Why Rotary???

You can't 1/2 valve on a rotary, can you?

I know people like them for the 'darker' sound they make but, personally, unless I was offered an audition for a continental orchestra (ah, what a thought), I wouldn't get one.

 

My picc has a rotary valve block from a scherzer. The travel of the levers is about half the distance of travel on a piston valve - which facilitates very smooth and rapid playing. Also the passage of the air through a rotary valve is much smoother than through a piston. Each rotary valve is identical internally and all the valve slides are in the same plane as the main tube. I think this leads to less resistance (and less variation in resistance) than with a piston valve block.

 

Sitting here listening to Claudio Roditi on his CD called "Milestones" a rotary Bb trumpet, I cannot believe the POP that he can get out of it. On "I'll remember april" he really lights up the horn. Then on some medium tunes, it sounds more like a flugelhorn or even a flumpet. He sure can move those valves. He does some really quick turns and such that make me wonder if ever I could do that on my piston Bb. I am also told that Claudio will play his rotary in a big band section and blend well with everyone......
I think that he can do all of this because of how he can play.....the rotary trumpet just augments the great sound that he already owns....awesome! 8)

 

I've been playing a rotary-valve C trumpet, and there is something really unique about the rich dark sound that it gets (I use a very deep V-cup mouthpiece with it - as per Philip Smith's suggestion on his "Orchestral Excerpts" CD). Maybe it has something to do with the valve section, having been placed very close to the mouthpiece, which puts the first harmonic node in the bell section. Also, the different "sliding" rotary action causes trills to have a lovely baroque quality. I have to say, though, that these little differences make it a thrilling horn to play, at least for me.

 

I played 5 different rotaries this past week (two of them Bach's, the rest I don't remember). Like all of the other rotaries I've played before, the tone is absoluetly gorgeous and the intonation in the first octave is perfect, but after that, the intonation really gets out of whack. Could it have been the mouthpiece I was using, or are they all like that?

 

I've got a Monke Herseth C that I use occasionally, with a Breslmair G1 and I get a big rich dark round sound out if it also.

I believe that the rotary sound blends with an orchestra better then a piston trumpet. It sort of sits "in" the orchestra instead of cutting above and through. Pease, no flames. I'm not saying one is better then the other, just saying that is the way I perceive the difference in the sound.

Marty