| The "fear" of heavy horns is not fear at all. It is either an opinion without proper substantiated base or for the players that gave them a fair chance, a bad experience in a section. This being said, many of us have had very good experiences with heavy horns and are just tired about getting stupid comments about what people think is best for others-without even knowing what or how they play.
The first condition involves hearsay, jealosy or a firm belief that an expensive trumpet is not necessary (also called Monette bashing on other posts). There are a lot of these people out there and it makes no sense to try and educate them. Just like the argument whether a Porsche or Corvette is better, only people that have in fact seriously tried both for an extended period of time are qualified to answer. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, I am personally only interested in the qualified ones however.
The second condition is dependent on REAL factors - most of which are attributed to "blending" but may be something else. I have played a Monette Ajna 2 since 1998 (a heavy horn by any measure). I play everything from lead in a big band to classical and have had mixed results. Where the second player has a ML bore instrument or a medium to small mouthpiece, I have experienced instances where they say they cannot hear themselves very well. High quality recordings show real no "blending" issues but I believe the "thicker" sound of a heavy large bore trumpet can mask the tone of a "thinner" setup. This hearing insecurity is real for the player with the lighter horn and is probably the genuine issue.
When playing lead, I find the Ajna to be more work than a lighter horn, probably due to the effort involved in trying to thin out the thick sound. A lighter horn fits this sound concept better. Eric Veldkamp has done a great job describing this in other posts. He gave a Monette 993 a fair chance and found his Bach better for what he was playing (jazz band lead for instance).
One other possible reason is the belief that regardless of what horn you play, after a while you adjust and get the same "sound" that you had before. I can prove that each type of instrument has its own "frequency response" and the end result is that each horn sounds different to the audience regardless of what the musician has as a concept. This does not mean that you can't identify the player by his sound, the overtone proportions and "spread" of the sound are dependent on the instrument and the players signature is other factors like smoothness, attack, elegance and only to a certain extent "color". Proof of this is on the Monette website where Manny Laureano plays the current Prana models. He has a super stable sound concept and chops, is in to Monette horns - each trumpet sounds different. |