Claude Gordon Brass Camp 1992 - Larry Souza on Construction, Maintenance, and Cleaning

So far, it's been a great camp.
I enjoyed what's happened just the first few days.
And this Dr. Miller's lecture is just really a valuable lecture.
Can't tell you how important it is
to follow some of those instructions about keeping
your instrument clean.
Towards the end of this business that we're
going to go through today, I'll go through a basic procedure
on how I clean the horn and what you should
do to keep your instrument clean.
And we'll go from there.
But right now, we're going to start with this outline
and talk about what makes the instrument function
in the form that it does.
And every instrument is different as we achieve
to death there.
I always draw this real simple diagram.
And all of this is indicating to me
is that you are the front half of this picture.
Saying whether you consider this you in total
or just your air supply, maybe starting with your lungs
and then going through the esophagus, into your mouth.
It all channels down to a point.
And that point transfers and reverses direction
as it comes out.
This becomes the instrument.
And this is you.
You have a lot to do with the tone that you create.
As Claude will explain and everybody else will explain,
as you bring that air out of your body
and control it with your muscles and your face
and your mouth and your tongue, you
create part of your own tone and personality.
That's why no two players sound exactly the same.
Even on a spectrum that can be documented,
you can see the differences in the people's tone
as well as hear the difference.
But your ears tell you the most.
And that is your personality, the way
you bring the air up to the horn.
Now we can patch the same horn in front of every one of you
and they'll all sound a little different.
And that's you.
So that half is the biggest part of the picture.
The least part of the picture is your equipment.
But your equipment has the ability
to create and discern and to create the tone
that you want to do personally too by picking out
the proper instrument and mouthpiece being
all part of that one picture.
Now how do we go about this picture?
It only seems to do it on the way back.
Is that it?
I'll learn to keep my mouth shut in about an hour.
There are a lot of ways that horns are created
to create a certain timbre, a tone,
and a lot of other things come into the picture too.
Part of it is the resistance that's created
by the size of the instrument.
Now this is not only trumpet, but all the instruments.
And that's why there are so many brands of trumpets available.
Because each one has their own idea of what bell taper,
what size bore, what size lead pipe, how thick the metal is,
what kind of metal, what kind of plating,
and what kind of lapper is on it,
is going to make the horn what they consider their favorite
horn or the best horn.
There is no best horn, but there are a lot of horns
that are better than others.
But they're all suited for different purposes
to create a little different tone.
So what we're going to do is talk about what these items are
that create the different tone in your instrument.
As you look at this list here, you'll
see that we have, first of all, listed metals
as the categories that can be changed,
or the selection that you can take from is pretty large.
You can make horns out of pure copper, pure silver, gold,
nickel, beryllium.
Those are all metals that can be used.
Not all of them are used in their pure form.
Sometimes we use what are called alloys.
And that's where you mix two metals together
to create a different alloy or combination of metals
by putting them together.
The most common metal used as the base metal for brass
instruments is brass, yellow brass.
Yellow brass is a combination of zinc, copper.
Usually those two create that yellow brass.
Copper is the base metal.
Zinc is an additive.
It comes up in what we call brass.
Copper can also be used in conjunction with beryllium.
That's another metal type that will
create a different kind of metal.
Each molecule arrangement on all these metals is different.
If we had a chemistry class, we could sit here
and draw a diagram of each metal.
And it would definitely be put together differently.
Therefore, the tone of each one of these metals,
the way it transmits tone, is going to be different.
And this is part of what gives each horn its personality,
is the choice of metals.
And you don't have to use any particular one.
It turns out the most popular one is brass at this point,
yellow brass.
Now, if we get into the next section call,
another thing we can do to change
the way an instrument performs is
by the thickness of the metal or the metal
mass of the instrument.
This is a very popular category these days
because everybody's getting into adding weight to the horn
by adding metal.
Claude talked a little about that
by putting heavy valve caps or heavier walled horns,
creating a different kind of tone.
It really does make a difference.
They do perform differently.
Whether or not it's necessary is beside the point.
This is something that you will have to select
as you select the horn.
Now, Claude had manufactured his instrument, the Claude Gordon
Selmer trumpet, to his specifications.
Now, if we go through the list of things
that makes this horn unique, first of all,
we'll start with the metal.
And he chose what kind as the base metal.
Can you identify him visually?
This is yellow brass.
Copper is significantly different.
We also have gold brass.
Gold brass is a bronze kind of color.
And it has other metals in it.
And if you look at this, especially the bell section,
which is still lacquered, the rest isn't.
You'll see the difference in the color.
Pinker, that's a gold brass, a different alloy.
Claude's choice was yellow brass.
He wanted the whole horn in brass.
They ended up making the lead pipe out of nickel.
And the reason they did that is because he required
it to be ultra light in weight.
So he wanted a very thin wall.
To do that, to make it in brass, the chances
were that it would dent and be very hard to manufacture
at the weight that he wanted it.
So they decided, and Claude went along with it,
to make it out of nickel.
Because nickel can be made thinner.
It's a little hardier and a little sturdier.
So that's why that was selected.
The next thing that he did was that he
had a specific arrangement of sizes of tubing
that he wanted used.
In this case, he started off with kind of a model
after an old French Besson, which
is basically the model of the horn
that he wanted to copy with some refinements.
And that particular lead pipe starts
at 3.55, 0.355 thousandths of an inch, which is sizable.
It might be 3.65, I'm not sure.
That's not really important at this point.
But it does graduate.
That's a large opening, graduating 15 to 0.470.
That's almost a half an inch in size.
You get up to 0.500, that's half an inch, 500 thousandths
of an inch.
From that point on, he selected 0.470
as being the bore throughout the entire instrument
until you get to the last six inches or so, maybe five.
And at that point, he did exactly
what the French Besson did.
He cut it back by 4,000ths of an inch
to restrict the horn again just slightly.
And then he flared it out to a bell taper,
which is of his choice because he liked the tone of it
and the resistance of it.
So we have a lot of pickers.
Another thing that is significant about this horn
is that it is super lightweight, very thin tubing.
And in the Bach catalog, this is listed
as an extra lightweight horn, not just a lightweight horn,
extra lightweight.
So the metal thickness is very thin.
Now, we have all of these features.
What does it do?
Well, it creates a unique sound of its own.
It's a big bore horn.
It's going to be free blowing.
It's thin, so it's going to resonate.
It's probably going to be very rich in sound
and usually considered brilliant and not real compact in tone,
not real pointy, but basically very rich.
That's a characteristic of a lightweight bell.
When you have lighter weight bells and tubing,
it's going to resonate differently.
The valves themselves are more or less mechanical,
but the thing that's good about it
is the fact that they're very accurately manufactured,
and the 470 is carried through very consistently
throughout all of that.
The choice of this slide line backwards as opposed
to frontwards is just his choice because he's comfortable with it,
and that's the way the French Besson was made.
So that is the description of this one horn.
This one horn has a lot of variables,
and all of these variables make it play its way.
Now, the fact that the bell is handmade
and makes it like a tree.
There are no two exactly the same.
All of the horns are, the tolerances are very precise.
They're very careful with making sure that everything
is exactly the right bore.
But nevertheless, they all have a little bit
of their own characteristic, and you have to play them all.
They all feel a little different.
But that's the nature of every horn.
They all are that way.
No two are exactly alike.
Also, another thing that is done in here
to make this horn sound the way it does is it is tempered.
The bell, when it's made, is very crucial.
It's either made very hard or it's made very soft.
They can either create the horn and temper the bell
so that it gets rigid, or they can anneal the bell
and make the bell very malleable and the metal
be bendable and easy to bend.
They all create a different kind of tone.
That's another reason why you can't make everyone exactly
the same.
When do you stop heating it, and when
do you stop working the metal over the mandrel that shapes it
is something that, within a fraction of a second,
the horn sounds a little different when it's finished.
So that's another variable that creates its own personality
with every horn.
OK, we've described one horn that
has one kind of a sound to it.
I'm going to put a mouthpiece in it
to find the mouthpiece.
Now, this is a brand new horn.
This is not my horn.
OK, well, we know that part of that sound
is me.
Part of it is my choice of a mouthpiece, which is unending
and also goes on forever.
So we won't get into particulars as to what you want to do.
But let's, for interest's sake, pick up another large boar
horn.
But this large boar horn is really
different in a lot of ways.
This is a Bach large boar, extra large.
They didn't used to have an extra large, but now they do.
It's also 4'7".
So right away, we can say that these horns have
a lot in common, because you don't see too many 4'74' horns.
It's a big horn.
This horn is considered to be on the heavy side.
And if I were to give you the two,
you would not believe the difference in the weight.
The gauge of this metal choice is very thick.
Now, this is a regular yellow brass horn, just like this one,
except they chose a finish of silver.
Is silver going to change the tone?
Yeah.
Is blacker different than silver?
Yes.
Is raw brass different than the two of them?
Yes.
Every time you change a finish, you're changing the tone.
And now we're dealing with a lot of other things.
And that's the third one on this list, choice of finishes.
Is silver better than lacquer?
No.
It's different.
Does silver make this horn sound inherently different?
Is there a certain quality that occurs?
Yes, there is.
Usually, you're adding a little metal to the horn
instead of adding a coat of plastic.
And so you get a different response out of the horn.
A lot of people say that they're mellower when you play easy
through them, but they have a tendency to project more.
Any horn with more metal has a tendency
to be a little bit more focused this way.
Horns with lightweight metal and less metal
have a tendency to be a little richer, spread a little more.
Let's listen to this horn.
This horn has a different feed pipe.
Starts smaller.
Doesn't get as big here.
The bell tapers are similar.
They're not outrageously different.
The boards are the same.
But the thing weighs a ton.
It's a whole different horn.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
I'm going to try and play pointing in the same direction.
I'm talking about different finish, different metal weight.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
Is there a significant difference in tone?
All right.
Now, if I picked up another one of these,
it would be a little different too.
But nevertheless, that's pretty obvious.
These are similar horns in size.
Definitely different tone.
Here's a C trumpet.
C trumpet has its own characteristic sound.
But the first thing you're going to notice
is the bell is definitely a different shape.
Can you see the difference in the flare of the bell?
This is a little smaller flare than this,
right in this area here.
This is a smaller flare.
So it's focusing the horn differently
than this is going to be focusing.
This is also a medium-large bore instead of a large,
extra-large bore.
This is a 459 or 458.
Right now, it's got a lead pipe that's taped on,
because I'm trying different pipes on it.
This is one of my horns.
The different pipe tapers are going
to change the tone and the resistance.
So you look for what fits you.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
To me, it has a little bit more petite quality to it.
Listen to that again.
Listen to this.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
A little bit more compact sound, not quite as large.
It doesn't matter that the key is different.
The basic bell taper and the length of that lead pipe
creates its own sound.
Now, if I take a D trumpet that is
supposed to have exactly the same bell as this,
these are both the same bell tapers.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
Does that sound any different?
Getting kind of picky, isn't it?
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
To me, it sounds a little more focused yet.
There's a big reason for that.
This is a C trumpet.
It has a certain length lead pipe.
This is a D trumpet.
It has a shorter lead pipe, even though I
played the same basic notes because I fingered it
differently.
Nevertheless, the length of that pipe
creates, with the same bell, a different type of tone.
So as we listen to this.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
It has a kind of a compact, small little tone.
But listen to it on this one.
This is also a bop D. This is a D E-flat.
But it's in the key of D at this point.
By changing the slides, I can shorten the horn
by putting smaller slides on it and create an E-flat trumpet.
But nevertheless, the tone difference
is different even between a D and a D of the same company
with the same brand with the same size bell.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
It's a bigger tone, isn't it?
Yeah, big difference.
What's different on the horn?
They're both D trumpets.
They both have the same bell.
The lead pipes are different.
Quite a bit different.
So we can select the horn by changing
various parts of the horn.
You can change the bell, you can change the lead pipe.
Heavy metal, you can have silver, you can go nuts.
So anyway, I wanted to make it clear
that various styles, even within the same company of horns,
changes the horn drastically.
This is another horn by Bach with a reversed lead pipe.
It's got an extra long pipe.
You see how long that paper is?
All the way in the end.
There's no ferrule here.
There is no cylindrical tubing at this point.
It continues all the way to the end.
It has a different feel.
If I had two of these with different pipes,
you would hear the difference.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
That's a medium large four.
Let's see if you can hear a large four.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
Do you hear the difference?
It's drastic, I think.
To me, it's drastic.
Medium large to large, same basic horn.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
Different sound.
OK.
I think I'll keep this one up here and use this.
This is awesome, too.
These quads.
So you can mix it up.
["POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]
OK, we've discussed metals, choices of metals,
thicknesses of the metal itself, the dimension of the horn,
choosing the paper of the lead pipe, paper of the bell,
and the size of the bore.
Mouthpiece, we can change the size
of three basic sections of this.
You can change the width and the cup dimension.
You can change the shape of the cup from the V cup to bowl cup.
You can have like quads mouthpiece.
It's kind of a combination of bowl and V mixed together.
They all react a little differently.
Some of them have what's called a secondary cup.
And that's where the cup goes down like this.
Then it goes into a second V at the bottom.
And those usually create the response
of the deeper mouthpiece that give you
some of the brilliance of the shallower mouthpiece.
The shallower the mouthpiece, usually the brighter the tone.
But if it gets too shallow, it won't respond or clam up on you
and won't work.
So you can carry that away to the point of no return,
where you can't get the response that you
need to play the instrument.
Small is not necessarily better for high.
In fact, we found in Claude, in a test of this,
and everybody that's taken from Claude all these years,
that most of the best response comes from training your body
to function under the conditions of a little larger equipment.
Larger throat, a little bigger cup,
give yourself a chance to develop.
Don't depend on your equipment to sweep out high notes.
So we can do a lot by changing that.
The biggest mistake people make is
going to too small of equipment.
Let's talk about the taper of the instrument.
What's the difference between a cornet and a trumpet?
We've been talking about this earlier.
Does anybody know?
I think a cornet, it's got smaller diameter,
so it's a different kind of approach to it.
You have to take more to like, even a little bit.
It has a smaller diameter.
Only in certain places does it have a smaller diameter.
The basic concept difference between cornet and trumpet
is that cornet starts with a smaller lead pipe opening,
so small that they had to create a smaller mouthpiece shank
to fit in it.
Traditionally, it was made shorter,
so they've always stuck with that format
because you can't flare it out any larger
and fit into that small opening and start that reverse
process at that small point.
Now, you have a conical tube that's
called a lead pipe on a trumpet.
It flares out to a very large board about that distance.
On a cornet, it wraps all the way around
and into the first section, all the way down
to the bottom of the horn before it turns in cylindrical.
You know the difference between conical and cylindrical.
Cylindrical is parallel tubing.
The round tube is the same size.
Conical is tapered.
It's larger and larger and larger as it gets bigger.
Now, is there conical tubing on a trumpet?
Yes.
The lead pipe is conical to this point,
becomes cylindrical throughout the valve section,
and then becomes conical to the end at about this point.
This is still cylindrical.
So we have some.
But on a cornet, it wraps all the way
around with a small start to conical.
And that gives its inherent tone.
From that point on, they're pretty similar.
They have cylindrical tubing throughout the valve section.
And the bells are a little shorter
and opens up a little faster.
So there, your conical comes into play again.
So that's the basic difference there.
Now, we have a French horn, which
is the same basic format on a larger scale.
You have a very small opening starting with a small lead pipe.
And you have a very gradual, slow conical arrangement
through that lead pipe until you get to the cylindrical section
of the horn.
There are a lot of reasons why it's continued and cylindrical
through the valve section.
And one is that because we cross over
between valve combinations, you cannot graduate correctly
from valve to valve larger and larger.
So you cannot theoretically really
make a totally conical instrument
without getting into very, very complicated mechanics.
So because we cross from third sometimes,
or we're first, or back and forth,
it's easier to make the whole horn cylindrical at that point.
And so that's done throughout.
Most horns, including tubas and French horns
and all the valve instruments.
Trombone, it's much easier to do that,
except when you move the slide down,
you still have to use cylindrical to that section
because interiorly, you'd be moving in and out of bore size.
So you can possibly do that.
Okay, now we have the first starts of instruments
and the brass instrument.
Let's talk about that a bit.
Basically, we started with no valve instruments,
just straight ahead tubing.
And what did they depend on to change notes?
The lip, and what phenomena occurs
when you loosen and tighten your lip?
What happens when you loosen and tighten your lip?
What comes out?
Various notes of various pitch, right?
Are they in a particular order?
Okay, harmonic series, okay.
That's all you have to work with.
You have, let's say if you start here,
and this is things clap,
and you come up through,
I'm gonna run out of blackboard.
That's middle C, that's low C below that,
and that's below that.
So let's take this thing.
Okay, that's the fundamental pitch, let's say,
of a particular length of brass tubing.
What happens when we make the tubing longer?
This goes down.
You make the tubing shorter, you get the same series?
Without fail, the harmonic series never changes.
It's always the same.
And it starts off with an octave.
What's the next interval?
It's fourth, third, fourth, and then it goes to a third.
Then what happens?
It's one, one, one.
It goes to?
One, one, two.
And then how much do we want to go?
And then we get kind of an out of tune B flat,
and we get a C, and then it goes from there, from.
Now let's put it down here.
C, D, E, kind of out of tune, almost sharp,
but not quite sharp.
It's kind of in between the two.
And then G, and it keeps going.
These intervals are getting tighter as we go up.
We have a perfect fourth, major third, minor third,
and a squished up kind of out of tune minor third.
We have a very large major second,
and then from that major second,
it jumps up to a regular major second.
And then it starts just becoming smaller
as you go up until infinity occurs.
You get into quarter steps and beyond.
It never ends.
But we can't discern it very well after quarter steps.
It's about as far as we go where we can claim
the clearly difference in the pitch.
So when you develop a horn, a trumpet,
based on the open series,
you're going to have some nudes,
as you can indicate there by the B flat
on that particular harmonic series,
is a little out of tune.
So to get it in tune,
you might have to alter the horn a little bit
or use your lip to try and raise the pitch
and balance the tone.
Those are some of the things that they fought
when they were early attempts with instruments were used.
And one of the early successful attempts
was a very long arrangement of tuning called a farino
used during the Baroque period,
in which they played so high on this series
that they got most of the diatonic steps
that we use in our major and minor scales today.
And most of the half steps were available with some help.
They either used some kind of alteration
by some people claim they use some holes in the tubing.
They'll say we release air at that point
to change the intonation slightly or even change the pitch.
But basically they were dealing with straight ahead,
no interruption, no valves, no way of changing the pitch.
All they used was that harmonic series to play on.
So they played on extra long horns,
double this length, plus even more than that,
more or less like a French horn length
and played very high on the instrument.
The first attempt to valve the key horn
was talked about a little bit last night, Dave,
next to the key trumpet where they used holes
similar to that of a saxophone.
It was just holes in the horn to cover up the key.
You discover and lengthen the horn by lifting up holes,
making the air escape at an earlier point.
And this in itself would raise the pitch.
Wasn't very successful, played terribly out of tune,
had a lousy count, and was discarded
as being not a useful way to develop an instrument.
Then we had trumpets, brass instruments
where they had sliding plates that would allow.
It was similar to a valve where you could actually
redirect the air to another hunk of tubing.
And this was the first start, but the plates gummed up
and they didn't work well, and it was hard to get a good seal,
and they had a lot of blow-by and air problems.
So the very first successful attempt
at changing the length of tubing in a valve instrument
was the piston.
And the piston is probably the most commonly used now.
And the next, of course, is the rotary valve,
which is another affair which turns and rotates
the position of the tubing to another length of tube
and lengthens the horn.
So as we go through the horn, basically what we're doing
is that we have, in this particular three valve
instrument, we have nothing more than seven bugles all patched
together as one.
I skipped a, I started, did I start on the fundamental?
No, OK.
That's a pedal C, octave, tube, which
just keeps sliding to the point where
you start to have trouble discerning
the division at that point.
On a lower horn, it's a little easier
to hear those breaks when we get in the upper one.
You can hear that.
Now, as we go through the horn, what
happens when we push down second valve?
How much does it lengthen it?
Half step and pitch and maybe, approximately maybe three
inches.
First valve is how much?
A whole step.
OK, a major second.
How long is the tubing?
Proportionally longer?
Yes, let's say six inches.
Third valve, step and a half, minor second, nine inches,
let's say.
It's not exact, but that's close enough.
What's another way of getting nine inches?
One and two, OK.
Next combination would be what?
Maybe two and three?
Nine plus three inches?
Nine plus six inches?
Nine plus six plus three more.
So we're developing a way to get down to 18 inches more.
So we're adding that much distance to the horn
by pressing all three valves.
So basically, we have that same harmonic series available.
Let's do this one this way also.
So that's every possibility on this particular horn
for the harmonic series.
Now, we can develop that entire spectrum on all seven of these.
So basically, what you have is seven eagles
patched together as one.
Very efficient system.
It even gives you an alternative way
of playing this one series.
You can play it one or two or three.
The simplest and most efficient way to change pitch
is probably the slide trombone.
It's the oldest of all of them.
It was the original tube lengthener.
Before any key or valve, there was a slide trombone.
And it still survived like some ancient dinosaur.
It's still here, and there's a good reason why.
It's so simple.
There's nothing mechanically complicated about it,
and it works.
It's very efficient.
So that's another way of changing
the pitch on our trumpet.
OK, question.
Does it have the two-type two-valve eagles
patched together as one effect?
Yes.
What's the limitations of that?
You don't have a full chromatic scale spectrum.
By using three valves, we can put together
an entire chromatic scale.
And by leaving any one of those combinations out,
we eliminate that ability.
But we end up with an instrument capable of playing
most diatonic scales, some holes and halves, but not all of them.
So what happens when I do it?
Does it take this lengthener to play a certain key?
Yeah.
Certain keys, certain kinds of tunes
that aren't very complicated.
OK.
Give those notes to somebody else.
Yeah, right.
That's right.
Give the notes to somebody else.
OK, any more questions about this section?
Putting horns together, or what makes a horn function tone-wise
or any other way?
You have questions?
At what point should someone start
paying attention to these things?
Because as a student, you're not going to really know.
Exactly.
Let me put it this way.
My first professional quality instrument
was a Selmer, K-modified.
No, it was before K-modified, dating myself.
And the reason I played it was because Harry James played one.
I thought that would be a good enough reason.
If he could play well on it, then I guess I should get one.
So that's basically how I picked out my first one, my second one,
my third one, and I think even my fourth one
was based on other people's input.
I bought a horn because Maynard had one.
I bought another horn because a friend of mine
I admired very much the way he played.
I bought that.
So you have to trust people at first.
There's no way you're going to know when you first start what's
going to be the best balance for you.
At this stage of the game, I know what I want to hear.
And I can put together, and you will, too,
as you go on the combination of things
that makes you feel comfortable.
Claude is telling you that his combination is
one guaranteed way of developing you into a great player
because he believes that that horn will help
you perform to its optimum.
And the specialty horns are a category in the catalog
is what they call harmony instruments, don't ask me why.
They're considering them to be additional horns
for special effect or for certain kinds of music.
I don't necessarily believe that category is true,
but they're all equally as valid as the next.
But nevertheless, you'll find that you need, first of all,
before anything, a very solid, good, deep, flat company.
You must learn and base all of your playing on that.
If you get into specialized playing
with it, requires other key horns, that's fine.
And you'll know at that time when it's time to buy it
or what you need.
Any more questions?
Now, how would it bounce to the metal?
The only thing that comes close to bonding is epoxy
because it's baked on.
But lacquer is basically a coldy piston that's more abrupt.
When you change it, it creates kind of like a flutter sound
more than I hear on a rotary valve instrument
has more of a real smooth effect.
Now, whether or not that's good or bad, I don't know.
A lot of European players are playing rotary valve trumpets
and they sound wonderful on them.
We are in the habit of using pistons,
so you'll find that's the popular horn.
Rotary valve trumpets are available in this country.
Very few people buy them.
But you'll find more and more symphony players
are starting to use them.
I think they like the tone.
They're striving for a certain kind of tone
and it's available on those horns.
We didn't get into maintenance and we're running out of time.
But basically, all I can add to this is let's quickly
say that you've got to keep your horn clean.
And Dr. Miller made that clear.
But if you have a lacquered horn, don't use hot water.
Use warm water, use soap.
Dismantle the horn and submerge it.
Use snakes to get around the curved areas.
But on any kind of flexible brush called a snake,
it's important that you don't try and make
any of the tight turns.
Don't only go halfway on each side,
otherwise it'll jam on you.
It's also good if you have a snake
to make a little bit of an offset in the thing.
You can do that by bending the brush
to make it slightly off round.
When you turn it, it'll scrub better.
Also, it'll help you work your way
through some of these knuckle sections
where you'll have to turn it up to get up into here,
turn it down to get back through here,
and get out through those turns.
Otherwise, you can't go through a bell
and get all the way around.
This won't go, it buckles up, won't work.
But it'll go through here.
And make sure you scrub all your knuckles out.
Do it underwater, you know, while you're there.
Get that thing in there and scrub all these parts out.
And don't forget to get that one section
we were just talking about.
And that's through here, because that builds up bacteria
as well as any other place.
Most of the dirt collects in the lead pipe.
If you're a French horn or lower brass,
and you can't be washing your horn out that consistently,
you can at least get the front end of your horn
as clean as possible.
And that's where most of the dirt and bacteria
collects stuff in here.
Yes?
How warm is too warm for lacquer?
You should be able to put your hand in.
That's a perfect test.
If you pull your hand out and it's too hot,
it's too hot for lacquer.
And you shouldn't be putting your hand
into the point where you're fighting to hold it in.
It should be warm.
Warm is safe.
Then you'll have your lacquer.
It won't take it off.
Like he was saying, lacquer won't come off.
It always comes off when you don't want it to.
Just get the water too hot, and you'll find out.
You can have it pretty hot for a silver horn.
You can have it boiling hot for any kind of plated instrument,
gold or silver.
You really don't have to get it quite that hot.
But it helps break the dirt loose.
You're going to use the brushes, and you're going to scrub.
But if you want heavier brushes, there
are heavier brushes available through all kinds of sources.
Fuller brush, you can use this.
This is great for lead pipes and for getting
in all the straight tubing.
But you should never let your horn get so dirty that you're
going to build up corrosion.
Corrosion can only be removed by a competent repair person that
has the right kind of acids.
And we use acids to take away some of the mineral deposits.
And corrosion develops in a horn that
hasn't been cleaned properly.
Because people let it get too dirty, it starts to build up.
If you keep your horns clean, you won't have to do that.
When you've dismantled the horn and cleaned all the parts,
make sure that when you put it back together
that you use a good lube.
Don't use Vaseline.
Vaseline is a petroleum base that kind of creates tarnish.
So you want to stay away from that.
This stuff here is called anhydrous lanolin.
And anhydrous lanolin, although it
doesn't work in cold temperatures
because it gets so stiff, it's great under most conditions
of cold to hot weather.
It works great.
But in ultra cold weather, it gets a little too hard.
But this stuff will not create any tarnish.
It won't build up any corrosion.
It'll keep your horn together.
You can put that stuff on, put it away for centuries,
and it wouldn't corrode.
Whereas if you put Vaseline on there, you can close it up,
and it'll be dried out and corrode even
without your blowing through it.
Remember, your acids react with the kind of chemicals
you put on your horn or oils.
This stuff works good.
This Roche Thomas cream is good.
I don't like it as well.
The Schilke cream that he's carrying in the back
there is excellent.
And its base is, again, anhydrous lanolin.
I've got this anhydrous lanolin in a Kahn Formula 3
slide cream bottle, so don't let that fool you.
I get anhydrous lanolin at the drug store,
at the prescription counter.
I'd suggest you get something like that,
or you can purchase it in this form here by Schilke.
That's a good one.
What oil do you use?
You use whatever oil makes functions well on your horn.
Part of the problem with sticking valves
is due to your chemistry, and part of it
is due to the fact that maybe you have a new horn that
has very tight valves.
So they make valve oils in different weights.
This is Kuroo oil, it's one brand.
This is their ultra-light beta oil for very tight valves.
And here's their regular weight for most horns
that are not too tight.
This is the new Bach oil that they're putting in all the cases,
and they also sell.
It's basically made by Alkass for Selma.
So this is basically a lightweight oil.
Alkass is a lightweight, this is Alkass in a box bottle.
This oil is fairly new on the market.
I like it a lot.
It's a synthetic oil.
It's a non-oil.
It's non-petroleum.
It's a little heavy.
It has to be used on fairly broken-in valves.
But boy, very little of this stuff lasts forever,
and it runs good.
This is called Alcin, and it's a high-performance synthetic oil,
they say.
And I like it.
It works on my horn.
But my horn's old and pretty loose,
so it works good on that.
Here's another one called Spacebiller.
They make two weights of oils, and they also
make a lube that I use on slides, on third slides especially.
You can break it down where you want
it to run a little smoother.
This is a good oil, Spacebiller.
Alcin, Kuroo oil, all of them are OK.
There's not a bad oil on the market.
You've got to pick out the one that fits your needs.
How thick does it have to be, or how
does it react with your acids as you blow through the horn?
It's all going to be a little different.
Remember, when you put your horn back together,
put grease on the slides.
Do each slide separately.
Work it on both sides before you put it together,
because it might jam.
That way, it'll break in good.
Or dry out your valve cases.
You can use any kind of rod.
They include in most horns a rod with a lube on the end.
This one's got the lube cut off.
But all I use this for is, in conjunction
with a rag that's not too heavy, and I'll just
take a section of it to poke it through the valve casing,
and then take the rod out, and then run the cloth
through to dry the casings out before you put oil on it.
Because the oil will mix with the solution water
and break down too fast.
If you can get straight oil on the valves
before you start putting moisture into it,
then it'll hold up a little longer.
On, I see any more questions about that?
If you're going to clean out your horn,
you're going to need a few basic tools.
I think I listed them in here.
An old toothbrush is really handy for scrubbing valve caps.
A mouthpiece brush is great for, they're tree shaped brushes,
for doing the valve ports as well as the mouthpiece itself.
Keep the mouthpiece clean.
Everybody forgets to clean that horn out.
And that's the first place it's going to collect.
These are a couple of varieties of snakes
that are on the market.
This is trumpet width, and this is trombone.
Some of the manufacturers make a trombone snake
that's small enough to work it, it'd be used on a trumpet.
This one's a little too big for trumpet,
but this one is pretty good.
All right, what about the outside of the horn?
This is the last part.
I always use alcohol, isopropyl rubbing alcohol.
I use it on the outside of the horn
before I put the horn away.
No matter if it's lacquer or silver, take the horn,
and if you spray it around where you've
been holding it with all those acids that are in your system
that usually end up taking the lacquer off or eventually
corroding through the silver.
If you just did this much every day,
now how long is this taking?
Not much, just around where you hold it,
just before you put it away, once a day.
Don't let it sit in the case with your hand
acids on the horn.
If you do this, your horn, lacquer, and your silver
will last forever.
Is it pure alcohol?
It's pure.
This is 70%, isopropyl watered down to 70%.
You can buy it this way, or you can buy it 90%
and water it down yourself.
It doesn't really matter.
It doesn't react with the lacquer,
and it's strong enough to get.
It's a universal solvent.
It's just a simple solvent, and you're just
getting the stuff off the horn.
That's one of the good ways to do it.
If you sprayed water on it and wiped it off, it would be good.
The outside is always neglected.
Karen, get yourself a little old bottle.
This was a perfume bottle that I just stole from my wife,
and I've been using it for years.
It works great keeping the horn clean on the outside
and keeping the finish good.
OK, any questions?
They say for silver horns that you
shouldn't use silver polish on your little liquids.
Oh, you can use silver polish on a horn.
My favorite is 3M's tarnished shield.
It's a low abrasive with a little bit of a tarnished
retardant in it that keeps it from getting retarnished.
But any time you put a polish on,
you're basically using a very mild abrasive,
and it's taking some metal off.
But if you use it once a year to polish it up
to get the places that get so black and tarnished where you
don't touch it every day, where it usually tarnishes out,
you can get in all those hips and crannies once in a while.
And then the rest of the time, if you
spray it with alcohol, it takes all of that smudgy look
off of silver real quick.
Any more questions?
Thank you.
I'm finished.
Thank you.