Hi John, As you no doubt realise, the metal used to make a horn is one of the important factors in determining its tone characteristics. The other major one is the rate of taper of the bell (the bell throat) and of the mouthpiece. So-called 'gold brass' tends to have a darker tone than standard 'yellow brass', and nickel-silver tends to have a brighter tone with more projection. Many horns tend to use opposing characteristics in metal and bell throat to balance each other out - that is, horns with a smaller bell throat have a brighter tone, so this can be made more rich by using gold brass or yellow brass; conversely, large bell throat horns have a richer tone, and so using a nickel-silver alloy will help them project better.
You say that horn sections on TV have horns of the same colour. On inspection, you will find that many horn sections in fact use the same model of horn. This is to ensure that the entire section has similar tone qualities, and blend well to produce a good ensemble quality. Of course variations will exist, since individual players tend to produce different tones 'naturally'; the equipment the pros use will be designed to compensate for this so that each player sounds great both individually and within the section. What this means is not that a horn section who took you on would make you use an instrument based on its appearance. Rather, a top-end professional orchestra will want you to use equipment that blends well with the rest of the section, having similar qualities of tone colour and projection, so that as a section you sound great. More often than not that means using similar models with similar alloys. Of course below the top-end professional orchestras this isn't really an issue, since I would say probably about 80% - 90% of a player's tone quality can be controlled by the player, regardless of their equipment. Almost all of the result in almost all aspects of playing comes from the lip, including tone and tuning (I tend to disagree with trumpet and trombone players who are serially switching equipment to get results that ought to come from embouchure). It's only at the pro level that the remaining 10% - 20% becomes relevant. Neeraj Mathur > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of John Roberts-James > Sent: 23 February 2010 2:02 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Hornlist] Is Colour Blind? > > My main horn is a Paxman 25M, excellent, > full tone and of course gold colour. > > My second line instrument is an Alex 103. > Excellent, almost soloist tone - and shining > silver. > > I notice in most orchestras on TV that horn > sections seem to have horns of the same > colour. > > If I were to be accepted into an orchestral > Horn section with silver instruments would I > be required to relinquish my gold Paxman > in place of the not quite as good Alex? > > In other words, is appearance more important > than quality? Comments? > > John Roberts-James > > http://www.musicsolo.com > _______________________________________________ > post: [email protected] > unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi- > bin/mailman/options/horn/neeraj.mathur%40chch.oxon.org _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
