Blokepiece compliments

[lornix]

TL,DR version - a member of my brass quintet specifically called out my recently acquired blokepiece for praise last night.

Full version. About a year and a half ago, I picked up one of Wessex's travel tubas. I have used it with my brass quintet on two gigs (and several associated practices) - once when we were playing in a local park, and I wasn't sure about how far I might have to carry the instrument - and once last winter as I was recovering from surgery, and thought the lighter weight horn would be easier to manage during my recovery. Last night, I had an accident with my main horn that rendered it temporarily unplayable, so had to take the travel tuba to rehearsal.

A few months ago (so - as the alert reader will have noticed -AFTER both of the events on which I previously used the travel tuba) - I picked up some blokepieces to use with several instruments, that I thought might better manage transitions from horn to horn. I have been using one of them with my main tuba for the quintet (an Olds 99-O), and used it with the travel tuba for last night's rehearsal.

At the end of the rehearsal - the trombone player specifically mentioned that he thought my sound on the travel tuba was much better with the new mouthpiece, and more consistent in tone with my normal horn, than he remembered from my previous use of the travel tuba.

Thanks to bloke for his advice on good fitting of mouthpieces to horns - and the quality of his products.

[bort]

James, I thought that top photo was an old picture of Alan Baer (before he got super skinny)