "original" Collegiate from '62, and not the later T602 model. Repeatedly named as a sleeper on the trumpet discussion boards, so I figured I should check it out. This was an eBay buy of $130 including shipping - all oxidized, missing two finger buttons, broken case etc.etc. I gave it a CLR bath and good cleaning, got the replacement buttons from an online shop that should remain unnamed (took me a month of emails and phone calls to get them to ship it), replaced the spit valve corks and the felt/cork rings, and under the grime and rust it was a sleeper indeed. Great valves, great response. Raw brass; looks like the lacquer was stripped.
Switching from an Olds Ambassador, it felt like my range immediately expanded by a minor third. Later I came to suspect that the top notes on the Olds were so unsteady because I was using a Bach 7C, not the original Olds mouthpiece, which makes it much nicer to play.
With this one I tried a few mouthpieces and settled on a Holton 24 with a deep V cup. It's a mystery gadget I bought by accident, unlisted anywhere and unlike any other trumpet mouthpiece I ever seen. In fact, it looks the most like a vintage cornet mouthpiece; when they talk about getting "the true dark and mellow cornet sound", deep V is usually suggested. I have a Holton 1 mp with the same cup design - a short-shank cornet piece I got with a 1918 Conn that would be a subject of a future posting. It is said that deep V makes the top notes more difficult to control; that is certainly true with some trumpets, but not so much on this one. The high notes may indeed be a little bit harder to control, but the rest of the register gains so much stability and richness of sound, that it's a perfectly worthy trade-off.

I am using an Olds case for the Holton, BTW. They are the same dimensions, but the valves are almost an inch closer to the player on the Holton.
I think I want to try a Holton Collegiate cornet, too.

Double-belled trumpets

Guitar players have their double- and triple-neck guitars, what's a trumpet player to do?
I knew of the double-bell euphoniums and echo cornets, but apparently there are quite a few double-bell trumpets around. Here are videos of Bobby Shew playing his "shewhorn" (and using it very musically, too - two bells indeed sound like two horn players trading phrases) and Herb Alpert with his two-bell instrument.

In addition to obvious designs like shewhorn's bell-on-the-side and Marco Blaauw's trumpet with an extra Dizzy-style upturned bell, there is also Courtois "bell-over-bell" system (not sure how it works, though).
Ben Neill has a three-bell "mutantrumpet" stuffed with electronics.

Check out these sax-shaped two-bell things.

And finally...

...beat this, guitar boys!

Trainspotting

I took my kids to Musee Mechanique today, "one of the world’s largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines". Jukeboxes are cool! Also, they have dioramas in a range of sizes and degrees of complexity - some really crude and some rather fancy and elaborate, with many characters and scenes. There was a diorama of a fair, with shooting gallery, an acrobat, concession stands, freak show, Ferris wheel, and a brass band. I snapped it with my phone.



The quality is regrettable, but still you can see: four clarinetists on the left of the conductor, four trumpets - notably, not cornets - on the right (only three are visible in the pic), then in the back row - flute, snare drum, bass drum, sousaphone, euphonium, tuba, two trombones, and in the middle no less than three mellophone players! These are not French horns, since they are played with right hand and the left one is not in the bell.

Why would you have both a sousaphone and a tuba?

Couturier mellophone

Last year I wanted to get me a new instrument. Window-shopping for trumpets is no fun - they all look the same. But then I came across one that is different: a Couturier Conical Bore Bb/A Trumpet. I was really fascinated: conical bore, takes a cornet mouthpiece, and especially the Bb-to-A switch valve... But when it came, somehow we did not click. I cannot explain it well, I just did not like it enough (maybe just not enough to pay $700) - so it went back.
Around that time I put in an eBay search filter for "Couturier," and one day a mellophone in Eb came up. Now if the trumpet is unusual, this thing's freak factor is off the scale. I could not resist. It cost me $100 including shipping, and I spent 75 more fixing it: frozen slide, broken water key, mouthpiece replating. I think the repair people were rather puzzled as to who would want an instrument like that and why.
One thing with the Couturier instruments - conical bore means none but the tuning slide are removable. OTOH, the inclined design means all the oil, spit, and grease goes directly into the slides and accumulates there. I had to soak and clean it out three times before it lost that godawful smell; the cleaning was rather tricky too - getting the snake into the slides from inside the pistons etc. Now it's perfectly playable and indeed rather nice. The only problem is it's missing a case. My wife tossed out the original case for it stank out the house and was really beyond salvaging. The french horn cases are expensive and don't fit too well.

So, how does it play? I think it plays great. It does sound like a horn - maybe not exactly, but much more like a horn than an oversized Eb trumpet. It could be the overall "horn" shape and the conical bore, but also the mouthpiece, which is a lot closer to the horn V-shape than to a regular trumpet mouthpiece. Above the staff the notes get rather tricky - G is OK, A is difficult.
I wasn't sure what to play on it, though. I did a two trumpets/mellophone/baritone arrangement of Bach's Durch Adam's Fall and practiced the horn line for a bit. Now I am thinking it will work great with the real horn repertoire; I think I'll try Mozart's horn concertos.
Mozart's manuscript contains bizarre scatological comments addressed to the horn player - can you beat that?