How long do brass instruments last.

[8parktoollover]

I know this is a very vague question but how long will a brass instrument last until it becomes unplayable and whats the single hon you've had for the longest time. Just curious

[hyperbolica]

There are instruments that are over 100 years old that are still playable. I've owned a horn for over 40 years, and it still looks great, in addition to playing better than it ever has. How long brass instruments last is entirely up to how well they are (or aren't) taken care of and the environment in which they are used. If you play every day at the beach, the lacquer will come off more quickly and the brass may corrode more. If you put it in the closet and never play it, it will look good for a long time. Some people have acidic sweat or saliva, which can decrease the lifetime, but if it's cleaned frequently and properly, and not stored wet, they can last longer than you.

[brassmedic]

3,000 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_trumpets

[FOSSIL]

My oldest trombone is around 170 years old and perfectly usable. I played it on a recording with Ian Bousfield... he was playing a trombone made by Adolphe Sax...everyone was using old stuff !!

Chris

[Burgerbob]

I buy a new trombone every 6 months. Never have to worry about it getting old!

[JohnL]

With proper care and barring accidents, indefinitely.

[Posaunus]

... how long will a brass instrument last until it becomes unplayable?

A VERY long time

and whats the single horn you've had for the longest time?

I've owned a wonderful King 2B, purchased new in 1958. Great Big Band lead horn!

My oldest trombone is a perfectly playable Olds Studio, made in 1949.

Many TromboneChat members own and play trombones much older than these.

Keys to long life:
• No-abuse use
• Meticulous care, cleaning, and maintenance
• Dry storage
• Karma

[tbonesullivan]

Depends entirely on how well you treat it. Drum corps can destroy a trombone within a year, especially if they have a lot of choreography that puts stress on instruments that they were definitely NOT designed to endure.

If you treat your horn well, clean it, lubricate it, and don't beat it up, they can last a lifetime and beyond.

[Basbasun]

I have played the Swedish trombones made by Görg Oller in 1670. Outstanding horns. Not at all like the modern "sackbuts", much better. If you treat the trombone right, it will last longer that you.

[Kingfan]

I have a nice King 3B that was built in 1957. Great player. I had a King 3 valve euphonium that was about 100 years old - not very nice cosmetically, but it played very well. Regret selling it.

[BGuttman]

Big problem is that instruments that are very old often don't work well in modern applications. I have a 1917 King that is outrageously small bore and is too shrill to match unless we are going "period". Also, as a friction fit it doesn't do well when playing in a Big Band with lots of mute changes.

I have an 1892 Conn Eb tuba that is quite small by today's standards but works great for me in smaller bands. Also used it as a change of pace on the 4th Bone part in a Big Band.

Another problem with old instruments is that some are not made to modern pitch standards. Low Pitch instruments will be flat even with the tuning slide all the way in, while High Pitch instruments are almost in B Natural (as opposed to B Flat).

None of these problems involve playability.

[imsevimse]

My oldest trombone is 140 years old.

The oldest American trombone is a Conn that is 118 years old.

The trombone I've owned for longest period is a 41 year old Conn 88H. I bought that new in 1979.

Unfortunately I have not found a Swedish made trombone
I would like one but they do not turn up very often. The oldest Swedish instrument I own is a valve trombone 119 years old. That's my grandfathers horn. It was built the same year my grandmother was born

All those work and are in good shape.

/Tom

[Finetales]

I play my pre-WWI Couesnon flugelhorn for all my flugel work. Sessions, live gigs, you name it. It's hard work (the valve compression left a long time ago) but the sound is worth it and it has no problem blending with modern instruments.

[Leanit]

Forever. My buddy is 90 years old and still plays the HELL out of his short-action Conn euphonium his mom bought him when he was 10. Played it all through the Army (not sure whose side). Had the valves/springs freshened a time or two, but it's pretty much a new horn.

[brassmedic]

Low Pitch instruments will be flat even with the tuning slide all the way in

I remember this coming up in another thread, but I don't remember if the question was resolved. I hear people say that early 20th century low pitch instruments are "flat", but every source I am able to find states that low pitch was approximately A=440, equivalent to our standard pitch now. What is the source for this belief that low pitch was lower than A=440, and how many Hz was low pitch?

[Basbasun]

There have been many different pitch standards, both high and low. The concerts pitch was 439 until the 440 won the price.
My Bach 45 was made in NY, it is 65 years old works very good, very good F attachement, the slide have been better. The old Swedish Oller alto from 1670 hade a very good slide!

[BGuttman]

Low Pitch instruments will be flat even with the tuning slide all the way in

I remember this coming up in another thread, but I don't remember if the question was resolved. I hear people say that early 20th century low pitch instruments are "flat", but every source I am able to find states that low pitch was approximately A=440, equivalent to our standard pitch now. What is the source for this belief that low pitch was lower than A=440, and how many Hz was low pitch?

I have a couple of low pitch instruments with this problem. I remember finding a piano in an old church with a label stating it was tuned to A=435.

I also suspect that older instruments are built expecting smaller mouthpieces with consequently sharper playing. Put a larger mouthpiece on it and it becomes flat. But this is pure conjecture.

[FOSSIL]

There have been many different pitch standards, both high and low. The concerts pitch was 439 until the 440 won the price.
My Bach 45 was made in NY, it is 65 years old works very good, very good F attachement, the slide have been better. The old Swedish Oller alto from 1670 hade a very good slide!

I am so jealous that you got to try those old trombones... can you describe some of the ways that they are different from modern reproductions ?

Chris

[Basbasun]

"I am so jealous that you got to try those old trombones... can you describe some of the ways that they are different from modern reproductions ? "
They are more heavy, thicker walls, more easy to play loud. Especially the bass could be played really loud.
I really liked the alto, easy to play in tune. The tenor and bass hade slide problems, the alto hade a very good slide.

[timothy42b]

With proper care and barring accidents, indefinitely.

Well, maybe not as much as wood instruments.

50 years is probably a fair average for brass, obviously extraordinary care can make one last as long as a car.

There is a theory that museum brass instruments are a bad choice for finding out how historical instruments sounded, because the brass instruments that have survived centuries were the ones that were played least, because they weren't very good. On the other hand the violins etc. that sounded best were the ones that were lovingly maintained and have survived.

[JohnL]

50 years is probably a fair average for brass, obviously extraordinary care can make one last as long as a car.

Barring damage due to misadventure, there's only two things that can end a trombone - wear and corrosion. Most people just don't take the steps necessary to prevent (or at least minimize) those things. They don't get misaligned slides seen to right way and they don't keep the instrument clean. Valves can and do wear out, but they can be rebuilt to be as good as or better than new. If worn bearings are seen to before they get too bad, a full rebuild may never be necessary.

[LeTromboniste]

Low Pitch instruments will be flat even with the tuning slide all the way in

I remember this coming up in another thread, but I don't remember if the question was resolved. I hear people say that early 20th century low pitch instruments are "flat", but every source I am able to find states that low pitch was approximately A=440, equivalent to our standard pitch now. What is the source for this belief that low pitch was lower than A=440, and how many Hz was low pitch?

Low pitch was 439 Hz, but the French were at 435, so some instruments were made to be able to reach as low as that. Then there is a question of is the reference pitch with the tuning slide all the way in or pulled out (and by how much).

Modern instruments are normally closer to 445 with both slides all the way in, not 440. So instruments made for 439 and an expectation of not pulling either slide as much would be quite a bit flatter. Also they do often sound even flatter with a big modern-sized mouthpieces.

I am so jealous that you got to try those old trombones... can you describe some of the ways that they are different from modern reproductions ?

Chris

They are more heavy, thicker walls, more easy to play loud. Especially the bass could be played really loud.
I really liked the alto, easy to play in tune. The tenor and bass hade slide problems, the alto hade a very good slide.

Can't speak for the Öller instruments, but the originals I've seen indeed have thick walled slide tubes (understandable given that they couldn't harden brass as efficiently as now) and bows (thicker walls means less buckling when bending) BUT extremely thin walls in the bell section in straight tubes and the bell flare itself. The slides in particular are a bit heavy, with the thicker brass and the usually extensive ornementation. In my admittedly limited experience this gives both a more resonant (at least in terms of feedback) and more flexible/easy to color sound. They can indeed be pushed to play rather loud, but you don't need to play them loud for them to be resonant. Modern replicas usually have uniformly thin walls throughout (thinner than historical in the slide but slightly thicker in the bell). Typical wall thickness in modern replicas is often 0.4mm, originals vary but often have 0.5 or 0.6 for slide tubes, 0.7 for bows/bent parts and 0.3 for straight tubes and at the start of the bell (which thins out to the edge and sometimes can reach almost 0.1mm underneath the garland). I'm not sure how replicas and original compare in terms of how thin the bell walls get.

Also important is that original sackbuts had unsoldered joints, meaning instead of the tubes meeting end-to-end underneath a ferrule that has a structural role, they butted together in friction joints and the ferrule was merely decorative. Almost no modern replicas are built that way at the moment, but that probably changes the response a lot (essentially there's a small venturi at each connection). Unfortunately some of the originals have had at least some of their joints soldered or glued during restoration, so it's hard to know how much more different the resonance would be with only friction fit joints everywhere.

Originals have of course no slide stockings, no leadpipes (some replicas have one or the other). Original mouthpieces are rare but the few that survive are made in 2 or more parts and have a sudden bore increase in the backbore, which is then usually cylindrical (or sometimes even reverse conical, I'm told) instead of conical.

There is a theory that museum brass instruments are a bad choice for finding out how historical instruments sounded, because the brass instruments that have survived centuries were the ones that were played least, because they weren't very good. On the other hand the violins etc. that sounded best were the ones that were lovingly maintained and have survived.

That theory is conjecture but is likely not correct or remotely complete enough to be a reliable explanation. Sure, a lot of the best instruments probably haven't survived, but probably neither have a lot of the bad ones (why preserve an instrument if it's bad?). Whether an instrument survived depends on a lot more than if it was good or bad and in part on factors that are unforeseeable (war, destruction, accidents, etc). All early trombones had a limited span for their use anyway since the instrument and the demands of the music evolved and some fell out of favor for more modern designs (although there are interesting exceptions to that), so the expected duration of use is anyway not the same as that of violins. Many of the surviving brass instruments have been extensively repaired and sometimes modified throughout the years where they saw use, which does attests to their continued use (which in principle means they likely were at least good enough to do the job). Some survive because they were part of the collection of musical institutions that still exist today (or were passed down), and were in use and well cared for during many years or decades. Some were ordered by rich people who just wanted to own them for their private collection of random stuff (there's a set of 3 Viennese trombones from 1813 in pristine condition, basically never played, but made by one of the top workshops of the time). A lot of surviving instruments were made by workshops which we know from records were among the best of their time. A lot are extremely extensively decorated and covered in silver or even gold ornaments, so we now they cost a fortune and were high-end instruments.

It's also a theory that doesn't really matter, because what has to be learned from museum pieces resides much more in the trends and links that can be observed from looking at the entire sample rather than from one specimen. In other words, it's to a certain extant irrelevant to know whether one instrument was good or not (unless you're going to make a copy of it to play); what is relevant is that that instrument was built with the same methods and characteristics as 30 other instruments all by makers known to be good, but with different methods or characteristics as instruments made 50 or 100 or 200 years later (and what the differences are).

[Oslide]

There have been comments that "brass also tends to become very brittle with old age to the point of becoming almost impossible to repair" (LeTromboniste recently, and John Sandhagen several years back, IIRC).
Would that mean that brass can go through a 'natural' ageing process (spontaneous changes in the crystal lattice)?

[LeTromboniste]

There have been comments that "brass also tends to become very brittle with old age to the point of becoming almost impossible to repair" (LeTromboniste recently, and John Sandhagen several years back, IIRC).
Would that mean that brass can go through a 'natural' ageing process (spontaneous changes in the crystal lattice)?

Not at all an expert this. What I meant is that there is a finite amount of work that can be done to a piece of brass. The more the brass is worked, the more it gets thinned and brittle and at some point it becomes impossible to repair it further without having it crack or puncture. I have no idea if it would also be the case for instruments that haven't been repaired and are just old, but I imagine that oxydation will at least have some effect even if an instrument is not being played or repaired.

Also to keep in mind, a lot of older instruments (until and even into the 20th century) have seamed tubing throughout. The seam can deteriorate differently than the brass and can complicate repairs.

[brassmedic]

There have been comments that "brass also tends to become very brittle with old age to the point of becoming almost impossible to repair" (LeTromboniste recently, and John Sandhagen several years back, IIRC).
Would that mean that brass can go through a 'natural' ageing process (spontaneous changes in the crystal lattice)?

I have been told that "dezincification" occurs over time. Brass can become so brittle that it isn't viable any more, to the point that it will just crumble if you touch it. I think a lot of that has to do with environmental conditions. And as said, seamed tubing often will fail at the silver-soldered seam first. I have sometimes been able to re-braze a seam on old tubing, but if the brass is very brittle there's a good chance you'll just melt a hole in it and destroy it. It's very common to soft-solder a patch over the damage when restoring an antique instrument, which is much safer.

[brassmedic]

Modern instruments are normally closer to 445 with both slides all the way in, not 440. So instruments made for 439 and an expectation of not pulling either slide as much would be quite a bit flatter. Also they do often sound even flatter with a big modern-sized mouthpieces.

I don't see any reason to assume they would suddenly have started making instruments with room to pull in when low pitch became the standard, but never before. Don't forget low and high pitch were both being used simultaneously. Many even had interchangeable tuning slides for both. I'd assume that if low pitch is closer to 445 with the tuning slide in, then high pitch would be closer to 460 with the tuning slide all the way in. We don't consider the tuning slide all the way in to be the pitch standard, because room is allowed for adjustment either way. I certainly don't play with my tuning slide all the way in.

I suspect that if someone is having trouble getting a vintage low pitch instrument up to pitch. it's because he is using a modern mouthpiece with most likely a larger shank, rim diameter, and cup.