Bugles VS Trumpets

[geneseo_bari_87]

Yamaha also sells motorcycles, will they soon be pushing the BoD to force corps to stop using buses and transport their members by fleet of motorcycles?

This is absolutely insane. Of course they wouldn't use motorcycles. They would obviously use golf carts, also made by Yamaha.

[Martybucs]

Sort of. Two different companies. Same Getzen family. Cousins at this point.

Getzen does not make horns for DEG/Dynasty. Some horns in the past were identical because they sourced them from the same overseas mfgr. In Marquis' stock, there are a number of like-new Dynasty (DEG) 3-valve chrome sops and one Getzen that is identical, except for the brand stamp. Both from the same overseas (actually South America) plant.

EDIT: Kenny Norman tells/corrects me:

"Until 1993, most of the DEG horns were made at Allied. The smallbores all have Amado waterkeys. The baritones have an A prefix on the serial#. The euphs and contras were Willsons. (also the 2v altos, and one model of trombonium.)" About the time that Bob, Ed, & Tom bought back the Getzen name there was (an issue) over QC. The 3v bugles that were already made up for DEG were stamped with the Getzen stencil. Some were sold individually in 1993 by a sales rep at corps shows. There were a couple of ads in DCW. And finally the remaining stock was all sold to the Boston Crusaders Alumni corps. Allied does not even maintain any parts for these horns. All the marching stuff now is made by Weril, although it took a while for euph and contras to be developed there. There were still Willies being made, but the Werils could be had cheaper."

- Thanks Kenny

Related by family members. Allied Music Corporation was a common thread, which was a horn parts and repair tools supply company turned horn maker. DEG/Dynasty was Donald E. Getzen, whom is now retired but running a music accessory wholesale business -- helping Jim Kelly (the colorful mouthpieces) with marketing and distribution connections -- and for a while last year Don helped me with my SpitSpot pads. Don's son, Dan Getzen, is still at DEG/Dynasty. They are in Lake Geneva, WI. The Dynasty horns are not made here - they come from manufacturing outside the U.S., (EDIT - mfgr. by Weril) but they do carefully prep/fine-tune each horn in their Lake Geneva shop. It's a cozy place you can drive right past (Brent Turner and I went past it three times once before calling for directions.)

Don's NEPHEW, Tom, runs Getzen, which is about 20 minutes farther up the road in Elkhorn, (town is also home to Holton, now swallowed-up by Conn-Selmer). Getzen Co. is a manufacturer, making the trumpets, cornets, fluegels and t-bones right there. I think the background brasses are imported, though. Kind of a pro-shop setup; not a huge, mass-production place like some other brands. They have some nice videos on-line for you to see how they solder a trumpet valve section, spin a bell, silver plate, and draw a trombone slide. Their Edwards brand trombones are just about the best made.

(Tom's) Getzen company has really cranked-up the quality and marketing lately (it had dropped under previous control/ownership), and is currently setting up distributors in the U.K. to tap the HUGE brass band market there, which is STARVED for prized Getzen horns. I've seen U.K. brass banders come here and sell their European horns so they can take home a new Getzen. Getzen makes a 4-valve fluegelhorn that is to die for.

King, by the way, is just another cog in the HUGE Conn-Selmer (Steinway) conglomerate. BRANDS of Conn-Selmer include King, Bach, CG Conn, Holton, Benge, Ludwig/Musser, Leblanc, Martin, and so on. So I suppose you could consider King as Conn-Selmer's marching brand. They own factories all over the place.

And to relate that back better to the thread, I would think Conn-Selmer could "dump" deals on King horns about as well as Yamaha -- something that a much smaller outfit like Dynasty or Kanstul can't do.

GREAT update! Thanks. I talked to Donald a loooong time ago and that's when he told me Allied made the bugles.

[louderisbetter]

I'm gonna call the BS card on those of you who think Bbs are less suitable for outdoor use than bugles.

It's not an issue of loudness--it's an issue of quality of sound and intonation.

Conical instruments (i.e., bugles, flugelhorns, or euphoniums as opposed to baritones) have a wider pitch center, which makes it easy to bend the pitch out of tune. OR, as is the case with drum corps where we have a large number of young players with fairly undeveloped ears, they make it MORE difficult to play IN tune. Not impossible--listen to a few of the incredible recordings of the mid to late nineties and you'll know it's not impossible--but difficult, just as most people put onto a baroque trumpet or a late 19th century cornet will sound like crap. They're easier to play for those who have no experience on a brass instrument at all, since the range is less demanding and the horn is more technically forgiven to produce a merely "acceptable" sound--especially for trumpets--but they very quickly get to the point where they stop serving the musical development of the player by causing unnecessary difficulty.

In addition, the "direction" of the sound has an effect on the quality of sound. An instrument with a MORE directional sound is MORE suitable for outdoor performance on a football field dozens of yards away from the audience, because of the fact that a higher percentage of sound is going straight into the audience, rather than dissipating off into the space below, above, and around the stands (true, this means the hear from the cheap seats isn't as good, but that's why they're called the cheap seats, eh?) On bugles, the only solution was to play louder, which flat out resulted in too much overblowing. Instead of playing louder nowadays, our members can focus instead on maintaining a clear, articulate sound, with technique that will apply to them just as well if they decide to go home after finals and play in a chamber ensemble.

This isn't the "wind ensemble approach" or any of that nonsense... this is an orchestral concept, because the concept of projection and clarity isn't as important in a wind ensemble where it's 8 trumpets vs. 60 other performers as it is in an orchestra where it's two trumpets vs. 118 other performers, usually shunted off to the very back corner of the stage 40 feet from the conductor. You can play ###-loud and bend your face out of shape and get "the hand", or you can play with relaxation and good flow at a fairly moderate dynamic level and be heard ten times as well in the back of the hall anyways.

[Penn State]

Might find this interesting: I don't remember where I saw it, maybe BD forums an old Getzen ad for Bb piston/rotor bugles.

[SCVsopAaron]

Because Bb-F's are better. period.

EDIT: Played on both when I marched... Bb's were FAR superior and we sounded FAR better...

Edited November 20, 2006 by SCVsopAaron

[camel lips]

I'm gonna call the BS card on those of you who think Bbs are less suitable for outdoor use than bugles.

It's not an issue of loudness--it's an issue of quality of sound and intonation.

Conical instruments (i.e., bugles, flugelhorns, or euphoniums as opposed to baritones) have a wider pitch center, which makes it easy to bend the pitch out of tune. OR, as is the case with drum corps where we have a large number of young players with fairly undeveloped ears, they make it MORE difficult to play IN tune. Not impossible--listen to a few of the incredible recordings of the mid to late nineties and you'll know it's not impossible--but difficult, just as most people put onto a baroque trumpet or a late 19th century cornet will sound like crap. They're easier to play for those who have no experience on a brass instrument at all, since the range is less demanding and the horn is more technically forgiven to produce a merely "acceptable" sound--especially for trumpets--but they very quickly get to the point where they stop serving the musical development of the player by causing unnecessary difficulty.

In addition, the "direction" of the sound has an effect on the quality of sound. An instrument with a MORE directional sound is MORE suitable for outdoor performance on a football field dozens of yards away from the audience, because of the fact that a higher percentage of sound is going straight into the audience, rather than dissipating off into the space below, above, and around the stands (true, this means the hear from the cheap seats isn't as good, but that's why they're called the cheap seats, eh?) On bugles, the only solution was to play louder, which flat out resulted in too much overblowing. Instead of playing louder nowadays, our members can focus instead on maintaining a clear, articulate sound, with technique that will apply to them just as well if they decide to go home after finals and play in a chamber ensemble.

This isn't the "wind ensemble approach" or any of that nonsense... this is an orchestral concept, because the concept of projection and clarity isn't as important in a wind ensemble where it's 8 trumpets vs. 60 other performers as it is in an orchestra where it's two trumpets vs. 118 other performers, usually shunted off to the very back corner of the stage 40 feet from the conductor. You can play ###-loud and bend your face out of shape and get "the hand", or you can play with relaxation and good flow at a fairly moderate dynamic level and be heard ten times as well in the back of the hall anyways.

When did you march a G bugle line?

[SCVsopAaron]

When did you march a G bugle line?

I mached g's in 02 and 03, Bb's in 04, and I'll play the BS card also... It's all about who's playing, not the horns themselves...

[supersop]

There are no free horns, that's a long-standing drum corps myth. snip........

it was yamaha in the background, whispering to the DCI BoD to pass the rules changes with promises of new horns. ditto with amps. yamaha sells amps, don't they? next thing is saxophones. yamaha makes saxophones and who is pushing for saxophones? it's Hopkins, and his corps plays YAMAHA.

not to mention that yamaha is a billion dollar company. i'm sure they could afford to give away horns and write it off as a "marketing" campaign. a successful one at that. snip .....

Yamaha, being a Japanese company, I think would be restricted from just giving away that much product. Foreign companies aren't allowed to dump their products in the US. Free horns seems like dumping to me. We're not talking just a few thousand dollars here. 2oo instruments at a retail average of a thousand dollars per instrument = $200,000.

Last quote ... flat out WRONG!

Where to begin????? Yamaha has a North American division that operates within the United States. Therein, they pay taxes and get a tax deduction for donating product and services to 501c3 Organizations. Not for profit remember? So it only makes sense for them to offer up a couple sets of freebies to the powers that be, in order to make a change in the overall activity and market their product with the best of the best and then sell to the sheep that follow the major leaguers.

Yamaha has been extremely agressive since the inception of these rules changes. They are extremely agressive now in the amplification segment of DCI as well. And YES, they do give away free stuff to the best of the best. It's in their interest to do so. Yes they do send out sound techs to help corps perfect their balance on the yamaha mixers, mics, amps and speakers being used on the field (for free). They flat out hit the market harder and faster than anyone else .. and they proved that they could put out an acceptable product in a short period of time with reliable quality.

Am I happy about it? NO! Does drum corps sound better as a whole? YES! Did we throw tradition out the window? To an extent. What's worse? We just proved that we can sound ok on concert instruments and took the CHALLENGE out of sounding AWESOME on a traditional drum corps instrument. I played on both between Jr's and All Age. I like playing my bach strad on the field .. but I will not stop begging my corps to go to crappy old G bugles because there's a satisfaction in playing well on those things. There's more power behind the mastery.. and in the end .. it's more rewarding as a performer. Fact is, we use multi key. Second fact, some of the manufacturers are making a bid to overturn Yamaha's rule by offering new set of Bb BUGLES ... they're coming. .... and I can't wait to hear them.

[Dave]

And YES, they do give away free stuff to the best of the best.

But not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of horns or drums.

[louderisbetter]

When did you march a G bugle line?

No need to do the marching--I have ears.

I don't say so to be rude, but the quality of the product is more important than the equipment. And hands down, I've heard a consistently better product on Bb/Fs than on G hornlines. There are times and places that the use of bugles would sound great, and might even be the best choice for some tonal effects. However, 90 percent of the demand of drum corps today calls for the appropriate equipment for the job. I wouldn't cut wood with a stone axe these days, nor would I use my tuba to play a trumpet solo (unless I was just having fun).

Likewise, if we want our performers (read: the corps) to be the most successful, we've gotta outfit them with the right tools to do the job. When they're not spending time and energy playing on inefficient equipment, they're instead free to concentrate on playing even more musically, on keeping up with the ever-increasing visual demand, etc.