gsmonks

Actually, the modern trumpet does sound like a cornet, because it is one. As I said before, most modern "trumpet" players have never heard a real trumpet or a real cornet, and since they've probably only heard modern cornets and "trumpets", which are also cornets, they have no standard by which to tell the difference.

gsmonks

Also, the "big old" trumpets A) never went out of production and B) have never ceased the be the standard in most European orchestras.

Very nice modern horns are made by Egger, Dotzauer, and a good many other companies.

gsmonks

Yes, but . . . Germany was not the only country using them. Yes, F was a very common key, but the three common keys were F, Eb and D, which were analogues of the late-19th early-20th century horn in C, Bb and A. When I was a young player playing symphonic music, we regularly got old music that was in Eb, F and A.

Last stats I read on modern Bb's is that they're around 65%, but there's a lot of variation, including a modern horn made by someone I can't recall off-hand (Monet, maybe?) that's claimed to be totally conical.

There's a lot of complaint about loss of traditional sound, and not just from trumpet players. I play trombone as well, and many players (I readily confess to being one of them) complain about all the conical tubing inserted into the modern horns.

The parallel in brass is what happened to the modern choral sound. Many organisations try their level best to sublimate the sound of the individual voices (the Talis Scholars, for example), which is likewise the aim of many modern brass sections, to the point where some conductors make all players use the same horn and mouthpiece.

I personally think this mentality is misguided, and serves only to drive people away from classical music especially. Makes it even more inaccessible than it already is. Like many musicians, I prefer a raw sound, the sound of individual voices working together, and so on.

We could expand this to a debate about the destructive influence of players like Maurice Andre, who to my mind wrecked the sound of modern brass.

But that's another story . . .

gsmonks

Speaking of Antoine (Adolphe or Adolph) Sax and saxhorns and fluglehorns . . .

As the modern Bb trumpet is actually a cornet, the modern Bb fluglehorn is actually an Infanterie modele saxhorn, and not a fluglehorn.

Here's another little bit of taxonomy for you:

The natural fluglehorn got forward-wrapped and became a type of bugle. That type of bugle was given keyes by Dublin bugle-maker Joseph Halliday, who applied the methods of keyed trumpet makers to bugles. This self-same instrument with rotary valves is the fluglehorn, which is still made by a few companies.

The saxhorns in turn were derived from the valved bugle. Sax made a number of modifications to the original in order to improve intonation and tone. Saxrhorns, however, are not valved bugles as they consist of a mixture of bore-profiles.

gsmonks

Is that horn an Egger? Looks like one of theirs, with the pinkie-key.

I have several old horns, including Stowassers (real ones, not knock-off's).

SteveB

It's a thread that's ear-marked by a Moderator that always remains at the very top of a given forum page (for frequent/popular viewing) . . . . such as the "Vintage Horn Eye Candy" sticky in this particular forum.

__________________
Steve Bolander

Bach Strad 37, Olds Mendez cornet, (2) Olds Ambassador cornets, Gretsch (Couesnon) Pathfinder Bb/A, Getzen Capri flugelhorn, Getzen Eterna 940 piccolo

Bugles Across America

ChopsGone

Well, as interesting as it may be to realize there's another amateur organologist around, GS, I have to ask you to quit saying I don't know what the various instruments sound like. I've attended countless historical instrument performances over quite a few decades. I've collected recordings of authentic instruments. I've studied them, collected them, paid through the nose for blueprints or X-rays of some, played the ones I could. I even raised a kid who is now a middle-aged fixture on the local early music scene - and we have a thriving one here. I know what virtually every instrument sounds like.

Now, about your blessed cornet. Are you really going to insist that the short-lived valved posthorn which temporarily usurped the name of the cornett is the one and only true cornet, and that the cornet a pistons which succeeded it is a freaking trumpet? How long did it take for that posthorn to be pretty much buried - about 40 - 50 years? To me, the height of the cornet era was from approximately the end of the Civil War to the mid-1920's. If the instrument prevailing then as a cornet was good enough for Arban, Clarke, Levy, Kril, and others, it's good enough for me. And I not only know exactly what those sound like, I own some of them. Even worse, GS, I have some reasonably modern cornets which manage to sound the same. There are even people still making ones that do.

__________________
Vintage Olds and Reynolds, yes sir, yes sir, one gazoo full.

Calicchios, Besson, Kanstul Bessons, Selmers, etc.

F.E. forgive me, even a Bach Strad (but I like the others much better)

gsmonks

First off, Chopsgone, I'm not an amateur.

Secondly- let's be civil. I never said that the valved post horn- which is still with us and is anything but shortlived- is the one and only true cornet. I was referring to the taxonomy of the cornet, which goes: French natural post horn, valved post horn, cornopean (aka cornet a pistons), modele anglais cornet, which is a design that still exists today.

I also never said that the cornet a pistons is, in your words, "a freaking trumpet". If you were paying attention, you would see that it is a taxonomic link in the cornet chain.

The cornet era dates back to the 1830's, according to the music and literature, and players 'way back when referred to the cornet ordinaire valved post horn, cornopean and cornet as "cornets". They seem not to have many a distinction between these variations on the instrument.

And, yes, there are plenty of modern cornets that sound just like cornets have always sounded. I never said otherwise. I have said many times that many cornets do not sound like cornets, and here I am referring to models and makers we're all familiar with.

ChopsGone

Cool. Although I've seen your name on hornucopia, I didn't realize anyone could make a living as a professional organologist in Saskatoon. Sorry. As long as we're allowing all the 19th Century instruments which were contemporaneously known as cornets to retain that identity, not just the posthorn and its spawn, we don't really have a disagreement. Well, except maybe about trumpets. They've certainly evolved, but I'm still not ready to say that a shift in the balance between cylindrical and conical tubing makes them cornets rather than simply today's version of trumpets. Look back at old Boston orchestral version cornets, and you'll find precious little conical tubing by comparison with their other cornets, some of which look more like saxhorns/flugelhorns by today's standards. Yet both were, and still should be, considered cornets.

I'm not aware of any prolonged time in the last ca. 300 years of the trumpet at which it was not undergoing some sort of changes. "Trumpet" should be able to encompass the Gansch horn, the natural trumpet, the demilune and inventions trumpets, keyed trumpets, orchestral trumpets of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and even modern Tristar TSOPOS's. Note that some of those had a significant amount of conical tubing compared to something like a 1950's Olds. That doesn't mean we can't have our favorites, though.

__________________
Vintage Olds and Reynolds, yes sir, yes sir, one gazoo full.

Calicchios, Besson, Kanstul Bessons, Selmers, etc.

F.E. forgive me, even a Bach Strad (but I like the others much better)

gsmonks

I do research of various kinds for a living. Brass is something I do mostly on my own nickel. I spent thirty-five-or-so years getting to the bottom of the origins of the mellophone. Some of that was paid research. Having written several novels didn't hurt, either. Grammar and outllines are good discipline (not that many modern writers study either . . .).

When it comes to doing brasswind research, one of the most important disciplines is taxonomy- you need it in order to organise both your research and your findings.

Because biological taxonomy is contingent on the existing state of a living organism, there is the tendency to assume the same principles can't be applied to ideas and musical instruments, but both ideas and musical instruments obey the same rules of taxonomy, because, it turns out, ideas don't occur spontaneously, out of the blue, and are contingent on the existing state of the subject.

Arnold Myers, curator of the Edinburgh University Museum (which houses one of the finest collections of brasswinds in the world) was heading The Brasswind Taxonomy Project, if I remember the title correctly. They've probably published their findings a number of times, now. I haven't had time to check out what they're up to, but in a nutshell the project is a very important one because Arnold and his colleagues set themselves the task of taking a fresh look at brasswinds as a whole, and attempting an impartial categorisation in order to produce a comprehensive model based upon the underlying principles of brasswinds, rather than what they're alleged to be.

The modern "trumpet" is one case in point. The reason Kenton and I decided Horn u copia was a necessary entity was mainly because the literature and the body of instruments was badly out of whack.

For example, I've spent many years and many, many hours going through the prevailing literature and found it to be chock full of false assumptions and outright balogna.

In the case of the modern Bb "trumpet", the first examples appeared circa 1910. Horn u copia allowed us to have a look at everything that was out there, and the physical record showed us a number of things that weren't in any literature.

For example, the two leading contenders for the very first modern Bb trumpet are Conn and Lyon & Healy. A year, perhaps even a matter of months earlier, both companies put out a long-model cornet, which looks exactly like a modern Bb trumpet, except for the cornet mouthpiece receiver and mouthpiece.

Here's the thing: Conn is notorious for marketing legerdemain, and possibly, I would say probably, stuck a trumpet mouthpiece-receiver and trumpet mouthpiece on a long-model cornet and marketed it as a "trumpet".