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Happy Friday everybody!

So every now and then I will visit a major chain restaurant that makes a practice of displaying memorabilia on the walls like age-old signs and advertisements, sports memorabilia, and old musical instruments. At the joint near my old house they have an mostly intact Conn BBb 4 valve up on the wall! Couple of valve caps missing and the bell has a small dent. I have often thought to find the manager and make an offer, but the wife is usually there and the last thing I need is another tuba in the house (I know - crazy to think I could have TOO MANY tubas).

Anybody else sad to see what looks like a perfectly good horn gracing the walls of a chain restaurant? Further, anybody managed to save one of those horns?

I've seen quite a few Eb alto horns on walls like that. I think it's a shame, because they are not easy for a musician to come by and are fun to fool around with.

Nick

I hate to see any intact musical instrument on the wall. I always have this feeling that there's a poor kid out there that could be making music with it instead.

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Daryl Fletcher wrote:

wnazzaro wrote:Kind of like the waitresses.

We can't take you anywhere, can we Bill?

What disturbed me the most about these instruments was when I noticed how they are usually attached to the wall. They drill holes in them and attach them with screws.

Ok, so maybe a lot of these instruments were not quite professional quality, but what kind of statement does this make about the value our society currently places on instrumental music, played by real musicians? Are we now to view it as obsolete (like the rotary telephones and other assorted junk they also have up there)?

They're big and pretty is all. And they tarnish nicely.

I've rescued one of these for a local fellow. The restaurant had hung it from the (forward) bell by drilling a 3/8" hole. I patched the hole by taking a hunk of 1/2 sold brass rod and machining it down to fit the hole exactly, silver-soldering and sanding it down flush with the bell. If you knew where to look for it, you could just make out the narrow ring of silver solder. But for all intents and purposes, it was invisible.

The GREASE on the inside and outside of this thing was otherworldly, though. Took some serious work with a lye solution to get it all off.

Daryl Fletcher wrote:Ok, so maybe a lot of these instruments were not quite professional quality, but what kind of statement does this make about the value our society currently places on instrumental music, played by real musicians? Are we now to view it as obsolete (like the rotary telephones and other assorted junk they also have up there)?

I think that there is an enormous amount of instrumental music being produced today which is valued very highly...it's just that most of it doesn't involve the tuba. Those instruments are put up on the wall for the purpose of nostalgia...the same basic sentiment that I think may be at the root of the dismay being expressed in this thread.

-Zack Zeman

I suppose years from now you can go out and hit a nostalgia restaurant and see a Casio sampling keyboard nailed to the wall, or maybe a seven string guitar the kids like so much these days.

I suppose I would rather identify with the nostalgia crowd (now) than with the anti-renaissance of crap coming out of the radio these days. Or does that mean I am just getting old?

There are musicians of ALL ages, making music of ALL types. It may be that to find stuff that interests you, you will have to listen to music coming from somewhere other than your radio.

Saying "the stuff I hear on the radio these days is crap," is totally different than saying "instrumental music is no longer valued by our society."

-Zack Zeman

chronolith wrote:Or does that mean I am just getting old?

No, that's just coincidental...

An acquaintance bought a couple of old violins used as wall decorations in the local American Legion hall when they were doing a remodel. Dusty and without strings, they'd been hanging on the wall since the end of WWII. He later sold the pair for around $10,000--apparently, they'd been "appropriated" during the war and brought back to the US by a returning soldier..

Ya just never know.

OTOH, a friend doing a remodel on a house discovered a bell-front Buescher baritone inside of one of the walls. I think it probably was better left there.

I didn't mean to hit the "all radio music is crap" nerve. Not at all - and I apologize if it was taken that way. I am at an age now where I have just been introduced to the idea of "well, I guess I am getting older". I am saying things my dad used to say.

The music on the radio these days is music that has been finally and fully embraced by industry, marketing, and business in general. The model promotes the idea that someobdy produces a "hit" and the industry does everything it can to capitalize by mass producing and replicating that success to the greatest possible degree. It is predictable and engenders sameness. Good for business, bad for artists who are trying to do something different. I suppose this has always been true to various degrees, but it seems like nowadays that it is the only remaining dynamic for radio, and music television also. The real artist in the studios these days is the producer - trying to make music out of technology, money, industry pressure and maybe only having a third round American Idol reject for talent in the booth.

As for instrumental music - it has been out of society vogue in this country for a century, except for jazz and that was hard to find even decades ago. For those of us who appreciate it (and maybe even write a song or two), we know that the only place to find it is in the concert halls and universities, and the odd record shop that has a respectable classical section. I ackowledge that this is different than saying radio sucks - but I wasn't even trying to make the connection in the first place.

Classical radio - I have my problems with them too, but I am glad that it still even exists, I support it financially and strain to hear a Bozza Sonatine every now and then.

I haven't given up on modern music, but it is the rare day when I listen and say to myself - hey that new song is really good. The last one I can recall was three years ago.

So what is a tubist to do? Find some balance between the fluff of the music industry and relegation to the antique section. I hope we are not the dying generations of our instrument, and while I can't see Britney hitting the stage with a low brass section, I don't yet believe the tuba on the wall is the "writing on the wall".

Sheesh - I started this stupid thread and I am getting way off topic. Sorry!

the elephant wrote:My bassoonist girlfriend nearly cried, since, if refurbished, it would have been better than hers

Any bassoonist knows the really important question is "But how was the reed?"

chronolith wrote:... I am at an age now where I have just been introduced to the idea of "well, I guess I am getting older". I am saying things my dad used to say.

We all turn into our parents eventually -- scary, isn't it?

... I can't see Britney hitting the stage with a low brass section ...

From the Clipart forum (thanks Neil and Jared):

I gave my Russian tuba to a friend to hang on his wall because that's all it's good for. That p.o.c. gave me fits and I'm so glad I could replace it with a tuba that can cut it.

the elephant wrote:The manager was getting tired of all of the local musicians trying to buy his decorations, so he instituted a policy of mounting instruments in such a manner that no one would want to buy them.

Dude, that's just f'ed up...

My father was an instrumental music teacher in a small town. One of his fishing buddies owned a local bar with old swords and axes displayed on the walls. After a few years of seeing drunks trying to yank the weapons off the wall and attack their pals, he decided to get rid of the cutlery and asked my dad for some junk musical instruments to hang there instead. That was generally regarded as a good idea at the time.

Art Hovey wrote:My father was an instrumental music teacher in a small town. One of his fishing buddies owned a local bar with old swords and axes displayed on the walls. After a few years of seeing drunks trying to yank the weapons off the wall and attack their pals, he decided to get rid of the cutlery and asked my dad for some junk musical instruments to hang there instead. That was generally regarded as a good idea at the time.

I'm sure there was a more comical quality to those that tried to take the instruments off the wall and beat each other over the head with them.

Nick

Art Hovey wrote:My father was an instrumental music teacher in a small town. One of his fishing buddies owned a local bar with old swords and axes displayed on the walls. After a few years of seeing drunks trying to yank the weapons off the wall and attack their pals, he decided to get rid of the cutlery and asked my dad for some junk musical instruments to hang there instead. That was generally regarded as a good idea at the time.

Seems to me that I've heard individuals in whose hands instruments were both deadly objects and weapons of mass intonation...