TromboneChat

This may sound weird, but I thought I’d put it out there.

Recently, I’ve been playing a 72H, which has an open wrap done by the Brass Lab. This is the first bass trombone I’ve spent any time with and I have grown to enjoy playing it very much. It seems fairly easy to play and I really enjoy the sound and response. I even feel that I don’t have issues with the higher demand for air that the larger bore needs. My daily driver is Bach Corp. 36B.

What makes the 72H so easy to play and is there a large bore tenor that would play similarly in terms of ease and response? I know that a tenor won’t have the same response in the lower register.

Thanks in advance for any ideas,

John

I cannot directly compare the 72h, but the logical approach would be to stay in Conn territory. I play Conn (or "Conn-style") from bass to alto now and for me they do share a sort of familiar feel in how they play.

You might want to look into an 88hK with the slsl4762 slide and a 2g or 3g mouthpiece. It's not going to be anything like a 72h, but will put you firmly in the tweener range.

Another option would be to just put the sl4762 slide on the 72h bell, although I have to say, I've made that mistake once before, and the SLSL slides are shorter than the original 72h slide.

You might be better suited to the big mouthpiece. I certainly had that experience when playing bass.

Could be any number of things. Other mentioned incidental rim size being a good fit which could be playing a role. Or that you work well with Conn style instruments. Or it could be that the bass bore crook and whatever leadpipe work well and you’d actually do well with a more “open” crook and a 547/562 or 562/562 or perhaps a 547/547 with a “bass” crook would work well.

That said, your 72 is an Elkhart right? There’s a reason they are so sought after. Iirc there was an Elkhart 88 for sale here recently for a super good price. If you like an Elkhart Conn, there’s not much else that’ll satisfy that itch. Even the “clones” or instruments inspired by those classic designs don’t totally capture the spirit of the old Elkharts.

johntarr wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2023 1:26 pm What makes the 72H so easy to play and is there a large bore tenor that would play similarly in terms of ease and response? I know that a tenor won’t have the same response in the lower register.

Conn 88H - choose your era and wrap. Mine is very late Ekhart (closed wrap) - it was an easy transition when I acquired a Conn 71H from the same time period.

Honestly? Nothing. 72Hs are small basses by modern standards, but they are still basses. No tenor is going to play like it.

Thanks for all the responses thus far.

To clarify, I’m not looking for a tenor that plays like the 72H in the sense of being a big, open tenor, but rather the response and ease. Another way of putting it would be having a similar feel and response, but up a perfect fourth or so. With the 72H, I find it quite easy to play intervals while playing a Telemann Flute Fantasie, for example. It seems, oddly as well, that breathing is easier than when playing on the 36B.

Perhaps what I am seeking is indeed an 88H, I haven’t played one in a long time and my tastes and needs have changed since.

The mouthpiece size is also an interesting aspect, I really like the feeling of the mouthpiece I’m using, which is a Doug Elliot MB J (Conn taper) with a 108 rim.

To me, it sounds like you found a really great mouthpiece to horn match. You just have to do that with a tenor!

johntarr wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 9:19 am Perhaps what I am seeking is indeed an 88H, I haven’t played one in a long time and my tastes and needs have changed since.

The mouthpiece size is also an interesting aspect, I really like the feeling of the mouthpiece I’m using, which is a Doug Elliot MB J (Conn taper) with a 108 rim.

With my 88H, my DE setup is an LT G Cup/G8 Conn Shank, with either an LT 102 or LT 101 Rim. Works great for me.

My 71H setup is similar to yours: MB J Cup/J8 Conn Shank with an MB 108 (or MB 109) Rim. Makes it easy for me to move from one trombone to the other.

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2023 11:06 pm Honestly? Nothing. 72Hs are small basses by modern standards, but they are still basses. No tenor is going to play like it.

I've heard that said before when my friend who plays a Shires and me tried the Yamaha 322 that my third friend just had bought.

I had no problem to play that old horn and I felt it to be just as good as my own Yamha 322 but my Shires-basstrombone friend said he wasn't comfortable on such a small bass. Is it the Axial valves of the modern horns that makes them larger? I'm thinking the "stuffy" feeliing he got may be just the opposite feeling that I get when I play Axial-valves I'm not used to. For me I have to change my technique a lot when I play Axials or else the air just rush through. The change is I need to hold my lips more tight compared to the old style rotors I'm used to. If I hold my lips like I do on an Axial-valve horn the same on an old rotor horn then the old horn would give me a stuffy feeling. I know you have a lot of horns too so I wonder if you too feel that way and have to play them different?
If slide bore is the same would you still consider a Conn 72h or a Yamaha 322 to be a smaller bass compared to let's say a modern Shire's, or is it the feel because of the valves? Just wondering because I have no new horns and have had very limited experience with Axials.

/Tom

A guy in my Trombone Quartet bought a 72H
One of the other players tried t and said "This plays like the Tenor I`ve always wanted."

dukesboneman wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 2:30 pm A guy in my Trombone Quartet bought a 72H
One of the other players tried t and said "This plays like the Tenor I`ve always wanted."

I was at a concert here in Sweden many years ago (80-ies) with a professional wind orchestra from US andl the tromboneplayers 1:st, 2:nd and 3:rd players, ALL had bass trombones. They were at least two on each part and it sounded real good. Unfortunately I do not remember the name of that band. Bass trombones can certainly be used as tenors if in right context and right hands. I do not know the brand of those horns because it was long before I became a collector but since it was in the 80-ies they were using old "stuffy" valves on all horns, but it didn't sound stuffy at all.

/Tom

imsevimse wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 2:20 pm

I had no problem to play that old horn and I felt it to be just as good as my own Yamha 322 but my Shires-basstrombone friend said he wasn't comfortable on such a small bass.

Valves are part of it, but the overall design and tapers of most bass trombones is larger than the 72H or the Yamaha 32X horns. Those are what I would consider to be "small" basses, because the area after the valve is much smaller in taper than just about everything else (including other Conn designs like the 62H).

They're good horns, but it's not a style that really caught on in a large way. They're also a bit more mouthpiece picky than many of the modern offerings, any larger than a 1 1/4 and they stop working the right way. That's a factor many people don't want to deal with.

Valves do make a difference, but I generally don't change the embouchure too much- it's more the air. I find rotor horns like to have a nice solid face just like the axial horns, they just don't need the same wide air to play their best.

So this part of my trombone “journey” has taken an interesting turn. Many years ago, after I gave up trying to get an orchestra job and moved to Europe, I figured I would never need to play a large bore horn again and focused on medium bore. I also wanted to work on my jazz playing. My job was outside of music but I continued to play and teach.

Now I am teaching full time and playing in an orchestra is part of my job. No one is calling me for jazz gigs and I’m getting opportunities for chamber music and even playing solos with the orchestra. The orchestra isn’t that big so I figured I would find a nice Bach 36B to cover my “legit” work.

After, as I mentioned in my original post, I found the 72H to play so easily, and reading the above responses, I decided to try a large bore again. Our school has two instruments that we can use for teaching. One is a Jupiter .525 bore that I’ve used and the other is a Yamaha Zeno 882OR. Because of my (silly) ideas about large bore being too much and more difficult to play, I never played the Yamaha, until last week.

Wow, it is really easy to play! My high register improved dramatically, the trigger register is much more available than the 36B and it sounds nice to my ears. My colleague who plays first trumpet remarked that it sounded good as well. Thinking that the Yamaha must be a fluke, I tried the second trombonist’s modern Conn 88H and I found that almost as easy in the high register. Since I’ve been playing the Yamaha, my musical life has been quite a bit easier, after all those years of struggling.

Now to find my own large bore horn. Maybe I will look into a Yamaha. Unfortunately, I am afflicted with a sort of snobbery that leads me to think that I need something special, not a generic mass produced horn. But man, the Yamaha plays well!

Which large bore tenor(s) did you play in the past, which in the past you didn’t find to be easy to play or responsive?

Playing attitudes can change over time, I swore for 20 years I was a Conn 88h/8h player and would never touch a Bach 42, now that position has reversed.

Keep your options open, ignore any preconceptions about the make/model/materials. Try as many horns as you can!

You could also consider picking up an excellent playing vintage straight horn for cheap and getting it made modular with a modern valve to suit your tastes. As a ball park figure, my used straight Bach 42, slide service and modular valve conversion cost about 65% of the price of a new 42B and plays the socks of any of the new ones I’ve tried, and of course can be played a a straight horn and allows usage of different bells. This approach gives you something “special” as it is customised exactly to your requirements, even more exclusive than an Edwards/Shires modular setup!

As an afterthought, is it possible that the change is also partly in your playing technique, so that even if you picked up the large bore horn(s) you moved away from you might find it easier to play these days?

If ease of playing, but large tenor is something you’re after, 525/547 is massively underrated imo. I’ve been playing. shires with a Yamaha slide for a long time now in that size and now also recently found a Getzen 725 that works even better. Has 95% the sound of the straight large bore but is like 50% easier to play. And I say 95% conservatively. I doubt even seasoned ears would be able to distinguish the sound from a large bore.

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 3:29 pm They're good horns, but it's not a style that really caught on in a large way. They're also a bit more mouthpiece picky than many of the modern offerings, any larger than a 1 1/4 and they stop working the right way. That's a factor many people don't want to deal with.

It sounds like Aiden’s experience with the 72H was similar to mine. Very mouthpiece particular, and the mouthpieces that worked on the 72H were so (bass trombone perspective) small, that they were very close to what I use on large bore tenor. When I put something like a 1.5G or larger in it, the horn was very squirrely. Of course, I have always been aware that the Remington-style receiver/leadpipe might have been the culprit.

I bought my 72H in the late 1990s and found that I could only use it on rare occasions when the music called for a extra 3rd part in a four-part section, or if I ever needed a delicate bass. In about 2018, I made the leap and replaced the upper inner slide tube (the original leadpipe was corrosion-fused in the original inner tube) so I could use removable leadpipes. It changed everything! I now have a mouthpiece/leadpipe combination that gets a fantastic symphonic bass trombone sound. I also have a tighter combo that I can use for jazz or lighter music. My 72H is a viable option for many performance situations.

In my eyes, the component that makes the Elkhart 72H play very uniquely is the leadpipe. Unfortunately, I would estimate that 98% or more of them are probably corroded (due to age) such that they cannot be removed.

Concerning the OP’s search for a large-bore tenor that plays similarly…….my advice is to keep trying horns. If you find something close in a modular horn, fine tune it by changing one component at a time. You will eventually lock in on an horn and it could be a horn designed in a Conn style or it could be something completely different.

Honestly, the closest thing in terms of feel might be an 88HY (or 88HYO) with an SL6262 slide. Same bore, same bell material, same general vibe, but sounds like a tenor. I don't think a smaller bore (even if it's .547-.562" dual bore) will give the same feel. Then you can mess with different leadpipes to further fine tune the sound and feel.

Crazy4Tbone86 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 23, 2023 6:37 am

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 3:29 pm They're good horns, but it's not a style that really caught on in a large way. They're also a bit more mouthpiece picky than many of the modern offerings, any larger than a 1 1/4 and they stop working the right way. That's a factor many people don't want to deal with.

It sounds like Aiden’s experience with the 72H was similar to mine. Very mouthpiece particular, and the mouthpieces that worked on the 72H were so (bass trombone perspective) small, that they were very close to what I use on large bore tenor. When I put something like a 1.5G or larger in it, the horn was very squirrely. Of course, I have always been aware that the Remington-style receiver/leadpipe might have been the culprit.

In my eyes, the component that makes the Elkhart 72H play very uniquely is the leadpipe. Unfortunately, I would estimate that 98% or more of them are probably corroded (due to age) such that they cannot be removed.

I've never played a 72H, but I have a 1969 Elkhart 71H in very good condition, with the original soldered-in ("Remington") receiver/leadpipe in good shape. I don't know whether this is similar to the 72H, but I find that it is happiest with the (apparently originally-provided) Connstellation 3B mouthpiece. This is indeed a rather small mouthpiece by Aidan's standards (~27.10mm / 1.07" Cup I.D.) with a deeper, more V-shaped cup than a Bach 1½G and a much larger throat (7.49mm / 0.295"). I'm a doubler, not a full-time bass trombonist, but I really like the way this combination plays together. [Full disclosure: I also sometimes play the 71H with a Doug Elliott setup: MB 108 Rim / MB J Cup / J8(Conn) Shank.] The 71H definitely takes more air, and plays differently, than my treasured Elkhart 88H. But it feels familiar, and comfortable to me.

For what it's worth, I've always played my 72Hs (both the stock single valve I used to own, and my current independent-valved 72H - still with the stock slide and Remington leadpipe) and the 71H I briefly owned with my usual Warburton mouthpiece with a 1.12" cup ID (about the same as a Schilke 59).