Gordon Hudson: Trumpet, Cornet, Piccolo Trumpet
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Cheap Piccolo Trumpet Experiment

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.

Telemann La Majeste from 12 Heroic Marches

 

Telemann La Vaillance from 12 Heroic Marches

 

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