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Piston/Rotor Horror Stories


JimF-LowBari

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OK, my (mumbling the number)th Birthday is coming up this summer and I'm thinking of buying an older Bari Bugle. Thinking of looking for a piston/rotor job like I used to play or something a little more "exotic" (ie rare).

Reason why I can't decide is because I've heard stories about problems keeping the rotors working. I remember we had some rotor lever pieces break because they were plastic. Someone in the corps worked at a machine shop and was able to make metal replacements so no real problem there.

Also heard stories (urban legends?) about rotor springs going ka-flooey. Can anyone confirm this story or have any other problems that they saw.

Ed: Add that I played an Olds Duratone (Frosted Finish) for 6 years with absolutly no problems.

Thanks in advance,

Jim B)

Edited by JimF-xWSMBari
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Well, sure enough, the only piston/rotor baritone I've played was an Olds Ultratone with the lever piece long gone. (No spring, either, so I'm not sure what it looks like). However, a few weeks from now I can probably go play some friends' piston/rotor contras or frenchies, if they still have them, so I'll look at them then.

However, I'd be almost positive you could find a suitable replacement spring in a horn repair shop, and the trigger might be replaceable with something (with a little work) or repairable.

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I remember hearing a story from when I marched SCV that they used to teach music to guys by telling them to memorize open, piston, rotor rotor, open, open, etc.

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I remember hearing a story from when I marched SCV that they used to teach music to guys by telling them to memorize open, piston, rotor rotor, open, open, etc.

I was a trombone player so never knew the fingerings...

So music was marked until I memorized them

1 - piston (right thumb)

2 - rotor (left thumb)

0 - open (no thumbs)

X - both piston/rotor

All my first season I played by fingering marks and not the notes.

Todays history lesson was brougth to you by... :P

Edited by JimF-xWSMBari
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I was a trombone player so never knew the fingerings...

So music was marked until I memorized them

  1 - piston (right thumb)

  2 - rotor  (left thumb)

  0 - open  (no thumbs)

  X - both piston/rotor

All my first season I played by fingering marks and not the notes.

Todays history lesson was brougth to you by... :P

Unfortunately, the music marking is not history. Probably half of our horn line still needs to mark in the fingerings and they've been playing bugles for 30 years.

(even in the day of double valve bugles, some of them still "V" "R" and "X"!)

DJ

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"Piston-Rotor":

Again, I'm dating myself with these "memories". 'Way Back When', (the late 1950s and early 1960s) we had bugles that didn't HAVE 'rotors'. The 'chromatic's' were achieved by SLIDES (similar to a trombone, but on the right side of the horns, and pulled TOWARDS the player).

The early "slides" were actually the tuning slides that had been SANDPAPERED to work as homemade "slipslides". Getzen started comming out with their "DeLuxe" line of horns in 1959 or 1960 that had "purpose built" 'slides' on them.

They also manufactured a crude "rotor" that was little more than a stem attached to a disc on the 'rotary' itself. It broke off rather easily and was difficult to repair. The "lever" rotors started showing up on the Getzen "Titleist" bugles in 1963.

A lot of this stuff is turning up on EBay, and may be of interest to serious collectors.

"Heaven" (as far as I was concerned) was a new Getzen DeLuxe Bass Baritone GD piston/slide bugle that I was issued in the Fall of 1961.

Elphaba

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I remember hearing a story from when I marched SCV that they used to teach music to guys by telling them to memorize open, piston, rotor rotor, open, open, etc.

I was a trombone player so never knew the fingerings...

So music was marked until I memorized them

1 - piston (right thumb)

2 - rotor (left thumb)

0 - open (no thumbs)

X - both piston/rotor

All my first season I played by fingering marks and not the notes.

Todays history lesson was brougth to you by... :P

I recall from one of the historical features (Brass Roots perhaps) an interview with Don Warren, saying that back in "the day", he'd be bringing kids in off the streets and using colors to teach fingerings to the horn players. IE Rotor was Blue, Piston Red, etc etc. Sounds like an interesting method for more visually-oriented learners.

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At my first Westshoremen practice the guy next to me handed me a pen and in a gruff voice said "Welcome to the corps rookie, mark first, play later". Then he started laughing and said not to worry, this is how most of the horn line started out.

That was early 1974 and we still had piston/slide Baris until the corps could float another loan. (Corps had been inactive the year before and was scrambling to equip everyone who showed up to practice.)

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I was a trombone player so never knew the fingerings...

So music was marked until I memorized them

1 - piston (right thumb)

2 - rotor (left thumb)

0 - open (no thumbs)

X - both piston/rotor

All my first season I played by fingering marks and not the notes.

Todays history lesson was brougth to you by... :P

Both valve and rotar were marked "B" where I marched

The first time I went up north to play with Northernaire's alumni corps, there was a baritone who had these index cards on a lyre on his baritone. I looked at them and all that was on them was the song title and fingerings....no notes, no measures, nothing...just fingerings!!!!

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I still have a p/r contra and concert french horn both Imperials and a p/r mellophone (olds). They all work fine and are easy to keep care of. Take out the rotor and put oil in the tube, work it in. Should last for ever.

You can not kill a p/r horn, they are were built to last

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