Johntpt

Good Morning Manny!

Here on the TM you've discussed the new Schagerls a little bit, but I have some more in-depth questions. How have your thought on playing rotaries changed over the years? I know the when you first joined the MO you used them only reluctantly. I think that the new German C trumpets built by Schagerl, Kühn, and others are much better than the Monkes and Ganters of 20-30 years ago.

With the new Schagerls, do you decide when to use them or do you take the cues from the conductor? Do guest conductors ever suggest the use of rotaries when you might be using the pistons? Do you prefer to use them for entire programs, or do you switch for various pieces? For example, if you were playing the following program:

Brahms Academic
Bartok Piano Concerto No. 2
Schumann Symphony No. 2

would you switch to pistons for the Bartok, or would you just use the rotaries on all the pieces? On the above program if the Schumann was replaced with Shostakovich 5, would you use rotaries on the Brahms, or would you just use pistons on all pieces?

On tours do you "economize" to not have to bring so many horns by playing something on pistons on which you might otherwise use rotaries?

What do you recommend for practicing on rotaries? Does your concept of sound or style change? What else do you do differently on the rotaries? Also, on weeks when you use the rotaries, do you warm up on them or do other practice on them? Do you use the same mouthpiece or do you switch to something deeper or to a German mouthpiece?

Thanks for your stories. Your posts on this site contain some of the best written trumpet articles I've ever read!

JU

Manny Laureano

John,

Great questions... tomorrow afternoon I have off so I'll address them then.

Stand by!

ML

Manny Laureano

Dear John,

I still prefer playing my piston instruments but have learned to acquiesce to my MD's request to play the rotaries. His directive was specifically all classical repertoire and most Austian and German repertoire. We recently played an all Wagner show and used the rotaries all night long at my suggestion. It went just fine. I've learned to make some of the adjustments necessary to make it work.

With guest conductors, we just pretend it's Osmo and maintain the prime directive to play them on that repertoire. It's better that way as we tend to stay connected to them. In a given program we will switch to pistons when I deem it necessary, like for the program you sampled.

On tours we have trunks that are carted around by our staff so we don't have to carry them unless we really want to.

Interstingly, the way to deal with rotaries is to play them ferquently and become accustomed to the sound and intonation and response. There's no other way. I brought them home initially to practice intonation but now it's familiar to me and I know what to do with the bad notes and the ones that are quirky. I play a mouthpiece that is suffuciently deep on a fulltime basis so I don't switch to play the rotaries.

That's the story!

ML

trumpetgirl612

how are rotaries different? i mean playing wise?

i have always wanted to try a rotary horn

Manny Laureano

I'd like to defer to one of our overseas members to give a better, more thorough answer than I could.

Thanks,

ML