How did the Army take care of their horns?

[PlayeroftheEuph]

I just bought a Besson 767 New Standard from eBay. It is 30 years old and belonged to the 108th Army Band. It was owned by the person who i bought from fr about 4 months, and it looked in pretty good condition in the picturew, so what condition should I expect it to be in upon arrival?

[bpwilliams]

It depends. But, even if the horn wasn't properly maintained a competent repair person can get the horn into playing condition quickly. Horns of that age clean up great! It has been said that a Besson sounds better after throwing it down the stairs. They are built like tanks and after you show it who's boss, aka showing it the stairs, it will play great and last the rest of your playing career. Good luck with your new vintage euphonium.

[fmanola]

Originally posted by: bpwilliams

It has been said that a Besson sounds better after throwing it down the stairs. They are built like tanks and after you show it who's boss, aka showing it the stairs, it will play great and last the rest of your playing career.

Showing the horn the stairs sounds like an interesting approach to "play conditioning". Does anyone have any experience they'd like to share with what happens when you show other makes of euphonium the stairs? In particular, I'm wondering if, in general, the Chinese clones have also cloned the "stair behavior" of the horns from which they were copied. My Besson New Standard didn't seem to be affected one way or the other by being shown the stairs (it probably thought "been there, done that"). However, neither did my Tuba Exchange 1150. On the other hand, my Meinl Weston tuba did start to play better after it saw the stairs a few times...or maybe the exercise of lugging it up and down had improved my breath support!

[JBrassLee]

I had a recent experince with a Chinese clone, it played nicely, but I didnt have to throw it down the stairs, because it started falling apart in my hands just playing the thing

Lee

[Eupher6]

This thread is old, but it's still reply-worthy.

In addition to euphing, I was the supply sergeant for my band, so I was able to work with Army-owned instruments of all types.

Generally speaking, the horn is issued in playing condition to a player who is responsible for its cleanliness and routine maintenance until a larger issue happens. Assuming all goes well, that player will turn the horn in when it's time to leave that band and the expectation is that it be clean and serviceable at that time. If it's not clean, the player is told to go clean it. If it's unserviceable, it's turned in for repair -- after cleaning, of course.

I once served with a trombone player who was fond of saying that he never cleaned his horn and when it was time to leave that band, he'd give a full report on the 165 schnitzel dinners that he'd wind up cleaning out of the horn. And he wasn't kidding!

[smarion]

It would be interesting to know how they did maintain their pieces as there are conditions that they are in that may be hard to get everything to be in tip top shape.

But with the discipline that they go out with, it would not be a problem to consider how they are able to get them to proper working conditions that easy. And hopefully that would hold true for everyone.