@Dr-GO Get into contact with allegro optical in Meltham, UK. They specialize in musicians' glasses and are able to provide you with variable varifocals to your needs. All employees there are musicians themselves and know exactly what to do. I just got my first set from them - fabulous. Previously, I had the problem that after a cataract operation, my eye accommodation was gone. So I had to use reading glasses for the music, but then the conductor was way out of focus and sometimes, even hard to see. Now, that problem is gone (no, I haven't switched to viola). I can read the music clearly and comfortably, and the conductor stays in focus as well.
Best posts made by barliman2001
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RE: The One
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RE: A little humour
John entered a Covid-19 Vaccine Centre and was given his first dose.
On the way home, he found he had suddenly developed severe vision problems. So he called the vaccine centre to ask whether he should see his doctor or go straight into hospital.
"Don't go to the doctor OR the hospital. Your only chance is to return here and collect the glasses you forgot!" -
RE: Nirschl B300
Ok, here's further information. Walter Nirschl - yes, he's still in business! - is a craftsman who got into difficulties and then put his workshop under the umbrella of bm symphonic, the parent company of Miraphone and a few other brands. During the first years of his cooperation with bm symphonic, he was a part-time employee of bm and put together some top-intermediate trumpets getting the parts from a variety of sources and just putting them together and getting in the finishing touches. Until very recently, he specialized on professional low brass, mostly with rotaries, and produced one model of rotary Bb, the "Model Uwe Komischke", named after a Munich-based professional trumpet player and professor (who, by this time, has switched over to Dowids). The "Elkhart" stamp was put on for a bit of customs and tax evasion... after finishing, they took out the valve cylinders and sent trumpet bodies and valve cylinders in separate packages, to be re-united in Elkhart, thus making both packages "unfinished goods" which at the time incurred less import duties than finished trumpets. And of course, "made in Elkhart" still has a good sound in the US...
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RE: A little humour
Vienna, Austria
Traffic lights beside the Opera.
A tourist in a hired car is so entranced by the sight he misses the green light.
A Viennese stops by, winds down the window and calls out, "Your colour didn't come up, did it?" -
1954 Olds Recording
A year or two back, I discovered an almost-like-new LA Olds Recording in Votruba's in Vienna. Had been there for quite some time... they were only too happy to take my UMI Benge 7 for it (decent horn, but I somehow never got to grips with it), because the Benge was normal style and the Recording's Balanced style just did not catch on in Vienna... now, it's my main big band axe. Serial # 1018xx, dating it to approximately to 1954... so far, I always played it with a Bach Megatone 1C, but yesterday, I ordered a Swiss Brand Turbo 1 1/2 C in blue transparent plastic. got it today, delivered directly into my room in the rehab clinic - Thomann are great! - and it went from wonderful to spectacular... the new mouthpiece somehow released another half octave in range... and it does sound great, even though it is rather lightweight. And it's so warm on the lips - I am due to play with a local brass group on New Year's Eve, outside, and that mouthpiece was ordered for that purpose - in the hope that Thomann would only deliver it in the New Year, giving me an excuse to back out... great service!
Would love to post a few pics, but my phone is not on speaking terms with my laptop just now... -
RE: A little humour
@tjcombo Two English gentlemen are sitting beside a river, fishing. Suddenly, one rod twitches, and the relevant gentleman pulls a beautiful mermaid from the waters. He regards her for a long time, then throws her back into the river.
Some time later, his companion asks, "Why?"
The answer? "How?" -
RE: Elmer Churampi
Before this post, I had never heard of Elmer Churampi; but now, I consider him the legitimate heir of Maurice André. Don't misunderstand me - there are many excellent players out there, each and every one with their own personal style and area of excellence. I admire every single one of them, be it Tine Thing Helseth, Alison Balsom, Hakan Hardenberger, Guy Touvron, or Sergey Nakariakov, or... whoever. But no one after the sad demise of MA quite got that mixture of silky smoothness with technical brilliance and - from what I gather - a likeable personality. Elmer Churampi nails that. His performance of the Hummel is remarkabl near MA's style, yet is no mere copy. I raise my hat and a few celebratory glasses to the young guy!
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RE: KT revisited
@j-jericho More like a botfly - you know, the things they pull out of cats' noses on Youtube...
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RE: Christmas Services
OK, first interim report. Played a Midnight Christmas service last night, as additional trumpet for a group consisting of a Lutheran parson and his seven daughters. The church we played in is rarely used - Christmas, Easter, and the occasional wedding - so the heating in the church had only been switched on an hour previous. No snow yet, but bloody cold. No rehearsal - just a list of numbers from the Lutheran Hymn book and its official Trombone Choir Arrangement book. The group - the parson, on a vintage Yamaha rotary. Daughter One on a rather decrepit Amati French horn. Daughter Two on a Cerveny rotary tenor horn, Daughter Three on a ramshackle Jupiter student bone, Daughter Four on an ancient Conn bellfront euphonium. Daughters Five and Six on no-name rotary baritone horns, and Daughter Seven, the youngest and smallest (age 13 and a half) on an enormous 1890s vintage Bb tuba. And, of course, the parson's wife on a pair of timps with half the tuning screws broken off.
We tuned up about 15 minutes before service. Then, there was a long wait because quite a few dignitaries had turned up (vice mayor, fire chief, police chief, President of the Lions Club, President of the Lutheran Women's League, the Catholic Priest with the President of the Parish Council) and were saying a few words as Christmas greetings. First tune was played an exact 40 minutes after tune-up, in a freezing church... we sounded like a fire truck with asthma. The cooling of the instruments had worked havoc with the tuning, and a few of the daughters just were unable to provide enough air for their instruments... In total, we played nine tunes and decided not to continue carolling after the service (as had been planned), as the tuba and one of the baritones had seized up due to cold... -
My collection...
As I am enjoying a leisure moment, I have begun a list of every instrument I ever owned... not in chronological order. And I've decided that you out there, my trumpet friends, should be allowed to share this info.
Please do not see this as boasting, but as plain information.
I am including the fate of each instrument whenever it has decided to move on.Bb trumpets:
Comet ***
UMI King Silver Flair Dizzy Bell (sold)
Jupiter STR-1010, with one straight and one Dizzy Bell, and an adapted Schilke BERYLLIUM bell (sold)
Jupiter 840 (sold)
Dowids Jazzline (sold)
Stomvi Elite Bb (sold)
Ganter G5 (exchanged for G7)
Ganter G7 custom (sold)
Olds Ambassador (given to a friend as present)
Olds Special (returned to original seller as he after the deal could not bear to part with it)
Olds Studio (for sale at Votruba's in Vienna)
Olds Recording
Courtois Balanced
Buescher Aristocrat 265
Conn International (Amati stencil)
Selmer K-Modified (stolen in burglary in Ireland)
UMI Benge #7 (for sale at Votruba's in Vienna)
Buescher #9
Buescher #11 with quick change to A (stolen in burglary in Ireland)Pocket Bb trumpets:
Jupiter, small bell (sold)
Stomvi Forte (sold)
Arnold & Sons (Jupiter clone)C trumpets:
Bach Strad 239, with additional slides in Bb and Ab (stolen in Munich)
Bach Strad rotary C (stolen in burglary in Ireland)
Stomvi Elite (sold)
Couesnon Bb/C (for sale at Votruba's in Vienna)
Gaudet CD trumpets:
DEG Signature (re-sold within two weeks)
Ganter G3 (sold)
Stomvi Elite (sold)
CourtoisEb trumpets:
Stomvi (sold)F trumpet:
Bach Strad (sold)G picc:
Scherzer (sold)
1966 SelmerBb/A picc:
1967 Selmer (sold)
1979 Selmer (sold)
Besson Kanstul 920 (sold, very much regretted)
Stomvi Elite (sold)
Votruba Professional (stolen in Vienna, found and destroyed by police on suspicion of being a bomb)
ACB DoublerBb cornets:
Weltklang, with custom made Ab slides (sold)
Ganter Custom (sold)
Besson Imperial (in need of restoration)
Stomvi Elite (sold)
Ganter rotary cornet (returned to H. Ganter for private collection)
Besson International (2x)
Buescher Aristocrat 264
Jupiter student cornet (sold)
Elkhart by Buescher (for sale at Votruba's in Vienna)
Blessing Artist (present to my Scottish godchild)
Unnamed 1880s HP cornet, with personal engravingEb cornets:
Besson Imperial (in need of restoration)
B&H Sovereign Round Stamp bell-tuned Soprano (2x, one stolen in burglary in Ireland, the other sold)
Ganter CustomFlugelhorns:
Ganter G15 (sold)
Votruba Profi (sold)
Courtois 154R
Thomann "Black Jazz" (sold within a week)
Clemens August Glier Kuhlohorn (almost sold...)I think that's it... enjoy.
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RE: What Are You Doing New Years, New Years Eve
Playing a New Year's Eve Ball with Big Band Markus Fluhr www.bbmf.de, and then several weeks of assisting my wife with "Countess Mariza", done by the touring operetta company she has just wormed herself into to such an extent that the present owner wants to retire and hand over the company to her... then a concert with the Vienna Lakeside Music Academy Symphony Orchestra - music from animation movies - and then a few Carnival gigs.
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RE: A little humour
"Student, how would you define a Minor Second?" -
"Two clarinets in unison, sir." -
RE: A little humour
@dr-go That sounds rather like the explanation I gave to a group of Texan tourists when guiding them through the Golden Hall at Passau City Hall... There is a very large painting of the wedding of an Austrian Emperor to a Bavarian Princess, and I asked them whether they knew that the fact that the Emperor married in Passau was directly responsible for US Independence? No? Ok, here's the reason. If the Emperor had not married there, he would not have known about the Mariahilf Monastery there. He could not have made a pilgrimage there to pray for victory over the Turks (we're talking 17th cent. here). In consequence, he could not have defeated the Turks and would not have captured their camp. Therefore he would not have found the first bags of coffee in Europe. Without the coffee... there would not have been coffee houses in Vienna. And without them, there would not have been Edward Lloyd's Vienna Coffee House in Boston, Mass., where the conspirators for the Boston Tea Party used to meet and plot. And thus what is now the US would still be a group of English colonies... Long faces, "We didn't know thaaaat..." and the sounds of chins dropping to the polished marble floor... and a couple of English tourists were laughing their heads off...
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RE: I always knew Trombones were frightening instruments
Trombones have their uses in pretending you are something you are not...
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RE: A little humour
@ssmith1226 However, by cleverly combining some, you will be able to get astounding results:
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A piece of toast will always fall onto the buttered side
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A cat always falls on its feet.
So you take a cat, liberally coat its back with butter and throw it down. It will try to fall on its feet, but then the buttered side would be uppermost, so the resulting reaction will cause the cat to hover a foot or so above ground and rotate faster and faster, until you can connect a crankshaft to the cat and drive a generator.
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RE: The value of scales
Trumpet player to antiques dealer: "Can you really tell me the value of scales?" - "Of course. They are not rare - though rarer as they should be. They are usually not in perfect condition - and nobody really, really wants them. No value at all."
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Ivan Hunter Trumpet Master Class in Austria
Title says everything. Details here. One place already taken - by me.
www.meisterklassen-gutenstein.com/trumpet-2023 -
RE: Phony players
@Dale-Proctor said in Phony players:
@BigDub said in Phony players:
On the show, Hogan’s Heroes, Colonel Klink Would occasionally play the violin, much to the discomfort of those who happened to be in the same room.
He looked rather convincing, but if you looked closely, there weren’t even any strings on the instrument!Interesting factoid - Werner Klemperer’s father was Otto Klemperer, the famous orchestral conductor.
Even more interesting - quite a number of the actors in that show were either of Jewish descent or had lost family and friends due to Nazi terror.
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European Folklore Festival - Coronation Brass
The European Folklore Festival in Bitburg, Germany, is an annual event of some considerable size with a remarkable 50+-year tradition. Groups from all over the world meet and show off their skills - great stuff.
Traditionally, some of the music is always provided by Welsh brass band Coronation Brass, a scratch formation meeting once a year in Bitburg and playing up to eight gigs over a four-day period. No rehearsal - just plain sight-reading one minor test piece and lots of marches (no marching!) and old favourites, with a tasty selection from the cheeseboard.
For the last years, Coronation Brass have been welcoming guest players from all over the world... me, for one (I've already managed to worm myself into the inner circle), and there were players from Germany, Italy, Russia and the US...
It's always great fun - great music, great people, free meals and floods of free drinks (main sponsor is Bitburger, one of the largest breweries in Germany!). ssmith1226 attended one festival, and a year later he wrote, "my liver still remembers!"This year's event will be smaller than usual, more like a local affair, but Coronation Brass have been confirmed as participants and are inviting brass band players to join them for a long weekend of music and mayhem.
The Dates:
Arrival in Bitburg Friday, 8 July, 2022, lunchtime
Concerts - most of them open-air, in the centre of town - from Friday evening until Monday morning
Departure after breakfast Tuesday, 12 JulyBitburg is fairly easily reached by car, and is within reach of both Frankfurt and Frankfurt-Hahn airports. Airport pick-ups can be arranged, and for those travelling from the UK, there will be free seats in cars.
Accommodation traditionally is in a 3-star hotel in the centre of town, just 50 metres from the main concert venue... cost is likely to be at most € 250 for the whole period including large breakfasts (that's the upper figure - Coronation Brass usually get special rates and sponsoring. At the last pre-lockdown festival, cost per nose was € 180.)
Contact me for details, or apply directly to Nick Jones (organizing genius, and trombone wizard) at coronationbrass@hotmail.com
See a few pics from previous festivals...
Yep, that's me as flag-bearer.The umbrellas in the background belong to the band hotel...
Fellow participants from Slovakia, with a tromboline
Bitburg's Mayor conducting Coronation Brass (he's a Euph player of note and has been known to join the band for a few pieces)
Music and drinks!
Street food
Folk dance group from a Swedish Seniors' Residence - the youngest member is 87, the oldest 101 years old