Reviews

After a great of thought and study, I decided to go with a Cronkhite leather gig bag. It was a hard decision because I have enjoyed my Altieri bag, starting in the 1990's, but I'm convinced the leather Cronkhite offers better protection. This review will include a comparison between the two bags. Let me also say that my Altieri bag gave me fine service for all these years. It held up well and was very convenient to use for my own situation (the horn is always under my control, for one thing). An ...

One opportunity I looked forward to when planning my visit to ITEC 2019 was seeing and playing the new Wessex EP600. This is their new, handmade model. My understanding is that the horn is made on a different floor of the Chinese factory, and that the workers building it are trained specifically for this type of work.

As I have often said, patience is a virtue. It proved an asset at ITEC because the EP600 was delayed by a day or two. But I was able to get some time with it the day it ...

NOTE: Comments from Wisemann appear at the bottom of this review.

NOTE 2: Fletcher Mitchell, a euphonium player, gave me permission to use photos from his Facebook page of his Wiseman case. These show much better detail than my original photos. They are at the end of this blog entry, after the comments from Wiseman.

The Wiseman case at ITEC2019 was impressive in many ways but seemed like a work in progress - although a promising work. The case ...

Mark Glover is a euphoniumist whose style is representative of modern playing without being too identified with any one niche (i.e. he does not sound particularly American, British, or...). He has a good understanding of the musical needs of the pieces he is playing, and I suspect the currently-living composers represented here would be pleased with the way he performs their work.

The CD contains diverse selections, all within a "listenable" style. There ...

I recently received an early Christmas present from Tom, one of my students, and I was encouraged to open it before Christmas. Inside the sizable package was a Hercules Tuba/Euphonium floor stand! I had been considering getting one of these for a while, although I had not yet sorted through what was a good fit for my use among the brands available. Tom saved me the trouble, because he had chosen well.

There were two basic types of instrument stands that I had used. One is an upright ...

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There is a new SymbiosisDuo album called "Playground" and you should run out and get it (virtually speaking)! This one has some nice new ideas, but it retains some of the concepts that were so successful on their first album. There is a risk in producing an album like this, because the main instruments are so far from what might normally be heard on a few of the well-known selections. The same was true with the first album, but the musicians took that chance and the result ...

Our friends at Quick Horn Rinse have come up with another great solution to problems that many euphonium players face. The design and dimensions of modern euphoniums can make it tiring to hold them in the optimal playing position during concerts, rehearsals, and practice. Our tendency is to rest the bottom of the horn on the left leg. That relieves stress on the arms, but it usually places the mouthpiece too low, which results in players slouching to meet the mouthpiece.

So euphoniumists ...

Bill Ricker is a doer. He sees a need in the realm of brass instruments and his mind starts working on solutions. He is the inventor of the very useful Quick Horn Rinse (QHR) for encouraging us to keep our horns clean by making it more painless. Now he has come up with a solution for those who struggle holding the horn securely without straining their left wrist over the long term.

I have in the past used a "Duck Foot" that was custom made for Glenn Call. It was a curved metal brace ...