I came across a cheap chinese rotary valve piccolo trumpet on Ebay
and paid about $400 for it. The brand is "International Sound"
but I happen to know that its made by Jinbao, China's largest group
of instrument factories. Its clearly based on the Scherzer design
but this one has a bore of 11.5mm compared to the Scherzer's 10.4mm.
Does it work? Well, yes it does. When it arrived I discovered it
takes normal trumpet shank mouthpieces so I could not usemy piccolo
trumpet mouthpiece (which is cornet shank). There was a rather dodgy
looking mouthpiece in the box which said 7c on it so I put that
in, played a couple of scales and then turned on my webcam. This
is the result:
It sounded a bit flat towards the top of the range. I managed to
find an adaptor to fit my normal mouthpiece to it and that seems
to have corrected the intonation. The alleged 7c was far too deep,
closer to a Bach 6 in cup shape.
I spent most of a day working through lots of literature from Bach,
Handel and Telemann and it sounds very lyrical as you would expect
from a rotary trumpet.
The problem is that quality control in China is so poor its possible
the next one in the batch would be a real dog, so if you decided
to take the chance on one you should try and play a few.
Obviously another important issue is that it is a rotary valve
trumpet. If you have never played a rotary then you will find the
adjustment quite difficult so first impressions might not be very
good. For example, slurring on a rotary is not as good as on piston
valve instrument because the valves cut the air flow more abruptly.
Update 28th January 2008
Well, I am doing the Telmann Concerto for trumpet and two oboes
with orchestra in March and have decided to give the rotary piccolo
a chance to perform. I am now using my Monette AP1-5 mouthpiece
jammed into a cornet to trumpet adaptor with some insulating tape.
This is some video of me practicing the concerto. Poor audio is
due to the webcam microphone.
Some general practicing of the Telemann, working on my trills and
tone:
Telemann 1st movement:
Telemann 3rd movement:
The other Telmann concerto in D last movement (bad top notes -
sorry)
How to hold a rotary valve piccolo trumpet:
These two clips were done on a different microphone and the trumpet
has a Blackburn leadpipe fitted which makes the intonation better
but impedes the upper register a bit on the very open mouthpiece
I am using. I think to get the best from that setup you would need
to be using a conventional Bach, Yamaha or Schilke mouthpiece set
up.
