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Mellophone Mute?


VKMello84

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What kinds of mutes do people find work or work best with a flared bell style mellophone like that sold by Kanstul or Dynasty?

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I've had luck with trombone mutes. You may need to remove/re-do the cork thickness and placement for your individual horn, but I've used a standard trombone cup mute with no modification successfully with King and Yamaha mellos.

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What kinds of mutes do people find work or work best with a flared bell style mellophone like that sold by Kanstul or Dynasty?

Check out Al's page:

http://www.alsmiddlebrasspages.com/mellophone/mutes.html

I use the Bremner mute and find it to be very good.

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<br />Interesting topic.  I don't think I've ever heard a muted mellophone line.  I bet that would be a really cool effect.<br />
<br /><br /><br />

When you mute a brass instrument, you lose all the unique tone qualities of that instrument and hear only the tone quality of the mute type. So a straight muted mellophone (especially outdoors) wouldn't sound much different than a straight muted soprano/trumpet/cornet/flugel.

You must have been at DCA with the Bucs. How could you miss the 2 seasons when the Renegades featured, on the front sideline, their mellophones playing in megaphones?

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And then there's that whole sharp aspect of using a mute.

Tenor Trombone Yamaha Silent Brass fit a deg mellophone pretty good out of the box. Of course mello is already a bell heavy instrument without a mute. It might be interesting to hear a line using bucket mutes. Not that you'd be able to hear them in a stadium, but for minicorps, why not? Aside from that having the lug it everywhere annoyance. Horn in one hand, uniform in the other, and mute on ??? your head?

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<br /><br /><br />

When you mute a brass instrument, you lose all the unique tone qualities of that instrument and hear only the tone quality of the mute type. So a straight muted mellophone (especially outdoors) wouldn't sound much different than a straight muted soprano/trumpet/cornet/flugel.

You must have been at DCA with the Bucs. How could you miss the 2 seasons when the Renegades featured, on the front sideline, their mellophones playing in megaphones?

I disagree with this. Listen to a symphony orchestra brass section and you can definitely pick out the difference between muted horns and muted trombones (the two brass instruments with the most overlap in range/register). There is, however, a greater variation in timbre within a symphony brass section than a drum corps hornline.

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There are acoustic differences between a well conditioned theater and a corn field. Or what used to be a corn field. Sound is directional, which is why most drumcorps shows work. Add a mute and you change the direction significantly. Which the acoustic space of drumcorps is NOT going to be very forgiving of. The nuance between muted and not, and the trucks / airplanes / first responders / and whatever else plagues the venue would be mostly lost IMO. Plus that whole $50 more in gear per member for what? 12 measures? Might as well play into shako's (or back field).

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