You learn something every day . . .

[Fritz of WA]

Been playing about a year, coming back after 55 years. I live in a condo so I practice daily with the Yamaha Silent Brass system. The YSB provides a good facsimile of what my tone sounds like while not disturbing the neighbors.

All fine until last week, when my trumpet suddenly veered off into uncontrollable weirdness, sounding more like a strangled cow than a horn. I thought maybe the YSB was faulty . . or its cables . . .nope. I cleaned and re-oiled the valves. Nope.

Well, maybe it was time for a deep clean. So I performed that task and later, re-assembled everything, but no joy.

Finally, I discovered the problem: the water key on the main tuning slide was not sealing properly upon release after discharge of water. Resulting leak of air sent the sound all over the place.

Solution? I put a drop of valve oil on the hinge, and I also make sure each time I clear the water out that key properly re-seats and seals.

Anyone else have anything similar happen?

[Andy Cooper]

Yes - turned out it was time to replace the spring.

[JayKosta]

Lever type water keys usually have a spring with 2 'legs' that either point straight back towards the finger pad, or the legs are wrapped around the posts and cut short.

I prefer to leave the legs uncut, because cutting leaves a sharp point and makes removal of a broken spring difficult.
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Most Important Note ? - the next one !
KNOW (see) what the next note is BEFORE you have to play it.
PLAY the next note 'on time' and 'in rhythm'.
Oh ya, watch the conductor - they set what is 'on time'.

[TrumpetMD]

[Fritz of WA]

Took the trumpet to a repair tech to have the spring replaced on the water key. He cleaned it all and showed me that the problem was that the hinge housing and the tiny bolt that runs through it had all corroded badly, just from saliva and one year's playing. Said he'd never seen such corrosion on a newer instrument.

I checked with the manufacturer, found I have another 9 years on the warranty. I sent them a couple pictures I'd taken when the repair tech had it disassembled, and today I received a warranty replacement (i.e., free to me) main tuning slide with its brand new water key assembly.

I have also learned to angle the instrument carefully when discharging water so that it will drop straight down rather than have a chance to run along the curve into the assembly. I also dry it thoroughly when I am done playing.

[Brassnose]

That’s very odd. Is your horn from a decent manufacturer and did you buy it *new* a year ago? Or was it *new old stock* or something and has been lying around for years and maybe corrosion had already started and no one noted?

My Blessing was likely built in 1979/1980 and I am still on the first springs, hinges, etc. (not the first corks, of course ) and I don’t think I ever oiled the springs yet the are perfectly fine.

Good to hear that the warranty side of things is working out
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2019 Martin Schmidt eXcellence
1992 Bach 43GH/43
1989 Kühnl & Hoyer Model 15 flugel
1980/2023 Custom Blessing Scholastic C 😎
1977 Conn 6B
1951 Buescher 400 Lightweight
AR Resonance, Frate, Klier

[Fritz of WA]