Musical Notes

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.

What a beautiful day to share a beautiful Olds Recording with you all! This one is really in wonderful shape, and is nice and straight with just a couple of tiny dents to remove.

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.

Finding new music, incorporating the best of that into your repertoire, is not only fun, it's stretching your boundaries.

Selecting a community band with which to return to music performance is fraught with lots of decisions. Support your local band with attendance and donations!