Steve & others, what kind of curious answers to the original question. But there are some points to consider:
luggage is limited in weight - and this is controlled strictly. So the "horn" must be carried as on board luggage. One of these rather cheap "kinderhorns" would fit all the needs. It fits into the over head bins or under the seat - even with fixed bell. It will not be exposed to the dangers of the "luggage destroying machine" on the airports. A small conical mute would reduce the noise, so one can practice. Question: is it necessary, to practice f & ff when on tour ??? Flexibility of the fingers & of the lips ? A kinderkorn set in Bb or set in F would do the service. Carrying a 3,72 meter long rubber or plastic tube in the luggage would result in silly questions by the security personnel for sure and would be rather destructive to the embouchure. The most important be regarding all that effort as a mere muscle training, but not for the sound. ###################################################### Am 27.06.2011 um 02:47 schrieb Steve Haflich: > When I need to travel on a NHR trip. I sometimes take along a mouthpiece > and some tubing. Your local aquarium supply (or even a plain pet shop) > will carry flexible plastic tubing in several diameters. This stuff has > negligible weight and rolls nicely into a suitcase. > > I, like you, find it better than practicing on a bare mouthpiece, but it > doesn't really provide a good substitute for a horn, even a valveless > horn, because of several deficiencies: > > - The tubing is too narrow, hence has very high resistance. > > - The cylindrical bore is grossly out of tune, especially on the low > harmonics. The reasons this happens to a cylindrical bore have been > discussed previously. > > The nice feature of this arrangement is that the cylindrical tubing > doesn't couple very well to the atmosphere, and the plastic tubing > absorbs a lot of energy, the the practice setup is nicely soft. I've > played in hotel rooms without problem. > > Another nice feature is that the thumb over the end of the tube works a > little (a _very_ little) like the right hand on a waldhorn. > > I've tried correcting the tuning problem by using two different sizes of > tubing, the smaller nested into the larger. But this provides only a > single step increase in bore, and I didn't find that it helped much. It > did slightly reduce the excessive resistance, but not very much. > > But thinking about this abysmal practice instrument, I have a few ideas > in case anyone else wants to experiment. > > First, try selecting larger diameter aquarium tubing rather than > smaller. If you must, use a rather short segment of small tubing and > nest that into a long segment of wider tubing. Narrow tubing makes the > instrument too resistant to blowing. > > Second, choose an instrument length significantly longer that 12.5-foot > F length. Since the lower partials are out of tune, constructing a > lower instrument will make the harmonics you actually use closer to > being in pitch. I haven't tried this, but perhaps 16-foot C would be > good. > > But here is the real idea that I'd like to throw out in case some horn > atelier has more energy to put into developing a product than I do: > > The quietness, lightness, and cheapness of aquarium tubing is attractive > for making a practice instrument. But the conical bore make the > instrument only marginally playable. I imagine most plastic tubing is > extruded at constant width, but suppose some clever manufacturer could > figure out how to _cast_ similar material into a conical shape similar > to a horn bore, complete with bell. Might be very difficult to > construct, but if it could be done, one would have a very quiet > instrument that could be simply mashed into checked luggage and which > would then return to approximate shape when the suitcase is opened. > > If this could be manufactures and sold for $100, I think there would be > a market for travel practice instruments. > _______________________________________________ > post: [email protected] > unsubscribe or set options at > https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/hpizka%40me.com _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
