B15M

My daughter is taking the "PSAT" test this morning and I'm up early now and my wife is still sleeping so I thought I would write.

Last night I played a very interesting show. We played Titanic. This was a high school production with about 3/4 professionals in the pit.
Last night was the first night of the show and we never made it through the show in rehearsal. We were playing stuff that we never played before and the kids on stage never heard before. It was amazing how well the orchestra adjusted. About half an hour before the show the conductor passed out a 3 page list of changes. We made all of them in the performance. The big problem was when the kids on stage skipped beats and measures. I was surprised how quickly the orchestra adjusted. The conductor just gave us the new measure number and we were on our way again.

After the show I was thinking about putting my trumpet in the trunk. Then I was thinking, maybe I'll just leave it there and practice today on the C.
It was cold last night. Does that hurt the trumpet? How could it? I didn't do it, it just didn't feel right.

I played the Monette 993 last night and it had the perfect sound for the show. The guy playing second was playing a Bach and the blend was good. Why does it work so well in that setting but not in big band lead? When I played up high the sound brightened up. I was using a B15M STC 3.

On my way home from bringing my daughter to the test I heard the Haydn on the radio. I was listening and thinking about my teacher saying, " eighth notes short, sixteenth notes long." The Guy playing the concerto did it sometimes but not others. I guess on a concerto you do what you want.

If you read this far I'm sure you don't want to hear any more!

Liad Bar-EL

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaawnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Oh! Excuse me. Is it morning yet?

I remember pit work.....they can only see your head and shoulders………………..Hey, who said you could wear pajama bottoms with a tux coat and tie?

I don't remember if I was looking more at the conductor or the music. Depended on what was going on at the time. Nice to have the bars numbered................hey, 2nd trumpet player, wake me up 5 measures before we come in so that I can have time to yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawnnnnnnnnn.

BTW, how did Titanic go?

Liad

brian moon

Leaving your horn out in the cold is not good for it. It won't kill it but it will, ever so slightly, harden it. If you want to find out that this is true or not just leave it in the trunk for the month of February. Then you will know.

B15M

Don't people pay to freeze their trumpets? I don't think the cold can change anything in the brass but, I'm too chicken to try.

tpter1

Yes, they do. But that's a bit of a different process. That's cryogenic freezing, and it's done in such a way that the horn is not damaged (the claim is that it's improved somehow...something about aligning particles or some such thing).

I would never leave my horn in the car. I don't even set the case on the ground.

B15M

tpter1

So would I, B15. So would I. I know that things are done in a different process.

I did a google search on Cryogenic treatment of brass instruments and came up with this:

• ncrease resistance to abrasive wear
• Requires only one permanent treatment
• Changes the entire grain structure of the metal, not just the surfaces
• Refinishing or regrinds do not affect permanent improvements
• Eliminates thermal shock through a dry, computer controlled process
• Transforms most retained austenite to hard martensite
• Forms micro-fine carbide fillers to enhance carbide structures
• Increases durability and wear life
• Decreases residual stresses in tool steels
• Decreases brittleness
• Increases tensile strength, toughness and stability
• Relaxes internal stresses
• Works on new or used tools
• Reduced down time, less maintenance and higher productivity
• Deep cryo processing is compatible with other treatments (TiN, Chrome, Teflon etc.)
• High alloy steel cutting tools stay sharper longer, fewer micro-cracks, less chipping
• Results in the orderly arrangement of crystals, increases internal bonding energy, and achieves a structural balance throughout the mass of the material

which I copied and pased from http://www.cryoplus.com/advantages.html

How is it different from exposing to an overnight temp of 25F? I don't know.

eisprl

Grain structure, thermal shock, austenite, martensite, carbide structures, tensile strength, crystals, bonding energy????

Is it just me? I don't think any normal "Joe shmo" trumpet player would know or even care what all that means? I think one of the only points I understood was "Increases durability and wear life"

Seems kind of sketchy to me

Eric

Liad Bar-EL

Quote:

Originally Posted by eisprl Grain structure, thermal shock, austenite, martensite, carbide structures, tensile strength, crystals, bonding energy????

I don't know Eric if extreme temperatures toward anything or anybody would "increase durability and wear life" or not. Just from some of the concepts you mentioned above like bonding energy, it would stand to reason that, being all metals have different molecule structures, that the led next to the brass and the brass next to any other material in the horn, all the horn materials would react differently in kind thus loosing it's bond in some way even undetectably at first and only showing itself over time. I would tend to think that if one froze a horn enough times that it would become "unfrozen" in some way.

I'm not a metallurgist engineer.

Liad

B15M