My Flea-Market Adventure


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Posted by Rick Denney on September 03, 2003 at 14:19:14:

So, my wife cannot pass up a good junk store. We were visiting her aunt and uncle (the same uncle who plays tuba for those of you who keep up with my silly stories) in far western Maryland for the weekend, and stopped at this "antique" store just for fun.

In wandering around, Uncle D spotted first something that I found later: A trombone. I saw him monitoring my inspection from a safe distance.

The case was rotten on the bottom and has lots of loose parts, but the instrument within was mostly whole. It had a few dings in the bell, and evidence of some corrosion at the far end of the slide. There was no mouthpiece, but the slide passed the pressure test despite being dry. The inner slides are nickel-silver, and looked brand new. The outer slide looked and felt straight but a bit gummy, with only a minor hitch or two.

I took it home (to the satisfaction of my wife's uncle) for $59.

It's an Olds Ambassador, not old enough to be made in LA, but old enough to be a real Olds (i.e., Fullerton). I figure it was made in the 60's or 70's, but I have no way of knowing. It's all yellow brass except for those inner slides, of course.

The only tenor trombone mouthpiece I have is a 6-1/2AL, which doesn't seem to insert far enough for my liking, and which may be a bit on the big side for this pea-shooter.

My goal is to get it working well enough to mess around with, to see if I can improve my slide technique enough not to be an embarassment. It's really almost there. I gave it a good scrubbing, including repeated scrubbings of the outer slide with a snake, and a good soak in vinegar to arrest the little bit of corrosion. I found one or two very slide dings in the slide that slow it down a bit as they pass over the socks. Cream smooths it out reasonably for current play, but it needs a bit of work.

So, here are my questions for you trombone doublers out there:

1. How much more can I spend before I'm no longer in Good Deal territory?

2. What sort of mouthpiece should I be using--something vanilla that is suited to the horn and also to a tuba player?

3. I'm finding a couple of mouthpiece positions that seem to work for tone, but that result in very different intonation tendencies. One is a high position with mostly upper lip (about 2/3rds), and the other is a low position that is the reverse of the above. When I play with a centered position, I can't get a consistent tone. Am I venturing over a cliff by trying these alternatives, or is there an accepted practice that I should observe and learn to make work?

Rick "who answered his other questions after searching the Trombone-L archives, but who doesn't have time for a new forum" Denney


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