Question about tuning an old King with low-pitch tuning slide
Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2021 3:45 pm
Hi all,
I recently picked up on the cheap what I believed from the online ad to be a pretty nice, straight-looking King Model 2 or 3 from about 1912-1913 based on the serial number. I didn't hold out much hope that the slide would be worth anything, but much to my surprise, what I received ended up being a very nice, clean, intact King Model 2 (their "solo" model at the time), with a slide upon receipt around a 6.5 to 7/10. After a thorough bath, a quick polish, some fresh slide cream and time working with the horn, it's around an 8/10, and I'm confident I can get that to an 8.5/10 or maybe better in a few more weeks working in the cream. It's a little slow, so I know it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but for anyone who cut their teeth on public school rentals/beaters, it's definitely in the good to very good range in comparison. Certainly nothing I need to worry about sending out for an immediate slide job like I was expecting, at any rate.
Anyhow, the horn came with both the normal tuning slide and the optional low-pitch tuning slide (both of which, I was surprised to discover, were stamped with serial #s matching the horn). After the bath, I naively installed the normal tuning slide, as the low-pitch tuning slide was the optional item and I wanted to test her out in as "normal" a manner as possible. And, try as I might, I couldn't get it tuned to Bb using A=440 equal temperament. Couldn't get it any lower than about a B with the tuning slide barely kept in place, in fact.
On a hunch, I compared the King with the normal tuning slide to one of my more modern horns. And, as I'm sure you've likely guessed by now, I discovered the King was significantly shorter, maybe about 2 inches shorter overall, about 4-5 inches in total tube length. So I swapped in the low-pitch slide, quickly zeroed in on Bb, and Bob's your uncle, I was in business.
But it got me thinking, and researching. If I could only reach Bb with the optional low-pitch tuning slide, what would the horn have normally been tuned to when using the standard tuning slide? I couldn't find any answers at the HN White website.
Did they tune to something other than Bb? B seems reasonable but oh so very weird. C might be possible, but if I remember correctly, I had about 2 inches of inward travel remaining once I zeroed in on B, and I don't think I could quite make it reach C (but I didn't specifically try this out, either).
Or (and I suspect this is the case) did they tune the fundamental as a Bb, but use something other than A=440 equal temperament? I know of several tuning frequencies popular in the 19th century where A was less than 440, but would they have used something low enough to drop an A by between a half- and a whole-step, to where what I hear as a B or a flattened C would be considered a Bb? Were such tunings that common in the US prior to WWI?
To round out the options as I see them, did they perhaps use a combination of the above: tune to C, but with A=<440 tuning? That seems unlikely, as King C trombones from just a decade or so later were clearly advertised as such, and I can't really see the earlier models ever being considered anything other that Bb horns.
Anyway, if anybody has some insight into my little 100 year old riddle, please let me know! It seems likely than a tuning other than A=440 is the key here, I just don't know what it might be. So specifically, if King had a particular tuning frequency they used as a baseline for their standard tuning slide, which I suppose must have been the norm for the industry at the time as a whole, that's what I'd really like to learn. I suspect I'll likely have to make a couple of recordings of some simple tunes in the various tunings available, just to be able to hear and compare the audible differences in a back-to-back playback.
Thanks,
Jason
I recently picked up on the cheap what I believed from the online ad to be a pretty nice, straight-looking King Model 2 or 3 from about 1912-1913 based on the serial number. I didn't hold out much hope that the slide would be worth anything, but much to my surprise, what I received ended up being a very nice, clean, intact King Model 2 (their "solo" model at the time), with a slide upon receipt around a 6.5 to 7/10. After a thorough bath, a quick polish, some fresh slide cream and time working with the horn, it's around an 8/10, and I'm confident I can get that to an 8.5/10 or maybe better in a few more weeks working in the cream. It's a little slow, so I know it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but for anyone who cut their teeth on public school rentals/beaters, it's definitely in the good to very good range in comparison. Certainly nothing I need to worry about sending out for an immediate slide job like I was expecting, at any rate.
Anyhow, the horn came with both the normal tuning slide and the optional low-pitch tuning slide (both of which, I was surprised to discover, were stamped with serial #s matching the horn). After the bath, I naively installed the normal tuning slide, as the low-pitch tuning slide was the optional item and I wanted to test her out in as "normal" a manner as possible. And, try as I might, I couldn't get it tuned to Bb using A=440 equal temperament. Couldn't get it any lower than about a B with the tuning slide barely kept in place, in fact.
On a hunch, I compared the King with the normal tuning slide to one of my more modern horns. And, as I'm sure you've likely guessed by now, I discovered the King was significantly shorter, maybe about 2 inches shorter overall, about 4-5 inches in total tube length. So I swapped in the low-pitch slide, quickly zeroed in on Bb, and Bob's your uncle, I was in business.
But it got me thinking, and researching. If I could only reach Bb with the optional low-pitch tuning slide, what would the horn have normally been tuned to when using the standard tuning slide? I couldn't find any answers at the HN White website.
Did they tune to something other than Bb? B seems reasonable but oh so very weird. C might be possible, but if I remember correctly, I had about 2 inches of inward travel remaining once I zeroed in on B, and I don't think I could quite make it reach C (but I didn't specifically try this out, either).
Or (and I suspect this is the case) did they tune the fundamental as a Bb, but use something other than A=440 equal temperament? I know of several tuning frequencies popular in the 19th century where A was less than 440, but would they have used something low enough to drop an A by between a half- and a whole-step, to where what I hear as a B or a flattened C would be considered a Bb? Were such tunings that common in the US prior to WWI?
To round out the options as I see them, did they perhaps use a combination of the above: tune to C, but with A=<440 tuning? That seems unlikely, as King C trombones from just a decade or so later were clearly advertised as such, and I can't really see the earlier models ever being considered anything other that Bb horns.
Anyway, if anybody has some insight into my little 100 year old riddle, please let me know! It seems likely than a tuning other than A=440 is the key here, I just don't know what it might be. So specifically, if King had a particular tuning frequency they used as a baseline for their standard tuning slide, which I suppose must have been the norm for the industry at the time as a whole, that's what I'd really like to learn. I suspect I'll likely have to make a couple of recordings of some simple tunes in the various tunings available, just to be able to hear and compare the audible differences in a back-to-back playback.
Thanks,
Jason