I have a few thoughts on the subject.
First of which, there are many hand-built European horns that are just
not that prevalent. Whether it's a case of "I've never heard of that
brand so it can't be any good" or "People in my section will laugh at me
or disrespect me because I'm not playing a "Brand X" horn" or simply a
lack of experience or exposure to those particular horns.
The lack of exposure is another issue. I'm willing to bet if you
surveyed 100 horn players (random sample) greater than 75 of them would
say they've never heard of Durk, Finke, Otto, Kalison, Cornford. I'd
venture that greater than 30% would say they've never heard of Schmid,
Lewis, Lawson, etc. Again, this is just conjecture. The vast majority
of the horn players out there are quite content playing what they have
(Alex's, Conns, Holtons, Paxmans - would it be safe to assume that these
4 horns occupy the top 4 positions as far as "most common?") and don't
go looking into things that they're not familiar with. Not all horn
players are into the horn lists, hornplayer.net or the adverts in the
Horn Call.
Another thought is the actual instrument itself. While I think the wrap
of the Finke is rather cool, I've owned one before and my experiences
weren't 100% positive. Johannes is a great guy and I think he's doing
the best he can, but I think the devotion to the alternate materials for
valves may scare off some people. I had some serious problems with my
valves and while the horn, on the whole, played quite well, the valves
turned me off of the brand. I think a lot of people don't understand
and don't care about the alternative materials used for the valves.
Similarly, the horn I just recently purchased - Otto 180K - I look in
the Horn Call and see that they run ads frequently and the wrap of the
horn that they choose to put into the Horn Call ads are, by American's
definition, an "odd" wrap. It's not a distinctive Geyer or Kruspe
wrap. I think that many people look at that horn (again, perhaps more
localized in America) and think "it's just not going to fly in my
section" or "that looks odd, I don't really care to try it." The horn
may be a great fit, but it's how it looks that scares people off. Add
to that, the leadpipe that they ship with is a German taper - even on
those horns destined for the States.
My final assumption is that, since no famous horn player is playing
Finkes or many of the other off-brands, they are less popular. A lot of
folks really won't even try a horn if "so and so" of the "what's it
called symphony" isn't playing on this gear. It's an absurd truth.
I'm curious to hear other's takes on the idea.
Cheers-
Jeremy
Carlberg Jones wrote:
At 2:17 PM -0400 4/2/09, [email protected] wrote:
4. Getting to the crux of my purpose, in the US more Orchestras have
a player whose only horn is a descant then play Finkes in any setup.
There are almost as many players in the US that play a pumpenhorn
exclusively as play Finkes. Any ideas why?
What are your thoughts on this matter?
_______________________________________________
post: [email protected]
unsubscribe or set options at
http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
