| Hi,
Most all the vintage Bb cornets, and some new ones, have long tuning slides so the cornet can be pulled out to the key of "A." My modern Wild Thing "short model" cornet even comes with an ADDITIONAL tuning slide that is longer to accomplish this purpose!
Additionally, most vintage cornets also had some sort of slide stop on the tuning slide so that one could quickly pull the tuning slide out to "A," then stop at approximately the correct pull.
Naturally, if one plays their cornet in "A," the valve slides will also have to be pulled in a ratio of extra length as follows:
2nd valve slide - pull out an extra 1/8-1/4"
1st valve slide - pull out twice as far as the 2nd valve has been pulled
3rd valve slide - pull out the additional length of the sum of the additional pull of both the 1st and 2nd valve slides.
NOTE: Some vintage cornets and trumpets even have the slides marked to show you how much to pull them out!
IF . . . you pull each slide in the correct ratio, the horn will still be in tune in all fingering combinations. If NOT . . . keep experimenting with the correct length of the 2nd valve slide for your horn's additional pull and keep the same ratio I mentioned above for the 1st and 3rd slides.
With a little patience, you can get the horn to play just as well in tune in "A" as it does in Bb . . . once you get the slides pulled the correct amount!
Hope this helps!
Tom |