Musical Notes

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.

Some interesting videos on YouTube and some hot blogs this year. We thought we would take the time to point to some of our favorites.

During the war period from 1942 to 1945, Conn ceased all production of musical instruments for civilian use to manufacture brass components for compasses, altimeters, and other military instrumentation. That's why this particular ship compass, made by Conn and discovered in one of our travels through antique hordes is rather interesting.

Like all clarinets that differ from the bog-standard 17/6 Klose-Boehm clarinet, it landed in the clarinet world with a resounding “plop”. Manufactured by Selmer in their professional, intermediate (Signet) and student (Bundy) lines, Mazzeo instruments enjoyed a very brief surge of interest in the 1960s, only to largely disappear from sight.

The bass saxophone is one of the largest members of the saxophone family—larger than the more commonly encountered baritone saxophone.

In this post we hope to give musicians some ideas/exercises to improve on internal pulse. Keeping a steady pulse is a fundamental skill for any musician. Even in different charts that encourage a flexible rhythm, such as a passage marked rubato, being able to maintain a steady pulse is essential for the music to work.