Uncentred trombone

[Steve335]

I have a trombone that doesn’t play as well as it should. The high bflat and A are hard to play quietly, some notes are stuffy and although the instrument is a good brand in decent looking condition, it doesn’t play well.
The cork seals seals well on the slide.
Any ideas if I can make this better through getting overhauled etc?

[Burgerbob]

What's the horn?

[Wilco]

I had Courtois 300R who played like that. It was not special enough to me so I sold it. I think it would be very hard to fix it…. You could try the leadpipe…. Again, it involves hypotheses, trying and doing that again and again. A lot of work!

[Doug Elliott]

"The cork seals seals well on the slide."
Huh?

[WGWTR180]

I have a trombone that doesn’t play as well as it should. The high bflat and A are hard to play quietly, some notes are stuffy and although the instrument is a good brand in decent looking condition, it doesn’t play well.
The cork seals seals well on the slide.
Any ideas if I can make this better through getting overhauled etc?

Without knowing what instrument you're talking about no one can comment. Also some of what you mentioned could be operator error. Hard to know.

[Steve335]

I have a trombone that doesn’t play as well as it should. The high bflat and A are hard to play quietly, some notes are stuffy and although the instrument is a good brand in decent looking condition, it doesn’t play well.
The cork seals well on the spit valve.
Any ideas if I can make this better through getting overhauled etc?

[Steve335]

It’s a large bore Conn 8H.
It’s not too much operating error, it just has some notes that don’t speak very well. Some notes such as a high A and B flat are not particularly reliable etc.
It looks in good condition, I think Conn 8 and 88H’s are great trombones, this particular second hand trombone from the 1990’s just isn’t particularly good.

Has anyone ever had the instrument over hauled, reassembled etc to make it better? I know there are no magic wands, I’m just curious.

[Doug Elliott]

I had a mouthpiece customer with an 88H that played just like that - I played it but didn't spend any time exploring it.... there didn't seem to be anything wrong but it just didn't play normally at all.

Chances are, either there's something stuck in a crook that you can't see, or the leadpipe is seriously corroded. Or some joint is leaking.

[ithinknot]

Ok. (Are those notes good for you on other horns, or is that the top of your range? Maybe this is way off the mark, but your readers have no way of knowing...)

As it's a straight horn, there are fewer mysterious possibilities. As Doug says, leaks. Assuming there aren't significant dents, is it clean, and is there definitely nothing stuck in the tuning slide? Does the tuning slide fit well, and is there an obvious tension problem (either at the point of entry, or increasingly as it's inserted further)? Does the mouthpiece insert a normal depth into the leadpipe, or has some previous owner mashed it up?

If you want to pursue it, you really need a decent tech who's used to thinking these things through critically. Nowadays it's very easy to run through the whole instrument with a camera to check for leadpipe holes and factory solder blobs - and, if necessary, refit a slide crook to remove them - but your local 'Full Service mouthpiece puller and ultrasonic dishwasher operator' may not be that person.

But, yes, it's also possible for horns to just suck in some specific way or ways. I borrowed a Mt Vernon 6vii recently. Pristine, unaltered, absolutely nothing wrong with it. Intolerably weird and stuffy between high Ab-C, worst in the 'Bach Bb in 3rd' way, but also somehow infecting the surrounding notes, alternates included. Open, centred, delightful below and well above, but in that third the inheritance-minded children would sneak in and try to smother you with a pillow. I enjoyed the rest of it, and then enjoyed handing it back.

[Doug Elliott]

I know who Steve355 is, and he would know the difference, it wouldn't be player error.
There has to be something wrong near a node that affects those notes. I bet those same notes are much better in alternate positions where the nodes would be in different places in the horn.

[ithinknot]

I know who Steve355 is, and he would know the difference, it wouldn't be player error.

Fair enough. You can chase leaks yourself, either in the bathtub with the aid of plugs and stretchy rubber hose, or in the open air, initially just with your thumb plugging the other end of whichever section, and then confirmed locally with 'leak detector solution' (ie a high-concentration solution of dish soap, just like you do to test gas BBQ joints etc). If you think you've found it, you can always tape up the joint temporarily for a proper play test.

A USB LED-lit borescope costs pretty much nothing from the usual suspects online, and they're handy for other household disasters.

[Doug Elliott]

I've been to a lot of BBQ joints and I usually test them by taste... never tried soapy water.

[ithinknot]

[Steve335]

Thanks for everyone’s reply.
As Doug mentioned, I will try those notes in alternative positions tomorrow and get a repairer to look over the instrument.

[CalgaryTbone]

It wasn't a trombone, but a few years ago, my orchestra was playing a concert in a small city a couple of hours away. They arranged for some of the winds & brass to work with some local band kids. I saw the trombones and one of my colleagues was working with a euphonium player. As we were finishing, he called me in to their room and said "try this horn!" It was a nice Besson professional horn, that played well until you got to 2 or 3 notes that wouldn't play at all. My friend followed up with the kid, who sent the horn to a repair shop as he had suggested. There was something (a pen?) that had fallen down in the bell and had wedged in the tubing, and was interfering with just a few notes on the horn.

Maybe something is stuck in the tuning slide or the slide crook? A straight tenor doesn't have too many places that something can get stuck, and the only place that can leak is the spit valve.

Jim Scott

[Doug Elliott]

There can also be leaky solder joints, or even joints that never got soldered. It happens all the time.

[hyperbolica]

I have played 8h and 88h all my life. My 88h has a note about F#, and I think Ab or G on the 8h, that are just a little squirrelly. A wrist strap around the bell throat of the 8h settles it down nicely. On the 88h, I just got used to it.

If it's not the squirrelly note thing, it's probably a loose Solder joint or a leak. Fill it with water to find leaks.

[StephenK]

Maybe something is stuck in the tuning slide or the slide crook? A straight tenor doesn't have too many places that something can get stuck, and the only place that can leak is the spit valve.

Jim Scott

I've had this with a small IKEA pencil trapped in the slide crook. Very disconcerting, as it affect a couple on notes (high F, I think) a lot and others not so much.

[BGuttman]

Maybe something is stuck in the tuning slide or the slide crook? A straight tenor doesn't have too many places that something can get stuck, and the only place that can leak is the spit valve.

Jim Scott

I've had this with a small IKEA pencil trapped in the slide crook. Very disconcerting, as it affect a couple on notes (high F, I think) a lot and others not so much.

I wonder if this relates to the Dennis Brain horn modification? Brain had a note that didn't respond solidly and he put a match stick in the tuning slide. Fixed the response on that note.

[harrisonreed]

Reminds me of a gig I had where nothing was speaking. Went up to take a solo and only half the notes came out. It was so embarrassing. During a break I ran back stage and it was like my horn was broken. Oh no, my chops have finally quit.

Took my bell section apart and out flies the rubber bumper from the slide crook peg, stuck in the rotor of my 3BF. The only thing I can think of is that someone threw it in my slide as a joke

[Burgerbob]

I've had a similar experience to Harrison, I did an entire rehearsal/concert series with my former orchestra, playing Symphony Fantastique. I felt awful the whole time, couldn't center anything, couldn't articulate, couldn't play loud. I thought I had just regressed 5+ years in my playing.

Turns out my spit valve cork had fallen out and I had been playing with it that way for an entire week.

[hornbuilder]

I had an Edwards bass in the shop recently. Played just fine!!!

[2bobone]

In high school, we had a joker French horn player who thought it was hilarious when he dumped a bunch of trash into the bell of my Conn baritone horn --- Dixie cups, popsicle sticks, pencils, paper clips etc. etc. I immediately realized what was wrong and I removed the stuff and continued to play. In retaliation, I decided to return the favor and took advantage of the fact that he would often leave his Conn 8D French horn on his chair during breaks. I pulled a slide, stuffed in a piece of crumpled paper and considered my revenge complete. Flash forward several years when we were both playing in the city municipal band and he brought up the subject of his mischief back in high school. I laughed and mentioned that it was funny, but that I got him back in spectacular fashion. He looked at me in a curious way and asked what I meant. I told him about the revenge I perpetrated back in high school, all the time thinking that he discovered my "repayment" and had taken action to remedy it. Unbelievably, he had the same instrument in his hand, pulled out several slides and finally found the wad of paper still firmly stuffed in the slide ! Did I mention that he was the worst brass player I'd ever encountered ? In all fairness, I believe I stuffed the paper into a slide on the B Flat portion of the double horn and he probably never explored the possibilities of that part of the horn anyway and thought that a "double" horn meant it was twice as good as a single horn ! It makes me wonder if the binder clip Matt Walker found in that Edwards bass found its way into the horn for a similar reason ??? Am I proud of what I did ? No. Would I do it again ? You bet !

[brassmedic]

I had an Edwards bass in the shop recently. Played just fine!!!

If Edwards sees that, they might start offering it as an option.

[biggiesmalls]

I once bought an 8H that had a bit of an airy sound and wouldn't center on a few notes. While cleaning the outer slide, I noticed that it was very difficult to push the snake brush through the crook, so I kept working the brush back and forth, and finally extracted a soggy paper lollipop stick.