I took the Etude trumpet to a choir concert the other night. I only had to play a couple of brief Christmas carols, so I thought it might be a low-pressure occasion to perform on it. My first observation was that the trumpet didn't blow as freely as my Benge or Blessing. Also, it seemed like the instrument didn't have much tuning slide to give to play in tune. I guess what I'm saying is that it was only pulled out about half as much as I normally pull out on my main axes. The no-name mouthpiece probably was a factor in how the trumpet felt that night.
Last night I pulled it out again and ran through some technical exercises. I have a Jet Tone Merian mouthpiece that I really like, so I gave that a spin with the Etude. I remember back in college when it seemed like everyone looked down their noses at the mere mention of Jet Tone. I thought Jet Tones were like pea-shooter, screech mouthpieces, but this Merian is not like that at all. I call it my "toilet bowl" because it looks like the inside of one. It is by no means is a screech mouthpiece; rather, it is very open feeling and fun to play on. In fact, I used it with my Blessing ML-1S at a recent symphonic band concert and loved how it felt and played.
So I decided to put the Jet Tone on my etude and practice a while. Once again, it felt real nice, the mechanics of the horn were excellent, plus the tone was very pleasant. I must say that this has been a fun experience because I have not been disappointed.
Tonight I have a gig and I'm definitely going to try it out. I really feel that this will give me a chance to get a true sense of the instrument's strengths and weaknesses. Let's see what happens!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment