Hi Steve, First off, you are correct in thinking this is the straight mute. There are a couple of things to think about inre the mute itself. Ideally a tunable straight mute is best but these are more expensive. A mute is fitted to a particular horn by either sanding the corks down so the mute inserts further into the flare or by adding thicker cork thereby bring the mute slightly out of the flare. The purpose of this is twofold-tuning and sound quality. At this juncture of your son's and your fledgling efforts I would recommend the oft maligned but never the less functional Humes & Berg (Stonelined). Your local music shop should have it in either the tall tunable style or the "stubby" non-tunable style.
Then, if you or your son continue to grow and require something more discerning you can get into the endless discussion of which (high end solid wood with gold gilt letter super conducting gem encrusted this cost me an arm and a leg and mine is better than yours so nya) mute to buy with the money better spent on a lesson with a great teacher. Oh yeah, to quote the inestimable Rolling Stones when they wrote a song about the Stonelined mute..... Paint it Black. The Jack Attack! _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
