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rather sorry news :(

kymarto

Content Expert/Moderator
Staff member
CE/Moderator
So, the tárogató arrived today, and to call it crude is an understatement. This, of course, is the peril of buying on eBay. It is indeed a miserable piece of work, and this was not at all evident in the pictures, but of course without closeups one can't really tell.

Curiously, it plays quite well in tune and I can get up to third octave E quite easily, but it leaks like a sieve and it will take all my resourcefulness to get it to seal properly. The keywork makes that of early Chinese saxes look absolutely refined.

Lesson learned. I may just have to save my pennies and actually buy a Stowasser at some point, but of course doing so by eBay risks quite a bit of capital. For now I will try to get this in playing condition, as I can already tell that it is a lovely instrument (in the abstract).
 
It doesn't surprise me that you can get it to play out. Most great musicians can do that. I can't. I often remark to my music instructors they are working too hard because they have developed leaks in their instruments. Usually that spurs them to fix the leaks, as they don't really notice them too much. But playing a low Bb softly on sax is the acid test.
 
So, the tárogató arrived today, and to call it crude is an understatement. This, of course, is the peril of buying on eBay. It is indeed a miserable piece of work, and this was not at all evident in the pictures, but of course without closeups one can't really tell.

Curiously, it plays quite well in tune and I can get up to third octave E quite easily, but it leaks like a sieve and it will take all my resourcefulness to get it to seal properly. The keywork makes that of early Chinese saxes look absolutely refined.

Lesson learned. I may just have to save my pennies and actually buy a Stowasser at some point, but of course doing so by eBay risks quite a bit of capital. For now I will try to get this in playing condition, as I can already tell that it is a lovely instrument (in the abstract).

Don't give up on it. I am sure it is fixable.

I would love to see a video or sound clip of you playing all the way up to the 3rd octave E. It would give me hope that it is indeed possible:)

George
 
Sorry to hear that the tárogató didn't meet your expectations. Might I suggest using white Valentino pads if the tone holes are poorly finished and/or imperfect. They are far more forgiving than bladder pads and work well on older wooden instruments where it is impractical to refinish or replace tone holes.

The white Greenback pads come in several thicknesses. I would suggest a pad slightly thinner than those installed and "floating" the pad using low temp hot glue. I do not recommend the self adhesive pads for any application.

http://www.jlsmithco.com/CLARINET-PADS
 
I'm sorry to hear of your disappointment, although am sure that there is a potential for fixing it up, it could be as simple as a pad related problem as suggested by jbtsax.
I'm curious to see some close up photographs of the mentioned substandard keywork, most tárogatós I've seen have pretty nice keywork. Of course there's always the lemon of the bunch.
Nothing's impossible, don't give up on it yet!
 
I'm sorry to hear of your disappointment, although am sure that there is a potential for fixing it up, it could be as simple as a pad related problem as suggested by jbtsax.
I'm curious to see some close up photographs of the mentioned substandard keywork, most tárogatós I've seen have pretty nice keywork. Of course there's always the lemon of the bunch.
Nothing's impossible, don't give up on it yet!

I will post some pix when I have time. The wood is very cheap and the bore is poorly formed. The steel rods for the keys are not even threaded--just shoved thru the posts with one end blunted so that it doesn't go too far. The right hand pinky keys, one one axle, have about 1/8" of play, making moving between them with the rollers next to impossible.

Big problem will be pad seats--the wood is rough and flaky. I will be reforming those with epoxy to smooth them out. No point trying to seat pads until then. At present the whole horn leaks like a sieve, even though the pads themselves (leather) seem to seat OK, and I guess this is due to the seats themselves. The smaller keys don't even have pad cups, just ground flat on the bottoms--well relatively flat...

I will make it a project....but it's depressing to work on a piece of junk so substandard to begin with. Luckily I did not pay a fortune for it, and I have to keep reminding myself that you win some and you lose some. I keep in mind the Philipp Hammig 650-3 piccolo I found in perfect shape for $200 :)
 
Wow, much worse than I had imagined, and come to think of it you're in a lot worse of a position than I was when it came to the restoration of my innocent little tárogató. I didn't have many pad seats to deal with and the tone holes were all fairly nice to begin with, it was the joints and a few other little things that were the worst.

Flat pad "cups"? Oh gosh, what a nightmare... I've never encountered such a thing, but given you say "relatively" flat... ouch.

Moral of the story - Think twice about buying on ebay?

(or tárogató maker is as tárogató works?)
 
Wow, much worse than I had imagined, and come to think of it you're in a lot worse of a position than I was when it came to the restoration of my innocent little tárogató. I didn't have many pad seats to deal with and the tone holes were all fairly nice to begin with, it was the joints and a few other little things that were the worst.

Flat pad "cups"? Oh gosh, what a nightmare... I've never encountered such a thing, but given you say "relatively" flat... ouch.

Moral of the story - Think twice about buying on ebay?

(or tárogató maker is as tárogató works?)

Yes, eBay is always a gamble. I did get a good deal on an old A.R. Hammig flute, but it also had some dents that the seller "neglected" to mention.

But hold the phone--the silver lining: my wife said, "If you really want one, you should get a good one" and I said it's 3000 euro for a Stowasser, but she didn't say no, so I am now investigating that possibility. Wow. I'm also considering that Remenyi on eBay (yes, eBay). It's a beautiful old instrument, and actually I kind of like the idea of a simple one with only two rings, since I play a lot of ethnic winds without keys and really like the possibility of fingerhole shading.

I also wrote to the guy with the Stowasser, but that scares me--to pay 3000 euro sight unseen to some guy in Romania. But no way I am going to find a tárogató in Japan, so I am going to have to take some risk I guess...
 
I will post some pix when I have time. The wood is very cheap and the bore is poorly formed. The steel rods for the keys are not even threaded--just shoved thru the posts with one end blunted so that it doesn't go too far. The right hand pinky keys, one one axle, have about 1/8" of play, making moving between them with the rollers next to impossible.

Big problem will be pad seats--the wood is rough and flaky. I will be reforming those with epoxy to smooth them out. No point trying to seat pads until then. At present the whole horn leaks like a sieve, even though the pads themselves (leather) seem to seat OK, and I guess this is due to the seats themselves. The smaller keys don't even have pad cups, just ground flat on the bottoms--well relatively flat...

I will make it a project....but it's depressing to work on a piece of junk so substandard to begin with. Luckily I did not pay a fortune for it, and I have to keep reminding myself that you win some and you lose some. I keep in mind the Philipp Hammig 650-3 piccolo I found in perfect shape for $200 :)

regarding the steel rods for the keys, some of mine are done the same way. It literally looks like it was done with a piece of nail. Also, a few of the keys on mine are slightly bent - such as the very bottom one that wraps around the instrument o give you that bottom Ab (sorry, I mean "Bb" :) ) thayt one does have screws though.

So, any tips on getting past that high A to get those additional 3 notes? I mean embouchure/throat wise? Is this a common difficulty for newbies on alto sax also?
 
regarding the steel rods for the keys, some of mine are done the same way. It literally looks like it was done with a piece of nail. Also, a few of the keys on mine are slightly bent - such as the very bottom one that wraps around the instrument o give you that bottom Ab (sorry, I mean "Bb" :) ) thayt one does have screws though.

You know, come to think of it my tárogató although otherwise finely crafted also has the mentioned "nail" style rods... except they're bent up at a 90 versus blunted. Talk about difficult to work with! But if I ever had to do something about it, I'm not too worried. I may consider replacing them for the hell of it soon, a bit of a job, but worth it.

Gheorghe, I can tell you one thing, on my tárogató it's still a bit of a fight to get the extra notes, and even when I started playing clarinet a long, long time ago I had issues going in to the altissimo register.

It could just be a matter of getting used to the instrument, and building up your embouchure for it. Opening the throat a little, may help as well. And you could also try taking in a tiny bit more mouthpiece, that's what helps me on the tárogató.

Sometimes on new instruments you really do have to build up to those stratospheric (if not ionospheric) notes. :)
 
I think all three of us have the infamous post WWII Romanian tárogatós, although obviously at different levels of fineness. Yes, my rods are bent up as well, not blunted. It is very heartening to hear that yours play! I'm pretty sure I can get mine to work as well. It was really a shock, though, to see the level of craftsmanship, since I am used to better-constructed instruments.

George--you will have to let me get mine in better shape before I can say anything definitive. I have been playing clarinet and sax for more than 50 years, and I find the embouchure very much like soprano sax--I can even overblow the high notes with the first octave key, although the second does help. I think it has something to do with the shape of the mouth, but it is very hard for me to describe. Sorta like trying to describe how to ride a bicycle. If anything occurs to me I will let you know. So far I was able to get up to third octave G, but the F is not good, and actually nothing is very stable above E. But it is hard to tell what is possible before I get some of those leaks fixed.
 
I think all three of us have the infamous post WWII Romanian tárogatós, although obviously at different levels of fineness. Yes, my rods are bent up as well, not blunted. It is very heartening to hear that yours play! I'm pretty sure I can get mine to work as well. It was really a shock, though, to see the level of craftsmanship, since I am used to better-constructed instruments.

Mine might well be Hungarian. I was wrong about the number stamping on the rings - that is on my Romanian Timis. No marking whatsoever on my main taragot. The person I bought it from is a very proud Hungarian, and considered the instrument a symbol of his country (he couldn't play it due to health reasons).

Speaking of Timis - last night when I got back home I pulled out my Timis taragot which I took from my late friend. I told him I'd re-pad it, re-shim the rings, and get it into a working condition. Unfortunately, my friend has since passed away, so I'm just going to buy the instrument from his wife. They wanted to put it on eBay originally. Anyway, that instrument was absolutely unplayable when I got it home. Tenons were loosely wrapped with thread, rings were falling off, pads were missing, and the mouthpiece had like 5mm space between the reed. I re-corked it (rather "corked" it), fixed a crack in the bell, shimmed the rings, and made a new ebony mouthpiece, based on my taragot's mouthpiece. Sure enough, that Timis now has a really nice strong tone, and no leaks. The keywork is a bit crude (nails for rods and such) and still misses a few springs, which I'm going to install next. I'll keep it for myself at this time, as a spare instrument - how many people can say the own 2 taragots? :)

George--you will have to let me get mine in better shape before I can say anything definitive. I have been playing clarinet and sax for more than 50 years, and I find the embouchure very much like soprano sax--I can even overblow the high notes with the first octave key, although the second does help. I think it has something to do with the shape of the mouth, but it is very hard for me to describe. Sorta like trying to describe how to ride a bicycle. If anything occurs to me I will let you know. So far I was able to get up to third octave G, but the F is not good, and actually nothing is very stable above E. But it is hard to tell what is possible before I get some of those leaks fixed.

For all practical purposes, I just need the high H (Bb). I don't ever find myself in need to go above that. I can get that H sometimes, but not consistently (it's still strange to me not to call it "A" :) I'm not used to the reed notation).

I'm sure the decades of playing help:) Like I said, I started in December last year, and I'm not talking about consistent playing either. My main weapon is the viola, and only play the taragot when our band leader tells me to bring it:)

Any specific type of MPC that would help facilitate playing the highest notes? Wider opening perhaps? I know that my mouthpiece has a narrower opening, and I play very much on the tip most of the time. That could be the thing.

George
 
Mine might well be Hungarian. I was wrong about the number stamping on the rings - that is on my Romanian Timis. No marking whatsoever on my main taragot. The person I bought it from is a very proud Hungarian, and considered the instrument a symbol of his country (he couldn't play it due to health reasons).

Speaking of Timis - last night when I got back home I pulled out my Timis taragot which I took from my late friend. I told him I'd re-pad it, re-shim the rings, and get it into a working condition. Unfortunately, my friend has since passed away, so I'm just going to buy the instrument from his wife. They wanted to put it on eBay originally. Anyway, that instrument was absolutely unplayable when I got it home. Tenons were loosely wrapped with thread, rings were falling off, pads were missing, and the mouthpiece had like 5mm space between the reed. I re-corked it (rather "corked" it), fixed a crack in the bell, shimmed the rings, and made a new ebony mouthpiece, based on my taragot's mouthpiece. Sure enough, that Timis now has a really nice strong tone, and no leaks. The keywork is a bit crude (nails for rods and such) and still misses a few springs, which I'm going to install next. I'll keep it for myself at this time, as a spare instrument - how many people can say the own 2 taragots? :)



For all practical purposes, I just need the high H (Bb). I don't ever find myself in need to go above that. I can get that H sometimes, but not consistently (it's still strange to me not to call it "A" :) I'm not used to the reed notation).

I'm sure the decades of playing help:) Like I said, I started in December last year, and I'm not talking about consistent playing either. My main weapon is the viola, and only play the taragot when our band leader tells me to bring it:)

Any specific type of MPC that would help facilitate playing the highest notes? Wider opening perhaps? I know that my mouthpiece has a narrower opening, and I play very much on the tip most of the time. That could be the thing.

George

No need to call it 'H' unless you are in Europe or Japan. We all know and love 'A'.

I've been doing a lot of digging, and it looks like simple pin rather than threaded rods were standard all the way back to the early days of tárogató making in Hungary. The cheap Romanian instruments must have copied the system, albeit poorly.

The question about whether a different mpc would facilitate the higher notes is a popular topic among sax players as well. It's hard to say, really. A lot depends on the individual player and the reed. From listening to you on the church video, it certainly seems that you have a decent embouchure and command of it. And you have said that you tried different reed strengths without much success. You might try biting up on the mpc a bit more. It will probably sound very honky at first, but at least see if that facilitates the higher notes.

And what about the Timis: any luck up high with that? If you have trouble on that as well, then it tends to indicate that the problem is you and not the setup.

What happens when you try to play high? Does the horn just choke, and stop playing? Or does it drop down the octave? If you want, send me a sound file of you struggling, to kymarto123@ybb.ne.jp. Might give me a clue as to what is going wrong, and I promise to erase it immediately and never publish it anywhere ;)

I will try to get my horn playing a bit better and upload something of me going up high (as anyway the horn won't play at all below G). I am using a 2.5 reed on a fairly open mpc, and that is even a bit soft for me with my clarinet embouchure, so I am guessing that it has to do with using a soft reed and playing it very closed, but again, it is really hard to tell without more information.

A couple of things for inspiration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MS0tGDsMqs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aqbib_ou1g&feature=related
 
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I've plugged some of the biggest leaks so that I can at least play most of the second octave. I find that I can get up to third octave A, but it is really hit and miss up there, and really takes fine-tuning of the oral cavity to hit the notes. In addition, everything above E3 has weak tube impedances, and it is possible to play several notes sometimes with the same fingering, just by varying the embouchure. Somewhat similar to saxophone altissimos, but even more so.

Up to D3 no issues at all. I can even play everything with only the lower octave key, although in that case B becomes a bit tricky. This is surprising, because no way can you do it on the oboe.

I am really falling in love with this instrument. My teacher wanted me to go pro on the oboe, but I was not ready for that at 18, and eventually I gave it up because the reeds are such a pain. Now here is an instrument that is very much like the oboe, but with single reeds. Quite different really than the soprano sax; I think because the tone holes are small and therefore the whole thing is much more like an oboe acoustically.

And of course there is much more embouchure flexibility: the oboe with double reed is a different animal in that way. The single reed allows much more adjustment on the tárogató.

As for the sax, mouth cavity adjustment is vital to achieving the altissimos, since the tube itself does not contribute much in the way of strong impedances to control the wave, so you have to get the mouth volume right to reinforce a resonance peak that you want to sound. And George, I guess you really have to put more of the mpc in your mouth for the higher notes. If you want I can measure the position of my teeth on the mpc and let you know exactly how far up it works for me.

I can see for the instrument that I will have to epoxy coat the toneholes, since the wood is rather ragged (it is a very soft wood) and I need a clean edge there, of course. Then new pads. I'm beginning to get the sense that I will be able to get this thing playing at least to a first approximation, as the science guys say, but I can also see that I am going to have to get a decent instrument as soon as possible.
 
I've plugged some of the biggest leaks so that I can at least play most of the second octave. I find that I can get up to third octave A, but it is really hit and miss up there, and really takes fine-tuning of the oral cavity to hit the notes. In addition, everything above E3 has weak tube impedances, and it is possible to play several notes sometimes with the same fingering, just by varying the embouchure. Somewhat similar to saxophone altissimos, but even more so.

WOW... a 3rd octave A??? So we're talking 1760Hz or thereabouts??

Just to be sure we're on the same page, in the chart below, I marked in red the note that I can only get about 50% of the time. Yesterday I was able to play it pretty consistently, but only legato-style from the previous note. Anything above that is impossible for me at this point.

So you're saying you can squeeze out a note 1 octave above this?? That takes skill!

Difficult%252520note.jpg


I hope I am not violating too many laws by marking this chart. To cover myself a bit, the chart came from this maker's website: http://www.tárogató.hu/main.html.

Thank you, Kymarto, for your time with this and for your helpful advice. I will take you up on your offer an record a scale going up to that troubled note. What happens when I don't get that high H, is the instrument wants to stay 1 octave below, some times warbling between the 2 octaves. When the air pressure is steady, I can hold that high H for as long as I need to, but as soon as I interrupt it and start over, I rarely ever get it, without dipping down to the A and then hitting the H without interrupting the air pressure. I hope this makes sense. What I am describing tells me that it really is just a matter of technique, and there is nothing wrong with the instrument. I imagine it takes more than 11 months of occasional playing to master an instrument like this.

On the Timis, I am lucky to get past the 2nd octave F, but that instrument still needs work, including a new mouthpiece. The one I made is too narrow for Bb reeds (I was a little too aggressive with my gouge on the lathe, and didn't want to waste that piece of ebony).

I will try to record something in the next few days and send you the mp3.

Thanks again,
George
 
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