Musical Notes

Here’s a cool little horn I finished up today - a Bach Mt. Vernon Model 6 alto trombone! This alto trombone was a conversion done on a regular Model 6, and the tech did quite a nice job on it. Note the unusual tuning mechanism!

Today’s feature is a real gem - a gold plated, presentation engraved Conn 20A! I did some rather extensive bell work, but managed to take care of it with no damage to the beautiful engraving. Don’t expect this horn to play like a modern flugel, but it is a gorgeous example of a fairly rare horn in good solid shape.

One of the things I love be about my job is getting to work on horns like this one!! This particular trumpet is a Schilke B1, serial puts it at 1970. Though all Schilkes are great to play, the B1 is one of the most versatile of the Schilke models.

Typically, replacing pads is virtually a non-issue. Some older, larger instruments use pad sizes that are no longer in production by any modern instrument repair supplier. Sometimes the only solution is to modify an existing pad to fit your needs. Here is a full description of that process.

For a brief period of time in the 1920's, Conn offered colored enamel finish on their saxophones. While we have seen a few colored enamel altos, by far the most instruments that were released in this finish were C-melody horns. Here we see 3 Conn C-melody saxophones in different colors of enamel. Note that two are the classic Conn straight neck C-melody, while one is the older style curved neck.

Over the past few years that I’ve been working with Matt, his business model has presented a host of situations that would be simultaneously rewarding and infuriating to any tech, but occasionally it grants me the opportunity to see something truly unique.

The Pan American “Violin Finish” Clarinet according to the brochures, flyers and price lists was a light-colored violin finish for wood clarinets. They first popped up in the Spring of 1950 and the last mention of it was in January 18, 1954.

This is an EXTREMELY RARE Keilwerth Toneking 3000 Jazzophone. The jazzophone is a bit of an odd duck-it’s a trumpet but is wrapped like a saxophone. Looks really funky and cool and sounds great, though you can’t use mutes with it. In over 10 years of dealing in vintage instruments I’ve never seen another one of these in person.

A few days ago, I came across a couple of saxophones that I had never seen or heard of before and they looked really, really interesting. I had heard of the Romero System before, but only on clarinets. Here's a little information on these instruments.