Dimes in the valve caps?

[ustacouldplay]

While I tend to give some weight (pardon the pun) to the idea of adding mass to certain parts of the horn in order to help reduce the loss of energy from the vibrating air column...I don't think dimes in the valve caps are going to do much.

You have to realize what you're trying to accomplish by adding mass to the horn in the first place. The whole point is to prevent the horn from vibrating. When you add mass to the horn, inertia helps keep it still, thereby keeping the energy in the standing wave in the air column inside the horn. That vibrating air is what makes noise...a vibrating horn just feels funny...but you can't hear it.

With that in mind...adding dimes inside the valves makes the trumpet weigh more...but the added mass doesn't do much to reduce the vibration of the horn. The horn will vibrate as before and the dimes will just dance around inside the valves. Or, more accurately, the horn will dance around the dimes, as there is very little connection between the horn and the dimes so they will tend to remain stationary in relation to the vibrating horn.

So while it is a good idea, I don't see much benefit. Now...if you superglue the dimes inside the caps...that's a whole 'nother thing! (But don't do that.)
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John Ford's next stop:

[jazz4yvonne]

The heavier the merrier!!!!!!

[Brassmouth]

[Dale Proctor]

This whole debate of adding small areas of mass to a horn brings up an obvious question I've never heard discussed. How does the way a trumpet is held affect its playing characteristics? Do players with large hands who grip the horn tightly contribute to the mass of the horn? This would seem to make a greater difference than something so trivial as 3 dimes. How about someone with very small hands and a light touch? How much of the players' mass counts? Does this addition of mass extend to the body of the player? Take a given trumpet. Does a 300 pound trumpet player get a different "feel" from the same trumpet as a 98 pound weakling? Does the horn play better for the 300 pounder? There's a lot more mass attached to the horn. Think about it.
(Where's that piece of chocolate pie?)

Just some random thoughts.
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"Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away ." - Sir Thomas Beecham

[trumpeter68]

i thought i was the only person who thought about that!!!

[jsmn4vu]

[_dcstep]

[bandman322]

While I question the results that may come from adding a dime to your valve caps, I must applaud your efforts to find something that will make a difference. I wonder what it was that caused a young Harrelson, Lawler, or Monette to start changing the designs of horns? I bet the first time someone looked at one of Vincent Bach’s ideas they told him that it would not be as good as the older horns, and then comes Bob Malone and Fred Powell who want to change the old designs.

While we want to give advice to the young people on the boards, we do not want to discourage their curiosity. One of these young people may be the next great trumpet designer, and their road to greatness may have started the day they tried adding dimes to their valve caps in order to add a small amount of mass to their instrument.

While I practice, they think! As long as their time in thought doesn’t take away from their practice time I admire them for “trying to make a better mousetrap”!
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C - Harrelson 750 Modified Bach Strad
Picc - Schilke P5-4
Flugel - Kanstul ZKF1525
Bb - Bach Strad 180ML-37

"To be a teacher you need to be as good a performer as you can be: you'll have more to impart to your students musically." - John Haynie

[Trumpeter58]

I have tried holding my horn in a manner that my left forefinger lays against the bell legnthwise instead of gripping the 3rd valve casing, and though I can feel the vibration in my forefinger while playing, I can't tell that it makes a detectible difference in how it sounds.
_________________
"Blowing" my retirement away.
"All that we know is infinitely less than that which we have yet to learn."

Blessing ML-1S
Olds Special NA 100ZU
Holton Collegiate cornet (circa 1953)
Olds NF13MRT Flugel
Monette STC1-B4S

[razeontherock]

I did the dime thing to my Strad, w/ holes drilled in them. Eventually 1 dime stuck and scored the casing - just after I had the valves lapped

The dimes did help. Don't ask me how, but they made the horn slot better in registers where it had been a problem. I went to heavy valve caps w/ a really weird configuration; I think each valve was slightly different. It helped a lot.

Ray
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"And this is life: that you know the Son, and the One who sent Him." The rest is just details

[308WIN]

[AndrewC]

just play your horn!

get a good horn and a good mouthpiece and stop trying to take shortcuts to whatever it is your after.

[blanchard]

When I was in high school, the assistant teacher did that on his horn... as well as the finger buttons (he must have had a thing about money, because he was 30 and didn't have enough to move out of his parents house. It was all invested in his horn... INSIDE his horn! ) Anyway, I tried it myself and only found the horn harder to play... even if it was all mental.

A friend did it to his Stomvi as well, and you could not get the valves all the way down! Those Stomvis and Shilkes have tight compression!!! Which brings up another question, wouldn't blocking the holes in the bottom create more pressure for the air in the piston, thus making leaks happen more quickly?
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"Well, I guess you can cut the arts as much as you want... Sooner or later, these kids aren't going to have anything to read or write about. "

[jadickson83]

Well I've been tinkering around with this and I think I'm done. I tried dimes with holes drilled through the middle, and they didn't really change the sound. Nor did brass washers I got at the hardware store. But regular dimes really did change the way the horn blows and how it sounds.

I would like all the nay-sayers to read my previous post on this thread, found on page 1. The gist of it is that I know that "tricks" like this are nothing more than neat little tricks, but to be a better player I have to practice, practice, get a good teacher (got one), breathe correctly, and practice some more. Please don't be so patronizing, I'm just having fun here.

I bet if I could show GR's website to pro trumpeters from 50 years ago, they'd probably call it voodoo too. But now GR and the like have the cutting-edge designs that are really making a difference for people.

I guess my point is, I know that great playing is 98% the trumpeter and 2% the trumpet. I'm not "looking for shortcuts" here, so please don't say that. I've worked really hard to succeed. And no, equipment stuff is not all voodoo, or we'd all still be playing our Bundy horns with the stock 7C it came with, right?

Anyway, I'm going to go see if I can have better intonation of I stick a carrot in the bell and stand on one foot.

-JD
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I will graduate in Spring 2006 and will be looking for a job as a band director or assistant band director, probably in North Carolina / Virginia. Any information about openings would really be appreciated! Thank you!
www.geocities.com/JADickson83

[iiipopes]

I know - zombie thread alert.

But I read some items I just must address:

1) Coins in the bottom valve caps are not new. My Dad did it in the 1950's, and it was an old idea then.

2) Depending on the horn, the player, repertoire, etc., it may or may not be beneficial. A couple of dimes in the 3rd valve cap of my King Super 20 damps spurious vibrations well, like the Conn-Selmer modular valve cap, but a whole lot less expensive! (20 cents opposed to 30 dollars!) OTOH, for awhile I had a Besson 2-20 that had thick machined bottom valve caps, and that instrument did not benefit from any added mass anywhere.

3) If you have the right horn, and choose the right coins, they do not just "dance around in the valve casing." A dime is exactly the same diameter, inside the threads, as the valve casings on my Super 20. So the valve cap cinches them down so they do the job that has been described properly: added mass changes the mechanical impedance of the system, and lowers the resonant frequency so that energy is not dissipated.

4) Another point of experimentation: you can get Curry sleeves for mouthpieces, and Wick sleeves for valve casings, etc. Instead of paying $XX.xx for something that may or may not work on a particular instrument, a roll of golfer's lead tape used to adjust swingweights of golf clubs is only a few dollars; the lead has significant mass; so you can easily experiment before purchasing one of the more famous appliances. I currently have a ring of the lead tape around the throat of my Kelly Shew Jazz to stabilize the throat to get a broader dynamic range without cracking. If you do experiment and later discard the lead tape, please remember it is lead and dispose of it in an environmentally appropriate manner.
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King Super 20 Trumpet; Sov 921 Cornet
Bach cornet modded to be a 181L clone
Couesnon Flugelhorn and C trumpet

[bwoodard]

[LittleRusty]

[Brad361]

[LittleRusty]

[jvf1095]

Speaking of grammar, how about we get these kids (& a good number of adults), to stop saying "like" all the time!!!!!!!!!!