Cloth over bell as mute?

jeb_b · New Member Joined: 01 Dec 2012 Posts: 1

Dear Trumpetherald folks,

years ago, I came across this video of Claudio Abbado conducting Mahler's 3rd and, from 01:29:02 on, basically the entire brass section seems to use black cloths over their instruments' bells as mutes for the finale's ppp chorale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xplx64LVENg

I've since encountered this practice with various other orchestras for different pieces (Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms being one of them).
I find this quite intriguing for very soft and delicate parts which do not explicitly call for a standard mute.

Has anyone here any experience with this and / or can think of which material those cloths might be made of? I've experimented with standard linen kitchen cloths, but everything seems too thick and severely worsens intonation. Any ideas?

Many thanks in advance!

trpthrld · Heavyweight Member Joined: 09 Mar 2007 Posts: 4808

I have used a towel over my bell for the last notes in several productions of "West Side Story."

Did it make a difference?

meh.

But the visual that the MD saw....now that made a difference in his ears. And we always wanna keep the MD happy, right?

IMO, it would need to be a fairly thick towel to make any noticeable difference more than visual.
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trpthrld · Heavyweight Member Joined: 09 Mar 2007 Posts: 4808

btw - FANTASTIC Mahler performance - thanks for using it for an example.
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snichols · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:11 am Post subject:

I would invite you to explore the forums a bit as there is a fair amount of information already here. At the same time, I completely sympathize with the fact that the search function in the forums isn't great.

That all being said, people will use a variety of things including felt/velvet mutes made for this purpose, the purple felt bags that come on bottles of Crown Royal, or felt hats/fedoras.

Dillon

CrownRoyal

Hat

homebilly · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:24 am Post subject:

you can make your own pretty easily

go to the fabric store and get some flannel. you can also try polar fleece
or even some felt

flannel is what it looks like to me that they are using.

i may have a new project

don't forget a clothespin ............
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iiipopes · Heavyweight Member Joined: 29 Jun 2015 Posts: 554

A Crown Royal drawstring bag. They probably have several at your local watering hole they will give you. That's what I have.
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Danbassin · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:48 am Post subject:

Vacchiano was quite fond of the Crown Royal bag as a soft 'mute', and you can find a few examples of his ingenious employment of this 'career-saving' device on videos of Bernstein's Young People's Concerts.

As for your question about the impact on intonation - there is an impact on intonation. For those of us who've played An American in Paris or Gershwin's Piano Concerto, both of those famous felt hat solos pose initially tricky intonation problems, due in part to the volume of air between the bell end and the start of the mute. This is similar to the pattern intonation issues we encounter with a cup mute, but stranger (for us) since there is nothing inserted in the bell, acoustically 'shortening' the horn, as we're used to with most other mutes.

I appreciate that Mahler 3 performance very much, though I did find the mute choice odd. No matter what, anything you put over the bell distorts the overtone spectrum of your instrument, and therefore the sound you've cultivated across a performance becomes altered. That said, pinching, squeezing, and hoping for the best in a delicate solo such as that Mahler chorale certainly impacts the sound the audience will hear, so the most vital aspect of 'muting' with some cloth is the player's physical comfort. If we're worried about failing notes, we're not paying attention to the music. If a whisky bag around the bell makes us feel like we can comfortably play what we need to play, that confidence translates to music, no matter what the acoustical impact of the device.

That said, whereas I've used Crown Royal bags, felt hats, cloths, towels, mute-dampening rings, and so-forth in the past, I've found that diligent practice of soft/high passages is the only thing that makes me comfortable playing such things musically when they do arrive. If I were in a position such as Vacchiano, or Reinhold Friedrich, I'd do exactly what they do - clearly it works/worked for them!

Finally, just to add another point to this discussion - one of the proudest 'tricks' I ever employed like this was at a run of performances for Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, which, like the above-mentioned West Side Story and Symphony of Psalms licks, has an utterly-exposed, super-duper-soft series of slow-moving notes for the trumpet at its conclusion. I wanted to keep an 'open' sound, but wanted a bit of security. My solution - I placed a towel on the music stand, then simply played towards the stand, as most orchestral players do. It absorbed enough sound to take my fears away, and enough of the open trumpet sound made it into the room to satisfy my ears, at least. The conductor never even said 'mum.'

I'm gonna go play some pppp long tones!

Best,
-DB
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mm55 · Heavyweight Member Joined: 01 Jul 2013 Posts: 1412

The Crown Royal bag. It's not only a mute, it's also a mute storage bag, and a protective sock for a trumpet stand (as used by Tower of Power).
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cheiden · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:02 am Post subject:

I've used Crown Royal bags in the past. 750ml for the Bb, 1.75L for the flugel. When I've had to accompany small unamplified children while playing tough show tune passages I've also resorted to hanging a small towel from my music stand and blowing into that. Of the two I think the towel provided the greatest reduction in volume. The cloth bag I think is more subtle.
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Dale Proctor · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:26 am Post subject:

I've used a loose Crown Royal bag before just to take a little of the "edge" off the sound in certain situations.
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homebilly · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:41 pm Post subject:

I've used a bottle of Crown Royal before a gig just to take a little of the "edge" off in certain situations.

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TrumpetMD · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 1:03 pm Post subject:

More examples from the other site.

http://www.trumpetmaster.com/vb/f134/what-kind-mute-72327.html

I have homemade felt mutes, a small one to fit my trumpet, and a larger one to fit my flugelhorn. Here are 2 pics of the felt mute.

http://www.trumpetmaster.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=10406&d=1388281467
http://www.trumpetmaster.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=10407&d=1388281468

I also have Crown Royal bags (750ml size for trumpet, 1000ml for flugelhorn). The Crown Royal bags are thicker, and mute the sound a bit more. I roll up the mute, as shown in the pic.

http://www.trumpetmaster.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=10411&d=1388374352

I don't use them much on the trumpet,. But I occasionally use them on my Getzen Eterna flugelhorn. The horn has a lot of presence, and in small settings, I think the felt mute tempers the sound a bit.

Mike
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Craig Swartz · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 2:02 pm Post subject:

WTH? After endless "tone color" threads, everyone around here knows that those dark cloths would produce a darker tone...

Tim makes an interesting point of which there is infinite truth: sometimes if a conductor thinks there is something helping dampen/change/enhance/(whatever) the sound, it'll turn his/her attention elsewhere- and where it usually belongs... And that WSS stuff always comes at the end of a long concert, too. Beautiful, and terrifying.

John Mohan · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 2:28 pm Post subject:

I recently played on a run of In the Heights and in that book, one of the Flugelhorn sections is marked with cloth over bell. My old dark blue T-Shirt I keep as a horn rag in my triple case worked splendidly to darken the tone. But I wouldn't trust any other cloth color to work as well as dark blue.

Best wishes,

John Mohan
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LittleRusty · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 3:11 pm Post subject:

grizzle · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:20 pm Post subject:

We make one called the GnatCatcher -- it's a little more dramatic than the Crown Royal.

https://torpedobags.com/product/mutes/
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furcifer · Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2017 1:42 am Post subject:

Bacardi Gold Reserve bags are pretty much like the Crown Royal bags, but a little longer and thinner, so they work better on my old Hamilton stand. Black with gold trim, so maybe a little more formal and not so garishly purple; I find them to be a little more appropriate and less-blatantly alcoholic for the church gigs, right? LOL If you're like me and now must abstain from the sauce, you can still find them on ebay.
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Dale Proctor · Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2017 6:15 am Post subject:

...but purple is the color of royalty...

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razeontherock · Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2017 9:11 pm Post subject:

dershem · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 6:08 pm Post subject:

One of my sisters gave me a beret a few years ago. It makes a nice mute - about half way to a bucket mute. (I would never wear a beret).