Category: In The Wild
Protected: Gershwin Set 4/16/25
Making Gershwin Sets
I’m guessing a lot of orchestras are putting together their spring/summer concert series. A few of them will be performing “An American In Paris” and are looking for sets of tuned horns. Especially following the more recent discovery of the 1929 version pitches. Happy to say I’m having some success at helping folks out. Still more of an art and I hope to be making my own reeds sometime this year but…
Protected: Gershwin Kit 4/6/25
Protected: Gershwin Kit 3/20/25
Protected: Gershwin Set 3/12/25
David’s Serpentine
Steampunk
Squeeze Horns, Meet Game Calls
Behind the scenes I’ve been fascinated with the horn reeds. I’ve been learning about manipulating pitches etc. But there’s only so much you can do with a hack. So my friend Alvin in India has had the word out about my search for custom reeds and we may have finally found our reed guy. Fingers crossed. In the meantime I recently discovered a whole other world of reeds around the topic of ‘game calls’… these are calls hunters use to attract their prey. It turns out I can use them in our horns. Probably just for novelty, but it may eventually lead to a way I could manufacture my own reeds here or have them made for me. Because what I’d really like to have is the ability to sell pitched horns or sets of horns. Though I have made a few ‘Gershwin Kits’ for smaller orchestras over the last few years successfully, I’d like to have more control and more precise tuning.
Here are some recent videos I shot showing off the horns with game call reeds installed. You probably just need to watch the short one 😉
BSA
Allyne sent along some photos of this beautiful, I think 1940s, BSA, now outfitted with one of our 18″ straight horns. Great match. Love that we can help folks add that extra touch. Thanks for the photos!
Allyne fabricated their own attaching bracket. I would love to find a source for all-brass attaching brackets. I had some custom made at one point but they weren’t strong enough. Still on the case though.