To me the distribution of slide lengths mostly is a matter of architecture. With rotor intruments the longer loops (1st and 3rd) get more space to bend away from the center, where the semitone slide often is too short to bend.
I have seen photos of rotor flugelhorns, alto horns, and tubas with the semitone in the first slide loop. To mee these instruments look odd. As I remember it, they all came out of an older tradition in Southern Bavaria, so they had some consistence to them. I never saw a piston trumpet/cornet with the whole step in the 2nd loop. One repairman told that already the short 2nd loop is so exposed on trumpets, that one of the most common damages is that this 2nd slide gets hit so hard that the roundness of the piston casing is distorted. However experienced repairmen can bend the knuckles and slide back in place only using their hands. One poster here said that he could not imagine trilling as fast with the index as with the middle finger. I believe his experience being honest, but I also believe it being coupled to another fact: on all brasses it is so much easier to valve trill a semitone than to valve trill a whole step, which many horn players prefer to play as lip trills wherever possible anyway. Klaus --- On Sat, 2/7/09, Simon Varnam <simonvar...@gmail.com> wrote: > From: Simon Varnam <simonvar...@gmail.com> > Subject: [Hornlist] Re: Why is shortest valve slide in the middle? > To: horn@music.memphis.edu > Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 12:45 PM > Sorry about the delayed reaction: I received some private > responses (Thank you!) and missed those which came only to > the list until they reached me in the digest. > > m(_ _)m > > > from: "hans.pi...@t-online.de" > <hans.pi...@t-online.de> > > subject: Re: [Hornlist] Why is shortest valve slide > in the middle? > > > Simon, there are some examples of single or two-valved > horns preserved. > > But just a few, as few have been built before the > three-valved-horn came > > into existence. > So, the period of use was very short, which means the order > of the valves did not really "evolve" in the horn. > I suspect this order must have arisen before its adoption > in the horn. But that doesn't yet explain why this order > has been chosen. Is it really due simply to the order of > adoption : tone, semitone, 3-semitone, plus the inertia of > the imported tradition? Isn't the practicality of having > the shortest slide between the other two the major factor? > > > The third slide, by the way, touches the bell only on > poorly designed > > horns. > This was only a hypothetical case: "would". > The comment concerned double horns. Someone else suggested > that the F slides should be on the "outside" and I > was trying to explain why they weren't: if the F slides > were put on the "inside" they would need to be > further out than the present position of Bb slides, which > would put the outside Bb slides even further from the > central plane of the instrument. Very bulky. > Of course they wouldn't actually build one where the > slides touched the bell or they couldn't be removed. > > > > If your friends in Japan would think more > "natural-horn-wise", they > > would understand. But they are not alone. They are in > the same community > > of "fingering-thinking-only" players. > > Yes I agree completely, but you can't completely blame > the players, as it's a result of the system which put > them there. As you (Hans) have certainly seen, many > (amateurs) use only the Bb side of their expensive doubles > and finger their arpeggios..etc. Wind bands are found in > almost every junior and senior high school while orchestras > are very rare. > This is a result of the education system which breaks up > secondary education into 2 levels : junior and senior high > school for 3 years each, which isn't long enough to > learn much, (even more so for strings) especially > considering that 3rd year students drop out to prepare for > the next stage of their education which requires the passing > of entrance exams. It makes the "proper" learning > of instruments difficult and many shortcuts are used to > squeeze out results for the unavoidable > "concours". There are students who can only read > their parts because they have written in the names of the > notes and often fingerings as well. Their teachers are their > regular school music teachers and private lessons are not > the norm. It's a nightmare. But the kids deserve better > so I do what I can. > > When I start pointing out that a whole movement can be > played with one valve pressed the whole time I am considered > eccentric or a show-off. I can rarely convince anyone that > it's actually simpler that way since they don't have > the harmonic series in their heads so for them it IS more > difficult than fingering on the Bb side. :-( > > Sorry, getting off track. End rant here.... > > Simon > _______________________________________________ > post: horn@music.memphis.edu > unsubscribe or set options at > http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/yorkmasterbbb%40yahoo.com _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
