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Low/High Register Flat



 
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blasticore
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 6:43 pm    Post subject: Low/High Register Flat Reply with quote

Any suggestions for raising the pitch of the stuff below and above the staff? The middle register is fine. I usually play a fairly small mouthpiece on trumpet, so I thought it might just be me, but it's a quarter step flat on low Bb, for instance. The upper register sounds about as flat as any trumpet with an imbalanced mouthpiece combination, but the low register in unbearably flat. By my figuring, this could be solved by correcting a common issue.

I swear, I'd know what I was doing about this on trumpet. I'm not the most acquainted person with the pitch issues of non-tapered leadpipe instruments, though.

For any desired reference, I play a GR 63XES on trumpet, and have been using a Yamaha 11F4 on flugelhorn (because I play for a living, stuff's expensive, and this was the closest thing in the show box to fully passing the litmus test).
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zaferis
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just a thought.. Are you sure you're not playing your comfortable range (mid-staff) sharp?.. It's easy to hold those note high in the pitch center - the result of this is that once your start challenging your range , up and down, the trumpet is flat.

3rd space C, concert Bb, our "tuning note" is very easy to move around, and easy to hold sharp.

I'd first do some bending exercises, like flow studies-instead of playing the first 1/2 step naturally, you bend down and slowly return to the 3rd note - stopping at the point where you have the fattest tone - having a tuner on. I'm betting that you'll find you can pull the tuning slide in a bit - which will help your current issue.

There could also be something going on with your support, embouchure, gear, or approach but impossible to diagnose without seeing/hearing you play. Go find a solid teacher, local University/Symphony and take a few lessons.

Then lots of work with a tuner, piano, and doing some ear training
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Bachatit
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 5:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Chris! This may not be relevant to your situation, but I found that my pitches were rather sharp in the upper register on the piccolo trumpet and much easier to to center (get down to pitch) with a smaller mouthpiece. Have you evaluated pitches with a larger mouthpiece? Best
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blasticore
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 5:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

zaferis wrote:
I'd first do some bending exercises, like flow studies-instead of playing the first 1/2 step naturally, you bend down and slowly return to the 3rd note - stopping at the point where you have the fattest tone - having a tuner on. I'm betting that you'll find you can pull the tuning slide in a bit - which will help your current issue.


I've been working through it with pitch bending and a tuner.

Quote:
There could also be something going on with your support, embouchure, gear, or approach but impossible to diagnose without seeing/hearing you play.


Well, my face seems to work well enough to pay my bills, so my honest thought on this is gear. I suspect, since I don't typically play on a mouthpiece of this cup volume, or with a balance so open, that I may need to look into a flugelhorn mouthpiece with less cup and throat, but I don't really know the associated pitch tendencies of something like that in regards to a flugelhorn. On trumpet, I know what altering a backbore taper, changing venturi size, adjusting that entrance opening, and adjusting gap will do to playability. I actually do this stuff when doing repairs, alterations and customizations on instruments.

For anyone interested, the valves are aligned, bracing/tubing is de-stressed, and the instrument is free of damage that would cause an imbalance in nodal points to screw with vibration patterns in these registers.

Quote:
Go find a solid teacher, local University/Symphony and take a few lessons.


I make this suggestion to people as well, however, I'm a competent enough player to figure this out given the right direction. I can ask local colleagues about this, but largely, flugelhorn is a bastard instrument played properly by coincidence in the grand scheme of things, and it's usually enough of a task asking somebody what shank taper a given model takes, let along how to play the thing.
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blasticore
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 5:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bachatit wrote:
Hi Chris! This may not be relevant to your situation, but I found that my pitches were rather sharp in the upper register on the piccolo trumpet and much easier to to center (get down to pitch) with a smaller mouthpiece. Have you evaluated pitches with a larger mouthpiece? Best


Are we talking more cup volume, or wider inner diameter? I tried a smaller cup volume mouthpiece, which if anything, may have exacerbated the issue; and a wider cup diameter with slightly more volume that was largely the same, aside from core to my sound being more confused given the appreciated distance between the rim's inner edge.

But significantly larger cup volume, not quite yet, no. I may give this a shot.
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blasticore
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So...

I adjusted bracing placement - which I didn't really want to do, since it's a fairly new horn, and probably my only instrument that doesn't look like it rolled out of a dumpster (most of my gigs have been outside for 10 years) - and it fixed some stuff. Noticeably, the high range is right on the money now, and octave displacement has been corrected. Having removed bracing stress previously fixed some stuff, but it just wasn't vibrating right with the braces where they were.

Low B, Bb, A and Ab are still a little low, but can be reasonably corrected. Low G and F# are dead on. I'll be adjusting some stuff for this next, and looking into a better mouthpiece for my face. Flugelhorn isn't something I've ever really bothered too much with (even having owned 3 of them before this one), since it usually comes out for 7 measures a year, when I play a short run of a musical. I play piccolo immensely more than I do flugel, but I'm still looking to get this more correct.
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blbaumgarn
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:18 pm    Post subject: Low/High register flat? Reply with quote

I mean no disrespect to anyone else that writes a comment, but I would say the most perceptive and common sense approach, along with everything else, was written by Zaferis. Find a competent instructor and they will bring things around and you will probably be amazed what that source can do for you!
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trumpetsplus
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does another competent player have the same issues on this instrument?
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cheiden
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How long have you been playing the flugelhorn? When I first started on flugel it took me months to line up and not have wonky intonation.
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Andy Cooper
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 8:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

blasticore:

Just for clarification - what brand and model of flugelhorn are you using?

1. The obvious problems of different shank sizes for different brands.

2. The Yamaha 114F has the smallest throat size of all the Yamaha flugelhorn mouthpieces. Also smaller than Curry and Denis Wick.
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krax
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 11:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Finding the correct mouthpiece / horn combo has been the key to my flugelhorn intonation. That and learning to play relaxed on the horn, just that I couldn't learn to play relaxed before I found that good moythpiece / horn combo; intonation was all over the place and everything confused me, kind of a catch-22.

The Yamaha 11F4 with its small throat only works with one of my horns, the only one with a bigger bore. I can't use it with my small bore flugels.
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Andy Del
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I had huge troubles with intonation on my rotary flugel horn, with notes hugely sharp or flat until I worked out I was sitting in an ht wrong place on the horn.

In short, I was way too open and relaxed in the low register, which made the middle appear very sharp. Once I got that sorted, the other issues disappeared, almost overnight.

This isn’t the solution for everyone, but it is a starting place. As a pro player, you may want to get together with some trusted colleagues and have a bit of a ‘play date’ - see how they fare...

Cheers

Andy
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