Posted by Alan on March 24, 1999 at 10:37:57:
In Reply to: Intonation question posted by Tom on March 24, 1999 at 09:59:14:
There are three things you can do about this problem. The first is spend hours in front of a tuner as you play and learn the tendencies of your horn and try to fix them (or in some drastic cases - try to fight them). A second thing you can do is continually try to adjust the 1st valve slide as you play (as you already stated). A third thing you can do is a combination of both these things. You need to learn what the horn wants to do as well as what your lips want to do. Both need to adjust some to come to a common ground so to speak. I play euph and will be installing a main tuning slide "kicker" on my horn. I know a gentleman who called a major manufacturer and asked if they would put one on his horn. They said they would not, and when pressed for a reason why, they responded "That would be admitting to our consumers that our horns are out of tune." The points being that all horns have discrepancies that need to be overcome in one way or another without compromising the sound.