Musical Notes

Wow, I’ve had some cool stuff lately, and this one was a whole lot of fun! This one has had some work done in the past, but it’s in pretty nice shape overall. It’s mostly raw brass at this point in its life, so I left as much patina as I could.

Yes, brass fans - you read that correctly - a 42 bell trumpet! You can check out the original specs of the horn on the photo of the shop card, too! This horn is almost all original, with roughly 70% of its lacquer remaining, and has seen very little trauma in its long life.

This is a very nice professional instrument, and the previous owner cared for it as it only had one small dent. It was, however, pretty full of calcification and had a few stuck parts due to not having a regular chem clean.

What you see here are a ‘62 Mt Vernon, a ‘66 43, and a ‘70 37, and they are all in pretty fantastic shape! The Mt Vernon is the best player of the three, but probably because it has had a valve job at some point and the pistons are still nice and tight.

Carlo Sbisa shares information about the design and manufacture of the custom made Low C Extension system for the paperclip contrabass clarinet.

This one is a nice Holton H279 - it’s seen some action in its time, but is still pretty solid and will serve you well. It badly needed a cleaning, and had neon green corrosion on its rotors, but now it smells like clean dishes and is ready to play! I did some minor dent removal on the bell flare as well, and the screw bell works well.

This King Silver Tone has been my favorite of the week - not only is it beautiful to look at, but it’s a really nice player as well. So nice, in fact, that I need to walk away from it before I start to feel like I need it! The larger bore makes it feel very much like a modern instrument, so it’s super comfortable to play.

Today we got a new shipment in, and I got to have some fun with everyone’s favorite sport - Tuba Rasslin’! Don’t worry - I won this round!

Here you see a very nice Bach 37 from around 1970 or 1971. It was quite dirty and everything was stuck except the pistons, but it has cleaned up quite nicely! Aside from some missing lacquer and a few scars from dent removal, there’s nothing wrong with it at all.