Odd couples

[tictactux]

Looks like we have a very open-minded audience with all sorts of funny ideas like putting a brass mouthpiece on a sax or playing sinister-looking instruments that seldom see the light of a rehearsal room...anyhow, here is:

I recently acquired a Bundy-by-Bach cornet for the sake of trying something new. It appears that I am the antithesis of the born brass player as my only progress consists in converting a whining noise into a farting noise. (before someone asks, a band buddy whom I lent this horn for an outdoor gig nearly broke friendship with me when I asked it back, so I assume the horn is good).

Anyhow, I googled around a bit and found the one or other post referring to a reed trumpet, so I thought why not and put a soprano sax mouthpiece onto the poor cornet. It sort of physically fits, but that's about it - I'm getting some three different notes which doesn't cut it musically. It's like putting a yard of duct tape around a soprano clarinet mouthpiece tenon and try to play the bass with it - somehow the bore of the instrument doesn't fit the bore of the mouthpiece. I guess there's more to it than just sticking your pinky into a tube and saying "fair enough". Might work for plumbers, but not for music. <sigh>

I spare you the oboe-reed-on-clarinet sound clip...

Anyone else experimenting with such stuff?

 

[Dave Dolson]

Ben: That shaking motion you just felt was Bix rolling over in his grave. DAVE

 

[Heckelphone]

Hybrids (that's the polite term for it...)

In college, I used to use a tromboon (bassoon reed and bocal on a trombone) to call dorm meetings to order...

The Bassoon Brothers have a nice rendition of "Night Train" that puts the tromboon to good (and hilarious) effect.

Enjoy,

Grant

 

[Yamahaaltoplayer]

Aha! I put my alto sax piece on a clarinet... Not bad, but leaky and squeaky.:???: But I loved playing my alto sax piece... on a euphonium! Hehe, super low notes! I played 8 notes on it, chromatically. That's all I got because the euphist came back and got mad at me. That got the tubist's brain rolling - bari sax mpc on a tuba!

 

[Carl H.]

Generally speaking, it is never a good idea to touch somebody elses instrument without their knowledge or consent.

never

 

[Heckelphone]

Aha! I put my alto sax piece on a clarinet... Not bad, but leaky and squeaky.:???: But I loved playing my alto sax piece... on a euphonium! Hehe, super low notes! I played 8 notes on it, chromatically. That's all I got because the euphist came back and got mad at me. That got the tubist's brain rolling - bari sax mpc on a tuba!

Tenor sax mpc on sousaphone was popular when I was in school

 

[daigle65]

Legend has it that Adolphe Sax came up with the idea for the saxophone by putting a clarinet mouthpiece on an Ophicleide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophicleide

 

[Heckelphone]

The Saxicleide

Legend has it that Adolphe Sax came up with the idea for the saxophone by putting a clarinet mouthpiece on an Ophicleide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophicleide

Pretty likely, as (a) his father was a well-known ophicleide maker, (b) the first saxophone made was a bass, and (c) the original patent drawings show the larger saxes as ophicleide-shaped.

Enjoy,

Grant

 

[pete]

Pretty likely, as (a) his father was a well-known ophicleide maker, (b) the first saxophone made was a bass, and (c) the original patent drawings show the larger saxes as ophicleide-shaped.

Enjoy,

Grant

+1.

However, this is a fairly well-known story.

I'd be interested to hear from our resident acousticians what would really be required to, say, take a trombone, affix a reed mouthpiece on it and make it play "properly" (i.e. hit about as many notes as the original instrument) -- and play in tune.

I also wonder what this says about the argument that mouthpieces make you sound better ....

 

[Heckelphone]

Tromboon!

Well, it should be possible to play a tromboon in tune, given a decent ear ;-)

Tromboon (and related instruments, see e.g. the slide reed subcontrabass invented by Philip Neuman) typically have two disjoint ranges: a rattling pedal tone, and a brassy mid-range, each about a half octave. Extending the range upward is probably a matter of practice, learning how to get the next harmonic up without the aid of a register key to help. Probably akin to learning altissimo on the sax.

When you think about the ranges, the pedal tones are really the fundamental octave (OK, half octave) of the horn, corresponding to the low register on a woodwind. The "upper" range is just the octave above that. No way to fill in the range between without adding a few more valves: perhaps a double-trigger bass bone could span the gap.

Ascending above the higher range requires you to hit the next harmonic series, which corresponds exactly to the altissimo register on woodwinds. So it is perhaps just a matter of practice, and possibly reed design. I suspect that nobody ever puts in the necessary practice to develop the range.

As far as playing these hybirds (as P.D.Q. Bach says, "that's the polite name for it") in tune, you would need to shorten the bocal to something approaching the length of a trombone mpc (as Phil did with the slide reed contra). The standard bassoon bocal is handy, because it generall fits in the trombone mpc receiver, but otherwise it extends the bore too long for the horn to truly play in tune with itself.

I've toyed with the idea, from time to time, of making an instrument using rotor valves and a woodwind mpc. I would set up the valves so that each would add a length of tubing to the bore. The resulting fingering chart would be fairly similar to MIDI wind controllers, with lots of alternate fingerings (because each valve was adding the equivalent of a half step or whole step). I'd include a couple of valves plumbed to raise a half or whole step (set up to swap out a length of bore), just for alternate fingerings. Unfortunately, I'm not that good a plumber, and don't have nearly the time necessary to realize something like that.

Enjoy,

Grant