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The World's First and Only Bb Soprano Bugle


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13 minutes ago, Hrothgar15 said:

I'm trying to do the math to see which notes would be unplayable in this configuration. How would this what arrangers could do with the music (not like it'd ever happen)? 

You wouldn't be able to play (in Bb, starting with the lowest note) F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, G#/Ab. You can play the G#/Ab above the staff with only the first valve, but it would probably be ridiculously out of tune. 

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To go with last few posts my BITD is close to Frans and we (Westshoremen) were like Sun except less experienced and minus the great solo work. But also had the younger members and staff that went for the more musical and not "loud is good so louder is better".  Bari line had members from music majors at PSU to guys who were blue collar. So instructors had to say "play it (bunch of Italian words)" and then sing it to the rest. And above all... listen.. never EVER lose your tone even on the final fffffff note of the show. Hear some of that with some CDs of DCI shows and yikes...

Biggest difference IMO (and my last Bari was 3v G Kanstul) was horn construction. Just way too easy to overplay and lose the tone. And lets face it my P/R horn was more of a modified signaling device and the tone shows it. And we had the better horn of the da which was Olds.

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9 minutes ago, JimF-LowBari said:

To go with last few posts my BITD is close to Frans and we (Westshoremen) were like Sun except less experienced and minus the great solo work. But also had the younger members and staff that went for the more musical and not "loud is good so louder is better". 

I hear ya... Sun, Buccaneers, and Westshoremen had similar mindsets back then, when it came to their brass programs.

We could bring the heat, in terms of volume, when we needed it... but our staff always taught us that the more in tune we were, the better we'd sound at all volume levels... and there was no need to try and bend the bells inside out.  LOL

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18 minutes ago, shofmon88 said:

You wouldn't be able to play (in Bb, starting with the lowest note) F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, G#/Ab. You can play the G#/Ab above the staff with only the first valve, but it would probably be ridiculously out of tune. 

The Ab/G# above the staff was played this way, and horns had a compensating spring-loaded 1st valve trigger for this reason:

VINTAGE-DEG-Dynasty-2-valve-Key-G-Bugle-

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16 minutes ago, monoemono said:

The Ab/G# above the staff was played this way, and horns had a compensating spring-loaded 1st valve trigger for this reason:

VINTAGE-DEG-Dynasty-2-valve-Key-G-Bugle-

I know it was. I have an Olds Ultratone II that I play around on. One day, I sat in front of a tuner with that, and my Yamaha trumpet. The olds could play in tune with that note, but the trumpet... man, it was horrible. The slide couldn't compensate enough to get a centered tone. Hilariously bad is really the best way to describe it. 

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14 minutes ago, shofmon88 said:

I know it was. I have an Olds Ultratone II that I play around on. One day, I sat in front of a tuner with that, and my Yamaha trumpet. The olds could play in tune with that note, but the trumpet... man, it was horrible. The slide couldn't compensate enough to get a centered tone. Hilariously bad is really the best way to describe it. 

Two valves are for pansies.  Real men play the single valve with their right thumbs!  

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6 minutes ago, shofmon88 said:

I know it was. I have an Olds Ultratone II that I play around on. One day, I sat in front of a tuner with that, and my Yamaha trumpet. The olds could play in tune with that note, but the trumpet... man, it was horrible. The slide couldn't compensate enough to get a centered tone. Hilariously bad is really the best way to describe it. 

Haha, yeah - there's a reason 3 valves is the minimum for a reasonably viable chromatic brass instrument. I'm glad to have gotten to play the 2 valve horn, just for the uniqueness of it. But I will admit to being very envious of our mellos, who had brand-new Kanstul 3-valve horns. Beautiful instruments, almost too elegant for outdoors. And, of course, you could play a chromatic scale on them.

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How about 2 piston and a rotary third valve. :. There is absolutely no practical reason for this, but it would be a unique configuration. It makes no sense at all to go back to a simple 2 valve configuration.  too much lost musically. the 3 valve Bb sop and contrabass is the way to go.

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9 hours ago, Fran Haring said:

I hear ya... Sun, Buccaneers, and Westshoremen had similar mindsets back then, when it came to their brass programs.

We could bring the heat, in terms of volume, when we needed it... but our staff always taught us that the more in tune we were, the better we'd sound at all volume levels... and there was no need to try and bend the bells inside out.  LOL

In my Garfield years, our horn staffs always tried to get us to be in tune. Ironlips here on DCP was our main brass guy in 71, assisted by Larry Schillings, band director at Glen Ridge HS in NJ (and former MM of the Racine Scouts), and in 72 (my one year on horn...3rd baritone), Don Angelica was the main brass person, assisted by Frank Levy, orchestra director and later adding band director to his job at Bergenfield HS in NJ....none of them were "blast it out" teachers.

BTW.... Dennis Dewey was a marching member of Garfield my years there (1st baritone), and he became a  band director on Long Island after college.

 

 

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3 hours ago, MikeD said:

BTW.... Dennis Dewey was a marching member of Garfield my years there (1st baritone), and he became a  band director on Long Island after college.

 

 

Dennis was great!!!!  He came on board with us in the spring of 1980, when our horn line was struggling. We had quite a turnover following the 1979 season... a lot of vets who had helped build the corps from barely hanging on in the early 1970s to a DCA champion in the late '70s had moved on.  He re-tooled our sound, got us back to focusing on fundamentals,  and put our horn line back into contention.

Those days, there were more "yelling and screaming" instructors than now. But Dennis never raised his voice to us. He had the respect of everyone in our line.
 

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