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Brad361
Heavyweight Member
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
Posts: 7080
Location: Houston, TX.
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 Posted: Thu May 17, 2018 6:12 am Post subject: Re: poor instrument hygeine |
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| blbaumgarn wrote: | | OK, so I just happened upon something related to horn hygeine will looking up comments on a Getzen horn I am interested in. Here's what I found. The horn I am interested is the Getzen Proteus, which is supposedly a good all arounder. I have been out of school a long while so I couldn't remember what that word meant in latin. Here are the dictionary definitions: Proteus: a bacterium found in the intestines and in the soil. (yuck) 2. n. A minor sea god who had the power of prophecy but could change shapes to avoid answering questons. 3. A satellite of Neptune first discovered by Voyager 2 in 1989. Tell your students to clean the horn and look deeper. I was amazed at the difference between the definition of the noun and proper noun for the word Proteus. It also got the people at Getzen off a huge hook I constructed in my mind. The bottom line is bacterium literally grow there (in your horn) if you don't take care of the darned thing. |
Ok......I’m not sure how the name that Getzen picked for this horn is relevant, but I do know that telling students to clean their horns is generally met with “Oh, ok....”, and that’s as far as it goes. I have even given kids a copy of very complete instructions on how to dissemble the horn and clean it, most simply will never do it. The majority of kids I teach just don’t care enough about taking proper care of their horns, even the more conscientious students. I think the reason is that most of them are just handed whatever they ask for, and if they break it or lose it mom and dad will fix or replace it. Just in the last two weeks, two of my best and most serious kids did major damage to their new Strads, neither was especially upset about it.
Brad
_________________
When asked if he always sounds great:
"I always try, but not always, because the horn is merciless, unpredictable and traitorous." - Arturo Sandoval |
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Croquethed
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Joined: 19 Dec 2013
Posts: 614
Location: Oakville, CT
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| Posted: Thu May 17, 2018 6:35 am Post subject: |
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If you don't mind my asking, Brad, how old are these kids?
I admit I did not take care of my school horn like I should have. It got three baths a year...before the Christmas concert, before the spring concert, and right before school started. Some very interesting globules emerged.
I was pondering on this earlier today. I don't swab the leadpipe between the monthly baths, but it's nickel silver. And it's Amado-equipped, so the crooks on the tuning slide and third slide get regular oiling through the valves, so that may help any small chance of red rot there (it's an Eterna, which I think is all nickel silver in the slides).
I thought about buying my son a French horn while he played in middle school but wisely opted to keep renting. The music store had to do the maintenance and the kid stopped playing in 8th grade to turn his attention to theater tech stuff. Renting may have a higher sticker price but you won't end up with a dirty horn in a case for 10 years after Junior stops. |
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