TubaForum.net

today's church job:

"I've heard that you work on instruments."

"sometimes"

"Can you get this crease out of my bell?"

"sure"

"I have an audition coming up. Can I follow you home?"

"Here: I'll text you the address."

bloke removes the crease, removed a couple of other pretty good size little dents also in the bell flare, and doesn't scratch the silver.

"Did you turn the hinge screw on this water key?"

"Yes. I was afraid it was going to unscrew further, and fall off."

"Oh... Okay... No sweat... I keep it turned to a certain place because this trumpet plays best with this screw turned to that certain place."



It's no wonder that people who barely live in the 3D world view many things that happen in the solid world as magic... That said, this person was telling me that they grew up on a farm. (??) I'm understanding more and more about (becoming more insightful in regards to) Woodrow Wilson's expressed goals and most important outcomes, in regards to "higher" education:

(The other trumpet player was telling me how - rather than having it soldered in place - they can slide the brace between first valve slide and their bell back and forth, and change the intonation characteristics of the instrument.)

Woodrow Wilson wrote:"I have often said that the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible."

I heard a story in college about a VERY well known trumpet maker that also has a line of mouthpieces. The story goes, that a student brought their horn to the maker and said "the horn plays great, but ______________" (some grievance). The maker had some tools handy, he turns his back to the student does something in the span of 5 seconds, then hands it back to the student. "Try it now." Did they do some magic? I have no idea. Did they loosen a water key screw? I have no idea.

Okay, but is this true?

https://hub.yamaha.com/winds/w-how-to/ ... outhpiece/

Wayne Tanabe says it is.

Yeah, I was going to mention that nonsense in my original post, but I forgot to.

You know damn well that these boys on this gig do that.

Look out the corner of your eye at the 23-year-old trumpet players hired to play some gig with you... Watch them stop to look at their mouthpieces (checking the rotation) as they stick them in their trumpets.
(Never mind that there are a few chunks of this-and-that in BOTH their mouthpiece shanks and in their mouthpipe tubes).

York-aholic wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2026 4:09 pm Okay, but is this true?

https://hub.yamaha.com/winds/w-how-to/ ... outhpiece/

Wayne Tanabe says it is.

That is some of the most ridiculous b.s. I have ever read......."clocking your mouthpiece". Something that is a perfectly spherical shape/mass inserted into the receiver a certain way. Can't believe that is published.

Sousa players would like a word with Mr. Tanabe regarding 'clocking' mpc & bits, let alone doing that in the tuba....
How ridiculous.

catgrowlB wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2026 9:37 pm

York-aholic wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2026 4:09 pm Okay, but is this true?

https://hub.yamaha.com/winds/w-how-to/ ... outhpiece/

Wayne Tanabe says it is.

That is some of the most ridiculous b.s. I have ever read......."clocking your mouthpiece". Something that is a perfectly spherical shape/mass inserted into the receiver a certain way. Can't believe that is published.

Sousa players would like a word with Mr. Tanabe regarding 'clocking' mpc & bits, let alone doing that in the tuba....
How ridiculous.

Well…I’ll say this - Wayne is a very bright guy. Back in the 80’s he was the guy in Chicagoland for brass instrument repair - including the CSO. That was how I found him and he did various work on several trombones & tuba’s and a full restore on a helicon for me. The work was superb. But when the shop really got noticed the staff really expanded to match the big increase in volume and the quality of the work plummeted. That was when I stopped using them - basically about when he also told me he was leaving for some type of design position with Yamaha in NYC.

As for clocking a MP - yeah that sounds like total malarkey to me. I could only imagine where that might remotely possibly make a difference on something like a poorly made small trumpet MP where one side is significantly heavier than the other, but even then I’m skeptical. Musicians do fall prey to a lot of nonsense with the exception being everybody knows Silver tubas play better than lacquered ones!

York-aholic wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2026 4:09 pm Okay, but is this true?

https://hub.yamaha.com/winds/w-how-to/ ... outhpiece/

Wayne Tanabe says it is.

Frightening that he seems to have so little understanding of how brass instruments actually make sound. Or . . . he's just deliberately peddling nonsense.

Conductors can hear mouthpiece plating apparently.

My DMA professor, Jim Akins, said he had a conductor with Columbus Symphony that was trying to build a specific sound with the orchestra and mentioned for him to try another tuba (guessing rotor to make it sound European). Jim convinced him that a mouthpiece would make the difference, so he brought in a collection of them. The conductor saw a gold one and told him to try that, then he said that was the exact sound he was looking for tuba to sound like.

The mouthpiece—was just a gold plated one of the one he had been using prior.

I've seen some of Mr. Tanabe's work.
He does superb work, and a person needs to be bright (attention to detail) in order to do superb work.
Bright people are not always right about everything. (Most of the world's most notorious rulers have all probably been pretty bright - and I'm NOT leaving out Americans - but sure made a hell of a mess out of things... We had one president who wouldn't admit he was wrong about a tariff - to protect the manufacturing of yankee goods against lower priced English and French goods, and his obstinence resulted in about 700,000 American deaths, as well as trillions of dollars of property destruction.)
Sometimes, a simpleton ends up being the only person in the room who's right about something about which all the bright people are arguing. I'm not going to look up his quote word-for-word, but Dr. Thomas Sowell is quoted as having pointed out that some assertions are so ridiculous that only intellectuals could possibly believe them.
I've read a couple of things that R. Schilke is apparently quoted as having said, which (at least when I read them, and I currently don't even remember what they were) I personally couldn't possibly embrace those things as true - or certainly not always true.
Although solder joints on instruments under tension are ill-advised - because they may not hold for the useful life of an instrument, I personally don't believe that points on a brass instruments that are pushed together under tension and soldered have any effect on anything sonic. Just because others and myself avoiding doing certain things when putting together brass instruments doesn't mean that absolutely everything has some sort of measurable effect on sonic characteristics.
I believe a human fallacy is to hang on every word of those who have had a level of success or accomplishment (not bothering to go back through their claims and think them through, or trial them ourselves). I've seen a good bit of that here, as well on the old board as well (the typical argument being "well, 'Known Person' said 'so and so' - and nobody knows who you are, so they are right and you are wrong" ...etc.)

Circling back to the beginning (and talk of this sort of triggered someone in another thread, but be that as it may) a whole bunch of young people today grow up without putting their hands on much of anything - other than a touch screen and a fork and spoon. For years and years now, most schools don't require boys to take even an introductory level shop class (which included drafting) or girls to be taught rudimentary cooking and sewing skills. These days, they mostly touch screens instead of even using pencils or pens or even typewriters which type real ink onto real paper - much less picking up a hammer and a nail or a saw or a spoon or a needle and thread. The less people interact with the real world, the less they're going to understand about it, and the more easily they're going to be fooled/manipulatrd, and/or the more easily they're going to be able to fool themselves about it, and including to the macro level by the "The end is near!" people who have always existed (and now: by the ruling class - as the ruling classes figured out how to use that narrative to manipulate the serfs).

bloke wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2026 1:44 pm The more people I encounter

The more I like my cat

The Brute Squad wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2026 8:21 am

bloke wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2026 1:44 pm The more people I encounter

The more I like my cat

TRVTH


"People who believe a lot of nonsense" - eventually, if not reluctantly - are forced to seek out the help of those who live in Realville (regardless of how stupid they may view those who live there).

This brings to mind the “Sound Bridge” by Lefreque (and similar devices), which are somehow supposed to act as a sonic bridge between your mouthpiece and receiver. The claimed benefits are:

“A more open and resonant sound
improved projection and tonal focus
greater stability in intonation
quicker response
enhanced flexibility across registers
improved balance between resistance and airflow
a tangibly stronger bond with your instrument”

All of which you could probably convince yourself are happening, especially if you’ve laid out up to $1000.00 on this little piece of metal.

Curious if anyone on here uses or has tried one of these.

Yeah...I've stopped making fun of those...It results in "hate mail".

ACTUAL thing:

(I've already posted about this).

My COMPACT (York 33-ish) Holton 4/4 BB-flat...

The small end of the mouthpipe tube was larger than I preferred, and I was having to pull the main slide a bit farther out that I preferred to pull it, as well.

I made a NEW LONGER mouthpiece receiver for it, which incorporates some additional (tapering down smaller) "mouthpipe tube

This ACTUALLY did something (and - UNEXPECTEDLY - raised my TUNING B-FLAT up to in-tune with everything else. )