TromboneChat

Hi all,

Recently I went on the internet and I found this(in Jeremy Clarkson's voice):


This, they claimed, is a Conn 70H.



This is an Olds S23.

Interestingly they seem to have an extra brace on the slide. Is the brace meant to be held with the right hand(very painful 7th positions), or are they purely decorative? They don't seem to appear on modern trombones anymore, or at least Google failed me on finding trombones.

Jon

No, that's tuning in slide. The tuning slide is not in its usual position, it's actually on the hand slide.

Those are tuning-in-slide (often referred to as TIS) trombones. You may look at the bell bow and notice there is no tuning slide. That is because the tuning mechanism is instead in the main handslide. That's why there are two braces on the outer slide. The regular one, which on these is only on a very small part of the instrument, and one that both holds the most part of the outer slide together and serves a function in the mechanism (that varies between designs).

The main advantage of tuning-in-slide is it allows to have a fully conical bell section (whereas a tuning slide involves interrupting the conical portion of the horn twice with cylindrical tubing). Also reduces the number of separate sections of tube and the possible disturbances that going from one tube to the next can bring. You can notice that the bell section, past the valves, is in only two parts. One long J tube including the neckpipe, back bow and the beginning of the bell, and the the bell itself. It transfers that portion of the horn with lots of short bits of tubing one after the other to the slide, but because it's so high up on the slide, it is only ever having air flowing in it when playing on 7th and maybe 6th position.

As an aside, there are modern TIS trombones. Offhand, I can think of Kanstul, Shires, Rath, and M&W that all have at least one TIS model available.

The folks at BrassArk know their stuff, by the way.

The 70H in the photo is one of several 70H's that Conn made. The Conn Loyalist web site is a great resource for all things Conn.

https://cderksen.home.xs4all.nl/Conn70H1930image.html

TIS horns are interesting and the ones I have played all played extremely well.

How heavy is the mechanism? How much effect does it has on slide movement? My bandmate uses an old Conn TIS bass trombone. I asked him and he said it is heavy. But unfortunately I cannot try it.

Older TIS slides were heavy. I have several. If you don't have a good counterweight they will tire you out mercilessly.

Newer TIS slides are much lighter and you may be able to use them without the counterweight.

I have a Conn 70H as shown in the first picture. I've owned it for over 50 years. I've dated it to about 1932-33. It was bought by a trombone player in NYC who was offered the bass trombone gig with The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra during WWII. He had never played a bass trombone, but bought it as the only horn available to him and engaged in "On the Job Training" ! It is a great-sounding horn, smallish by today's standards. The slide, which is dual-bore, IS heavy and the horn IS front-heavy. I had Walter Lawson [ of Lawson French Horn fame ] design and install a second trigger arrangement to operate what had been a simple "Reach Back & Twist" rotary valve for the "E" slide with provision for tuning and water key. His workmanship is stunning ! I'll try to post a picture or two.
I noticed that the second picture of a horn with two valves has what appear to be Olds-Style mechanical triggers as well as Olds-Style TIS mechanism. Is it an Olds ?
I'm sure that there are all kinds of Frankenstein inspired horns out there that no one can explain. They probably sounded like a good idea ---- at the time ! Cheers !! Bob

Here is the second picture of the 70H [1932-33 ] Bob

sirisobhakya wrote: ↑Mon Jun 11, 2018 10:13 pm How heavy is the mechanism? How much effect does it has on slide movement?

We collected data on outer slide weights on the old forum a few years back. IIRC, the Olds S-20/S-23 slide was the heaviest regular production slide (I don't recall if there were any Conn 70H's in the sample).

The extra weight does make a difference in the balance of the instrument, and it becomes more significant when you're using the outer positions a lot. Leverage and all that.

As far as slide technique, the extra mass does make it more difficult to reverse direction on the slide. Fast slide vibrato? Ouch!