Whether cutting the bell will make your horn better or worse depends a lot on what kind of horn you have. I've come to the conclusion, after hearing many Elkhart 8Ds before and after cutting, that I won't cut an Elkhart bell no matter how much money you offer me. Those bells were actually designed on purpose to sound good the way they are. I think cutting them ruins the sound. But it's a different story for later Conns, Holtons etc. While it definitely does change the sound, some might consider it to be an improvement. It's one of those deals where you're going to gain one thing and lose something else, but the overall score is about the same. Don't tell me that you cut your antique Kruspe or Geyer bell. I'll have to kick you in the shin, pretty hard. It's my hope that at least a few of those horns will survive into future generations, not ruined by thoughtless owners. I had cut bell horns for quite awhile but you know, I got tired of screwing the damn bell on and off every time I wanted to play something. The only real advantage is for those rare times that it might help in traveling. Eventually I got a shaped case and left the thing screwed together. I figure this will save me at least 18 days of time over the course of the rest of my life. Well, I have fixed bells now so no need to bother. It's not always straightforward for the player to try to determine what sound is working best. I do a lot of blind taste tests at my place and it's interesting to me that very often, the person playing the horn likes a different sound than the people listening in the room. Often I've heard a player say something like "I just don't feel like I'm making any sound on this horn" while everybody else in the room is stunned and amazed at how much tone is coming out. I surmise that it has something to do with the difference between listening to the direct sound and listening to how it reacts to the space around it. Anyway, I think blind taste tests are great. It works best if the player doesn't know what horn he's playing and the listeners have their eyes closed so nobody is listening with their eyes! Lastly, it's surely possible to design a horn on purpose so that it sounds great with a screwbell. The screw rings have a significant amount of mass, so the trick is to locate them in just the proper place on the bell so that the extra mass enhances the tone rather than killing it. With something like that, you move it a half inch one direction or another, you've got a completely different result in the sound and response. So if you do terminal experiments on a hundred bells or so, you can probably eventually hit it just right. I once tried a very old Italian made horn that had a screw ring in the regular place, but then it had another huge diameter one 4 or 5 inches from the edge of the bell. The bell unscrewed into 2 pieces and fit into a very small case. Looking at it I thought, this can't be good but I was amazed at how well it played and sounded! You never know.
- Steve Mumford _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
