Trombone to sackbut specs?
Kristen Murray-Todd
and is wondering if there is any information around on how to convert a
modern trombone into a sackbut. As a woodwind player, I've played with
people who have done this, but I don't know what they did in enough detail
to be very helpful to him. Is there any reference material I could get for
him?
Mike Andrews
: I recently met a trombone player who is interested in playing early music,
Conversion is really simple: replace mouthpiece, tubing, and bell.
IIRC, the bore is narrower, the bell is smaller, and the mouthpiece is
different (smaller, narrower bore?).
--
Mike Andrews
mi...@mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin since 1964
MWindi4108
spoken have told me that you have to find a trombone with a very narrow bore
and the "circumsize" it (if you'll forgive the simile). The end flared bell has
to be cut down to make a deeper cone.
This sounded very fraught to me.
I believe the mouthpiece is quite different too.
There may be a web page.
Have a look at www.e-m-s.com to study sackbut shapes.
Mark Windisch
Always keen to learn.
John Howell
>and is wondering if there is any information around on how to convert a
>modern trombone into a sackbut. As a woodwind player, I've played with
>people who have done this, but I don't know what they did in enough detail
>to be very helpful to him. Is there any reference material I could get for
>him?
Basically saw the bell off short and adjust the tuning slide, but the bore
is still too big for a true sackbutt.
This is a little like "how can I make a modern flute sound like a
recorder?" Answer: buy a recorder.
John
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:John....@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
Ken Moore
Kristen Murray-Todd <Kris...@intl.com> writes
>I recently met a trombone player who is interested in playing early music,
>and is wondering if there is any information around on how to convert a
>modern trombone into a sackbut. As a woodwind player, I've played with
>people who have done this, but I don't know what they did in enough detail
>to be very helpful to him. Is there any reference material I could get for
>him?
My main recommendation, if he hasn't already got a trombone for
conversion, would be to try to find an old one (c.1900), because it will
be narrower bore than recent tenors, even plain ones.
--
Ken Moore
k...@hpsl.demon.co.uk
Web site: http://www.hpsl.demon.co.uk/
Greg Lindahl
> This is a little like "how can I make a modern flute sound like a
> recorder?" Answer: buy a recorder.
It is? Let's see:
- People make "hackbuts" all the time, mainly because they're far
cheaper than the real thing, not because they're good sackbuts
- People never make recorders out of flutes, because you can't, and
because you can buy inexpensive plastic renaissance-style recorders
these days
The two practices look completely different to me.
-- g
Dave and Robin Baum
We know that early alto trombones (i prefer that to sagbut) have the
same bell flare as D natural trumpets,
and that early tenor trombones have bells about 50% larger than that.
That puts the Bb trumpet bell at about the correct size, and the locations of the pressure anti-nodes in the bell should be about correct at either octave (that is, 9 ft or 4.5 ft).
Cutting the bell off a modern trombone not only doen't result in the correct bore specs, it completely
changes the harmonics of the horn, so that virtually every note has a different slide position.
I'm going to try the trumpet thing this month for a local university,
I'll let you know how it turns out.
dave b
mboc...@my-deja.com
lin...@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl) wrote:
> John....@vt.edu (John Howell) writes:
>
> > This is a little like "how can I make a modern flute sound like a
> > recorder?" Answer: buy a recorder.
>
> It is? Let's see:
>
> - People make "hackbuts" all the time, mainly because they're far
> cheaper than the real thing, not because they're good sackbuts
It's even cheaper to leave the poor instrument alone and just play it
with the large bell. The only sackbut aspect you will gain is the
smaller bell and you will sacrifice the tuning of the instrument without
gaining the sound of a sackbut.
>
> - People never make recorders out of flutes, because you can't, and
> because you can buy inexpensive plastic renaissance-style recorders
> these days
Who makes good "Renaissance" plastic recorders? I've only seen plastic
baroque recorders. Thanks for the info.
Michael O'Connor
>
> The two practices look completely different to me.
>
> -- g
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Greg Lindahl
> Who makes good "Renaissance" plastic recorders? I've only seen plastic
> baroque recorders.
Kelischeck -- the Susato "wide bore plastic recorder", www.susato.com.
He makes a sopranino, soprano, and altos in G and F.
I asked this newsgroup/list for a review of it a while back with no
answers.
-- greg
William R. Brohinsky
Sonador Usenet Agent wrote:
>
> I recently met a trombone player who is interested in playing early music,
> and is wondering if there is any information around on how to convert a
> modern trombone into a sackbut. As a woodwind player, I've played with
> people who have done this, but I don't know what they did in enough detail
> to be very helpful to him. Is there any reference material I could get for
> him?
>
I've actually instigated something like this.
First, though, you really need an old trombone, pre1950's. The common
parlance around here is `pea-shooter'. They have pretty narrow bores.
You do have to perform a bellectomy on it. To do this, first carefully
unwrap the edge of the bell from the wire which is twisted into it for
support. Cut the wire if it isn't already separated at one point, and
resize it to the new bell size. The best way to get an idea of this is
to look at catalog pictures or Syntagma Musicum or some such other
iconographic evidence for a `real' sackbut.
Then, cut the bell back to within about 3/4ths of an inch of the point
you want it to be. By this, I mean note where you would have to cut the
bell to have it be the right diameter for a sackbut bell, but cut it
3/4ths of an inch further out, leaving the metal in between intact.
Then, and this is the hard part, lay the wire around the bell and bend
the metal back over it, cinching it in so that it is wrapped around the
wire the way it was originally. This is not an easy task, and would be
best done by a willing brass instrument repairman, or in our case, one
incredibly talented mechanical technician (in my case, Chris Langer, the
mech-tech where I worked).
The results, if done carefully and with lots of planning (measure twice,
cut once, etc) can be very aesthetically pleasing. I'm not saying that
it will respond entirely the same way that a sackbut made in 1551 would
have...the bore won't be quite as small, and the wall-thickness will be
much thinner (although you get a lot closer with a pea-shooter than you
would with a modern trombone). On the other hand, the tone becomes much
lighter with a bellectomy, and in my humble,
double-reed-and-string-experienced hands, more facile than the original
as a trombone.
Also, if you are skilled (or brave) at metal work, you can cover many
sins of workmanship with metal chasing or engraving or
just-plain-ornamental beating with a screwdriver-end. Again, results are
going to be equal to how you plan and what you put into it, but you can
end up with a very nice instrument.
And thereby hangs a tail...
When the Hanover Consort was young and foolish (ok, we're still young
and foolish) we got ourselves a job playing at the Christmas Tree
Ceremony at the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford, CT. It was, in short, the
worst of all possible worlds. There were far too many people who were
all wandering about talking at the top of their lungs, and the local TV
station was taping bits of it (enough to ensure no one knew what
actually went on) and we were placed in the center of this gigantic room
with a ceiling too far away to see, with dim lighting and carpets. What
little sound we made could be heard for about 2 feet, if you chose your
2 feet in between the consort members.
The people must have paid handsomely to be there. And most of the
entertainment was either fascinatingly interesting (like the 30-child
Suzuki violin band) or appropriate to the venue (the occasional brass
quintet). We were surrounded by expensively-dressed people, and a bit
out of our league.
This one gent sidled over, and began to ask about the instruments. We
were taking a short break, but afraid to leave our chairs (the fear of
getting lost and never finding the way back was palpable) and I did my
best to answer his persistant questioning. The noise level, my raw
throat and his aging hearing apparatus weren't working in our favor, and
when he asked if the instruments were originals, my explanation that
they were careful copies, for the most part seemed to fall on the carpet
to lie amongst the notes we'd previously littered it with.
At his prodding, though, I pointed to our Sackbut, and proudly
announced, "Well, that _is_ an original Langer."
He was suitably impressed.
raybro
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tlst...@tpgi.com.au
Kris...@intl.com (Kristen Murray-Todd) wrote:
> I recently met a trombone player who is interested in playing early music,
> and is wondering if there is any information around on how to convert a
> modern trombone into a sackbut. As a woodwind player, I've played with
> people who have done this, but I don't know what they did in enough detail
> to be very helpful to him. Is there any reference material I could get for
> him?
Whenever this is asked, the weight of informed opinion seems to be "Don't
- you can't get there from here".
I always think of Wally Zukerman's comments on the number of early square
pianos whose owners could not resist the temptation to convert them into
harpsichords. The only conversion that he considered to come close to
being satisfactory was by one owner who converted a square piano into a
shirt closet.
Sorry to be so negative...
--
Cheers!
Terry
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Jonathan...@dragonsys.com
I remember the question being asked, and remember one answer to it, at least --
I think perhaps Jack Campin said he had tried the G alto? As I recall (without
trying to search for the actual document) the report was "good for playing
outdoors but too loud for consort play with other recorders."
jzg