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I don’t even feel remotely bad about this. I’m wildly excited. I’m working on sight reading and piano, relearning guitar, bass mandolin and ukulele to be conscientious about notes and harmony, and now my brass section. My theory has come along these past couple of years and a melodic instrument like this will help all of that plus my ear training. And it’s a flugelhorn! The sound just melts my heart.
Helps, I suppose, that I got a solid deal on an intermediate-level horn, a Bach fh600. If it comes to it (which it won’t), I won’t lose much or any money on it. But mainly I just don’t like “beginner” equipment that is of such questionable quality that it makes people not want to play. I’m a grownup. I’m spending money on nice things for myself and anyone else that I love.
There may be a cornet on the horizon, too.
Middling Yamaha cornets are much easier to find. I can grab a good condition MIJ horn for around $250.
I also came across a Thomann flugel of the same model, FH-600, which I steered clear of for obvious reasons. But I wondered if the folks at Bach had a problem with Thomann, of Harley Benton fame, ripping off their exact model/name.
*insert basically any instrument into this joke format
No gentleman knows how to play banjo.
It took forever to get my budget cornet repaired and cleaned. I practiced a little, but with a lot of interruptions. But I’ve been able to put in 15-20 minutes a day the past couple weeks, building up the face muscles and working on my embouchure. I think I have that muscle memory down pretty well, especially compared to when I first started. I initially struggled to play higher than the first G (concert pitch, but in brass they call it a G I guess), so only the first five notes of the scale. But suddenly I have a two-octave range, from low G to high G. I can’t hold the high G very long at all, but it’s fun just playing the open notes up and down and getting stronger like that.
Another improvement I’ve noticed is that, initially, my airflow was disrupted anytime I changed the valves and I would have to take a breath just to change notes. Now I’m able to play a little more legato.
A fun practice has been to loop a guitar chord progression in either Bb major or G minor and practice my corner scale to it.
But the spit valves, tho! From what I’ve read it might be at least partly due to condensation (my house has a humidifier running throughout), but they seem to require emptying a lot. Not something a guitar player is used to.
I’ve had less success and less practice on the flugelhorn because I’m focusing on cornet for chops-building purposes. I’m hoping to set aside time for proper lessons after New Year, to work on breathing, endurance, instrument maintenance, and sight reading. Flugel proficiency is the long term goal, though.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Also, flugelhorn mouthpieces are often a deeper cup for the more mellow sound. If you have a shallow cup on your cornet, making it easier to play higher notes, you might struggle when moving to the deeper cup. Some find it better to play both regularly to 'keep their lip in', and get the embouchure used to the difference. The pitch on the flugelhorn is more squirrelly too, so parallel practice can help with that.
Cornet is easier to practice mainly because I have a mute for it. I can pick it up any time of day until it’s time to read to the kiddos at night and it won’t bother anyone.
Such a great change of pace from guitar.
Yep - a real hoot!
seriously though, air temperature and humidity must be relevant on any one day ?
I’ve read that silver horns sound better. **** if I know. But I do think they look better.