Onto a topic that I think a minority of musicians really know about-the Flugelhorn.
What is exactly a flugelhorn?
That is my flugelhorn, Frankie. The flugelhorn was created in Austria and it a member of the brass family. It has three valves and is usually in the key of B flat. It very similar to the trumpet by the way it is played, which made it a lot easier to switch to on my part. There are different versions of the flugelhorn...I prefer the "flugelhorn" look with the vertical slides. Getzen makes a flugelhorn that looks like a trumpet with a long loop. If i want to play a flugelhorn I would prefer to play one that looks different than a trumpet..since it is different.
The flugelhorn has a very rich and mellow sound. It's darker than the bright trumpet sound and is similar to a french horn. The tubing is wider and the bell is bigger. The tuning slide is where the mouthpiece connects and some flugels have a third valve trigger. The trigger allows the 3rd valve to be played in tune. Unfortunately my Frankie does not have a third valve trigger. My flugel is an Amati student flugelhorn. Why do I have one? Funny story. I was supposed to play in the pit for Into the Woods at my old grammar school but they had enough trumpets. I was told to get a flugelhorn and the director would transpose the french horn music into the key of b flat...so you can have me play and still have the french horn sound.
That didn't happen. But I did get the flugelhorn. My mom searched all over the island for one and she found a store that rented it for 90 dollars...FOR 12 MONTHS! Amazing. When it was time to renew my rental they sold it my mom for 500. It's pricetag was about 1000 dollars, but it was used (by me) and now it is my baby.
I don't even know what the mouthpiece size is but I'm going to go with the equiv. of a 7C or 5C trumpet piece. She sits on a flugelhorn stand (for a while she was sitting on my studio trumpet stand...because it was studier then my portable trumpet stand...the bell is bigger...duh.) I use Zaja French Vanilla valve oil on it. I think my next blog will be about that very product. It smells like French vanilla and I got turned onto it by a trumpet mate at my previous college. She doesn't know that she influenced me to get it but I saw how much fun she was having with it.
That's about it for now...
PoJ
