Your thoughts and input on the new flugels. - Page 2

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:10 PM

trumplyr
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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #10 on: 10/15/2003 at 14:16:36 »

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I have a Kanstall copper bell flugal that I like very much although there is one annoying feature that you may want think about in designing yours. I can't get the water out. It sometimes gurgles like a runaway toilet. Another thing to think about is the ease of using the third valve trigger. Don't kmake the reach so great that you have to alter your left hand position to use it.

I also played a Taylor flugal at a NABBA contest a few years ago. It played very nice, looked superb and the valves were like liquid butter, silky smoothe and fast as lightning. I really wanted that horn, but don't play flugal enough to justify it.

Hope this helps. Good luck with yours.

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:12 PM

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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #11 on: 10/15/2003 at 14:32:54 »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks guy's this is all very intersting stuff!

Keep it coming please

Regards

Leigh

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.eclipsetrumpets.com

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:13 PM

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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #12 on: 10/15/2003 at 19:05:14 »

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A couple of folks have posted in "other forums" how great the Saturn water keys are that are being used by Dennis Wedgewood. Given that flugelhorns seem to have a greater "problem" with condensation clearing, I have to wonder if the Saturn waterkey might not be suited to application on a flugelhorn. Secondly, I'd have no idea whether or not you folks making the Eclipse would be interested in checking it out or could even "get a handle" on buying a batch.

Just a thought. Personally I have big hands so reaching "over the top" isn't an issue. Also I have experience with one (only) flugelhorn so can't even begin to compare "sound", bell material, etc. I just know what I like to hear and what I like is "different" from trumpet or cornet.

By the way, great idea soliciting comments on possible design elements from the "general public". I'd have to guess that's your number 2 marketing tool; number 1 is the quality and attention to detail of you craftsmen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Schilke B1/GR66***
Eterna 800 L/Sparx 4
Jupiter 846L/Jupiter 7
http://www.lcbs.ca

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:14 PM

Horn of Praise
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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #13 on: 10/15/2003 at 21:25:10 »

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Hi Leigh,

Because you "might" make a couple different models:

1) Bell assembly on the left side of the valve cluster.

2) Copper bell.

3) Trumpet valve body for "familiar blow", better intonation, and improved water/spit draining.

4) Slightly smaller bore that won't deflate the lungs of amateurs like me.

All the best.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAUL NELSON
Eclipse White Lightning
Getzen Eterna 900 Classic
Monette B4LD

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:15 PM

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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #14 on: 10/16/2003 at 20:20:31 »

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Hi Leigh. I know we've spoken about my ideas for a flugel in the past but I thought I'd give them a public airing and share my thoughts with this new community.

I was pleased to find that I am not alone in my feelings, in fact I find myself in almost 100% agreement with Horn of Praise (Hi Paul).
In other words, given a clean slate to design a flugel for the 21st century, I would be looking for a radical design in order to try to cure some of the inherent problems with flugels thus far.

First of all, I think it is important to note that the 'classic' flugel shape, with vertical valve slides etc., has only become a standard design fairly recently - go back 50 or 100 years and you will find a miriad of different looking instruments all purporting to be flugels.
I own a couple of beautiful vintage horns myself - one is a Cuesnon from 1898. This is basically in the shape of the modern flugelhorn and I believe it to be a hybrid instrument which came into being when a valve section was added to a french army bugle - this is a short open wrapped bugle with the same size and shape of bell as a modern flugel, not like the short, tightly wrapped english bugle or a cavalry trumpet.
My other vintage flugel is an early 20th century british brass band instrument, a Hawkes & Son Excelsior Sonorous in silver plate with beautiful engraving. This instrument is very similar in design to the instrument featured in the film Brassed Off, which I hope you have all seen. It is wonderfully symetrical and elegant in its design, it has horizontal slides (all on the right of the valves), a reach-over bell and a curved and tapered lead pipe - unlike the simple cylindrical pipe on most flugelhorns.
These are just two examples but I could also mention the rotary valve flugel played by Claudio Roditti or indeed the flugel horn which Miles was using on the Gil Evans projects in the 1950s and 60s.
So to say that unless an instrument has vertical slides it isn't a flugel is - in my humble opinion - rather narrow minded. You might as well say that unless an instrument has the tuning slide on the front bow it isn't a trumpet.

What really decides if an instrument is a flugel or not is the sound.
The sound we try to make ourselves and how we choose to describe it is a matter of taste and perception but commonly used words might be warm, dark, sweet, mellow, pretty, cool, fluffy, breathy, husky, rich, soft, smooth, haunting, smokey, round, sonorous etc...
Personally I would like to be able to make all these kinds of sounds from a flugel - sometimes imitating the noble tones of a french horn, other times making a small sweet core to the note with a fluffy, airy cloud around it, other times making a burning funky phat noise in a horn section ..... and so on.

Maybe I should point out that for me the flugel is a tool of the trade. I NEVER leave home without it in my bag, even though 95% of my work is on the trumpet. I absolutely love playing the flugel, especially for jazz solo work, but it is as a 'doubling' instrument that I use it the most. Very often I will have to pick it up cold with only a few beats rest and begin playing.

This is one of the reasons that I would like the instrument to have horizontal slides and a left-hand bell (like a trumpet). That way I could hold the instrument with exactly the same grip as my regular horn and operate normal slide shunts instead of cumbersome and unfamiliar triggers.

Another advantage with horizontal slides would be the eveness of blow achieved by eliminating the extra resistance caused by the two 90 degree angles whenever you play the first or third valves on a vertical slide flugel.

The main bugbear with most flugels however is the 'idiosyncratic' intonation (they are a b**ch to play in tune) and the extremely vague slots (I know that the bendiness of the notes is one of the things we like about flugels - but sometimes the notes need bending so much to get in tune that they fall off the instrument).

Here I think that the 'Eclipse tunning system' might be the answer. Let's have a fixed and properly tapered lead pipe with a decent reciever and venturi (instead of the crude tube and arbitrary gap we normally find) and move the tunning slide after the valve block. Say a reverse fitting tunning slide on the front bow or, better still, on the back bow - just like the trumpet.
I would go for a small/medium bore through the valves (same stunning valves as the trumpets please - or maybe even shorter throw?) and a bell flare in the classic French style made from a medium weight red brass (nothing too heavy please - maybe 0.6 guage?).
As far as the look of the horn goes I'd trust Leigh 100% to come up with elegant and stunning solutions to the engineering side of things - maybe a few sexy curves here and there - but no fins for me thanks. Oh and it would be nice if it was possible to see past or over the bell to the music/conductor/girl-in-the-front-row...
Well thats about it except to say that I've actually had a dream about playing the first Eclipse flugel. The funny thing is that I can't remember what it looked like, just the way it felt to play - totally hooked up and connected - and the unbelievable sound - like a total dream...

All the best. Noel.

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:17 PM

Horn of Praise
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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #15 on: 10/16/2003 at 23:42:27 »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Noel!!!

You made me feel like I got it right...Wow...I'm dizzy.

All the best.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAUL NELSON
Eclipse White Lightning
Getzen Eterna 900 Classic
Monette B4LD

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:18 PM

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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #16 on: 10/24/2003 at 07:20:12 »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a few thoughts to add to what Noel wrote.

I also have a Hawkes & Son flugel, in raw brass with the valves on the right hand side of the bell. It is the most beautiful souding flugel I have ever heard played.

I think the most important difference between this very old instruments and modern flugels is the bell shape. Modern instruments usually have a very large bell throat and a fast flare. This usually makes them sound more like a trombone than a flugel for my mind. Mine has a much more progressive flare and smaller throat. This makes it much more sweet sounding and in my opinion better!

I'm sure you will make a superb horn Leigh, no matter what format you choose but I think it would be great if you emulated the pre war instruments rather than looking for a radically new way to make a flugel.

C

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Blues aint about makin you feel better, it's about makin other people feel worse! -Bleeding Gums Murphey.

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:19 PM

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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #17 on: 10/24/2003 at 12:37:08 »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Clarino!

Thanks for your input on this one!

Your 100% right as far as i am concerned, we are going back to basics on this one.
The bell shape will be of older design and shape as i believe this shape produced the best sounding flugels(just my opinion of course)
Although we are looking into 2 flugel designs at the moment, so we are not totally set on THE ONE right now.

Regards

Leigh

PS Clarino,, why not come over to the factory to give us the benefit of some test blowing when the instruments are ready for testing?

Perhaps you could tell me what you like what you dont etc etc,,, meet up with noel and henry maybe! could be fun!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.eclipsetrumpets.com

Bruce Lee · 11-10-2003, 06:20 PM

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Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels
« Reply #18 on: 10/25/2003 at 12:04:38 »

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I'd love to leigh! Let me know as soon as they are ready.

Now all I have to do is rob a bank so I can afford one!
Logged

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Blues aint about makin you feel better, it's about makin other people feel worse! -Bleeding Gums Murphey.

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11-10-2003, 06:10 PM	#11 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	trumplyr New Member member is offline Gender: Posts: 27 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #10 on: 10/15/2003 at 14:16:36 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a Kanstall copper bell flugal that I like very much although there is one annoying feature that you may want think about in designing yours. I can't get the water out. It sometimes gurgles like a runaway toilet. Another thing to think about is the ease of using the third valve trigger. Don't kmake the reach so great that you have to alter your left hand position to use it. I also played a Taylor flugal at a NABBA contest a few years ago. It played very nice, looked superb and the valves were like liquid butter, silky smoothe and fast as lightning. I really wanted that horn, but don't play flugal enough to justify it. Hope this helps. Good luck with yours.

11-10-2003, 06:12 PM	#12 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	eclipse Moderator member is offline Gender: Posts: 52 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #11 on: 10/15/2003 at 14:32:54 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks guy's this is all very intersting stuff! Keep it coming please Regards Leigh -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.eclipsetrumpets.com

11-10-2003, 06:13 PM	#13 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	Tootsall Full Member member is offline Gender: Posts: 129 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #12 on: 10/15/2003 at 19:05:14 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A couple of folks have posted in "other forums" how great the Saturn water keys are that are being used by Dennis Wedgewood. Given that flugelhorns seem to have a greater "problem" with condensation clearing, I have to wonder if the Saturn waterkey might not be suited to application on a flugelhorn. Secondly, I'd have no idea whether or not you folks making the Eclipse would be interested in checking it out or could even "get a handle" on buying a batch. Just a thought. Personally I have big hands so reaching "over the top" isn't an issue. Also I have experience with one (only) flugelhorn so can't even begin to compare "sound", bell material, etc. I just know what I like to hear and what I like is "different" from trumpet or cornet. By the way, great idea soliciting comments on possible design elements from the "general public". I'd have to guess that's your number 2 marketing tool; number 1 is the quality and attention to detail of you craftsmen. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schilke B1/GR66*** Eterna 800 L/Sparx 4 Jupiter 846L/Jupiter 7 http://www.lcbs.ca

11-10-2003, 06:14 PM	#14 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	Horn of Praise New Member member is offline Posts: 23 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #13 on: 10/15/2003 at 21:25:10 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Leigh, Because you "might" make a couple different models: 1) Bell assembly on the left side of the valve cluster. 2) Copper bell. 3) Trumpet valve body for "familiar blow", better intonation, and improved water/spit draining. 4) Slightly smaller bore that won't deflate the lungs of amateurs like me. All the best. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PAUL NELSON Eclipse White Lightning Getzen Eterna 900 Classic Monette B4LD

11-10-2003, 06:15 PM	#15 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	noel New Member member is offline Gender: Posts: 15 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #14 on: 10/16/2003 at 20:20:31 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Leigh. I know we've spoken about my ideas for a flugel in the past but I thought I'd give them a public airing and share my thoughts with this new community. I was pleased to find that I am not alone in my feelings, in fact I find myself in almost 100% agreement with Horn of Praise (Hi Paul). In other words, given a clean slate to design a flugel for the 21st century, I would be looking for a radical design in order to try to cure some of the inherent problems with flugels thus far. First of all, I think it is important to note that the 'classic' flugel shape, with vertical valve slides etc., has only become a standard design fairly recently - go back 50 or 100 years and you will find a miriad of different looking instruments all purporting to be flugels. I own a couple of beautiful vintage horns myself - one is a Cuesnon from 1898. This is basically in the shape of the modern flugelhorn and I believe it to be a hybrid instrument which came into being when a valve section was added to a french army bugle - this is a short open wrapped bugle with the same size and shape of bell as a modern flugel, not like the short, tightly wrapped english bugle or a cavalry trumpet. My other vintage flugel is an early 20th century british brass band instrument, a Hawkes & Son Excelsior Sonorous in silver plate with beautiful engraving. This instrument is very similar in design to the instrument featured in the film Brassed Off, which I hope you have all seen. It is wonderfully symetrical and elegant in its design, it has horizontal slides (all on the right of the valves), a reach-over bell and a curved and tapered lead pipe - unlike the simple cylindrical pipe on most flugelhorns. These are just two examples but I could also mention the rotary valve flugel played by Claudio Roditti or indeed the flugel horn which Miles was using on the Gil Evans projects in the 1950s and 60s. So to say that unless an instrument has vertical slides it isn't a flugel is - in my humble opinion - rather narrow minded. You might as well say that unless an instrument has the tuning slide on the front bow it isn't a trumpet. What really decides if an instrument is a flugel or not is the sound. The sound we try to make ourselves and how we choose to describe it is a matter of taste and perception but commonly used words might be warm, dark, sweet, mellow, pretty, cool, fluffy, breathy, husky, rich, soft, smooth, haunting, smokey, round, sonorous etc... Personally I would like to be able to make all these kinds of sounds from a flugel - sometimes imitating the noble tones of a french horn, other times making a small sweet core to the note with a fluffy, airy cloud around it, other times making a burning funky phat noise in a horn section ..... and so on. Maybe I should point out that for me the flugel is a tool of the trade. I NEVER leave home without it in my bag, even though 95% of my work is on the trumpet. I absolutely love playing the flugel, especially for jazz solo work, but it is as a 'doubling' instrument that I use it the most. Very often I will have to pick it up cold with only a few beats rest and begin playing. This is one of the reasons that I would like the instrument to have horizontal slides and a left-hand bell (like a trumpet). That way I could hold the instrument with exactly the same grip as my regular horn and operate normal slide shunts instead of cumbersome and unfamiliar triggers. Another advantage with horizontal slides would be the eveness of blow achieved by eliminating the extra resistance caused by the two 90 degree angles whenever you play the first or third valves on a vertical slide flugel. The main bugbear with most flugels however is the 'idiosyncratic' intonation (they are a b**ch to play in tune) and the extremely vague slots (I know that the bendiness of the notes is one of the things we like about flugels - but sometimes the notes need bending so much to get in tune that they fall off the instrument). Here I think that the 'Eclipse tunning system' might be the answer. Let's have a fixed and properly tapered lead pipe with a decent reciever and venturi (instead of the crude tube and arbitrary gap we normally find) and move the tunning slide after the valve block. Say a reverse fitting tunning slide on the front bow or, better still, on the back bow - just like the trumpet. I would go for a small/medium bore through the valves (same stunning valves as the trumpets please - or maybe even shorter throw?) and a bell flare in the classic French style made from a medium weight red brass (nothing too heavy please - maybe 0.6 guage?). As far as the look of the horn goes I'd trust Leigh 100% to come up with elegant and stunning solutions to the engineering side of things - maybe a few sexy curves here and there - but no fins for me thanks. Oh and it would be nice if it was possible to see past or over the bell to the music/conductor/girl-in-the-front-row... Well thats about it except to say that I've actually had a dream about playing the first Eclipse flugel. The funny thing is that I can't remember what it looked like, just the way it felt to play - totally hooked up and connected - and the unbelievable sound - like a total dream... All the best. Noel.

11-10-2003, 06:17 PM	#16 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	Horn of Praise New Member member is offline Posts: 23 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #15 on: 10/16/2003 at 23:42:27 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Noel!!! You made me feel like I got it right...Wow...I'm dizzy. All the best. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PAUL NELSON Eclipse White Lightning Getzen Eterna 900 Classic Monette B4LD

11-10-2003, 06:18 PM	#17 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	Clarino New Member member is offline Gender: Posts: 11 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #16 on: 10/24/2003 at 07:20:12 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just a few thoughts to add to what Noel wrote. I also have a Hawkes & Son flugel, in raw brass with the valves on the right hand side of the bell. It is the most beautiful souding flugel I have ever heard played. I think the most important difference between this very old instruments and modern flugels is the bell shape. Modern instruments usually have a very large bell throat and a fast flare. This usually makes them sound more like a trombone than a flugel for my mind. Mine has a much more progressive flare and smaller throat. This makes it much more sweet sounding and in my opinion better! I'm sure you will make a superb horn Leigh, no matter what format you choose but I think it would be great if you emulated the pre war instruments rather than looking for a radically new way to make a flugel. C -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Blues aint about makin you feel better, it's about makin other people feel worse! -Bleeding Gums Murphey.

11-10-2003, 06:19 PM	#18 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	eclipse Moderator member is offline Gender: Posts: 52 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #17 on: 10/24/2003 at 12:37:08 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Clarino! Thanks for your input on this one! Your 100% right as far as i am concerned, we are going back to basics on this one. The bell shape will be of older design and shape as i believe this shape produced the best sounding flugels(just my opinion of course) Although we are looking into 2 flugel designs at the moment, so we are not totally set on THE ONE right now. Regards Leigh PS Clarino,, why not come over to the factory to give us the benefit of some test blowing when the instruments are ready for testing? Perhaps you could tell me what you like what you dont etc etc,,, meet up with noel and henry maybe! could be fun! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.eclipsetrumpets.com

11-10-2003, 06:20 PM	#19 (permalink)
Bruce Lee Piano User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS Posts: 463	Clarino New Member member is offline Gender: Posts: 11 Re: Your thoughts and input on the new flugels « Reply #18 on: 10/25/2003 at 12:04:38 » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'd love to leigh! Let me know as soon as they are ready. Now all I have to do is rob a bank so I can afford one! Logged -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Blues aint about makin you feel better, it's about makin other people feel worse! -Bleeding Gums Murphey.

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