Historias

Of all the instruments, the french horn looked and sounded the most beautiful, and it looked like it would be easy. But I was wrong, it wasn’t easy. By the time I found that out, it was too late...

— Peter Gordon

Jazz and the Horn

Playing solos on the tuba is pretty unsatisfactory as well. After about five minutes, the average ear gets sick of the noise. Most people can’t hear at the bottom. Tuba players, with their extra aural sophistication, have completely forgotten that to most people anything below the top of the bass clef is just a rumble.

— John Fletcher

John Fletcher

Many years ago, William Vacchiano of the New York Philharmonic purchased a Bach D trumpet which played horribly sharp in pitch. When he complained to Vincent Bach, the latter, in his own inimitable style, responded by saying Vacchiano didn’t know how to play the instrument properly! So Vacchiano put the instrument in a closet and never played it. Twenty years later he discovered the instrument had been improperly fitted with an E♭ trumpet leadpipe!

— Thomas Stevens

The Trumpet in the USA