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As most readers already know, the Holst Second Suite in F for Military Band is a great piece for euphonium players. The first movement has a particularly nice solo - in my mind it is an example of ideal euphonium scoring. The melody is lyrical and singing, and the band is scored very lightly behind the solo. For those who want to play this solo, even when your band has not programmed it, I wrote it as part of a 2-movement suite for euphonium and piano. The sheet music is available here:
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In this video I go through some of the logic for using alternate fingerings. I'll show some specific examples and explain a bit about the advantages alternate fingerings can offer (technique or intonation). More information is available from my book Advanced Fingerings for Euphonium:
http://www.dwerden.com/eu-books-fingering.cfm

YouTube direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nklNJEj_Fk0

Or view it right here:

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From the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast," here is the title song. Music can be obtained here:

https://fave.co/2X1CMz2

Watch on YouTube with this link, or view the embedded video.
https://youtu.be/5vh9U7p9yk4

These impressions are based on my testing at ITEC 2019. I chose to combine the two horns because they share similarities in manufacturing and are both part of the Eastman/Shires family.

They seemed to share at least some parts, or possibly just design concepts. One I noted is the connector on the front side between valve 1 and 2. On both horns it follows the model of Willson, with more of a rounded-rectangle idea than a smooth curve. You can see it in this photo.

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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 ...

Like Walter Matthau in "A New Leaf," we know that valves can be a problem (note: there may be a short commercial at the beginning of the video).



In Walter's case the problem was with his Ferrari, which was constantly plagued with "carbon on the valves." In our case, as brass players, it is probably something else on the valves. In both cases, the valves don't like it!

There are several possible reason for sluggish ...

Many previously-available items come back online now and then. Fortunately for us, three classic euphonium books are now available.

The first are the two volumes of Arthur Lehman's "The Art of Euphonium." These were originally distributed with an LP, but the printed books themselves are still quite useful. If you also want the recordings, there are high-quality MP3 files available in the links below. The recordings are with the U.S. Marine Band, Arthur's "home" for 20 years.
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