Bass Fanfare Trumpet in G

[tubaspmcc]

I have been asked to play the Bass Fanfare trumpet (in G) for an upcoming event, and in preparation for this I have been looking for a fingering chart - to no avail. I'm wondering if anyone has a fingering chart for this beast??

Luckily, my predecessor left fingerings on every note, but it is always better to learn the fingerings rather than refer to them for every note.

Also, does anyone have any mouthpiece suggestions for this beast of an instrument (considering that I'm a tuba player!)


Thanks,


Simon

[iiipopes]

Is your part in concert pitch, or a transposed part for some other instrument?

[ken k]

I have been asked to play the Bass Fanfare trumpet (in G) for an upcoming event, and in preparation for this I have been looking for a fingering chart - to no avail. I'm wondering if anyone has a fingering chart for this beast??

Luckily, my predecessor left fingerings on every note, but it is always better to learn the fingerings rather than refer to them for every note.

Also, does anyone have any mouthpiece suggestions for this beast of an instrument (considering that I'm a tuba player!)


Thanks,


Simon

I assume the music would be written in treble clef transposed in G, so you would just use standard trumpet fingerings.

k-

[windshieldbug]

Also, does anyone have any mouthpiece suggestions for this beast of an instrument (considering that I'm a tuba player!)

I 've used a small shank bass trombone mouthpiece when I've done that before - as long as the part doesn't go too high; I did some baroque stuff, and an Bach altohorn mouthpiece worked well for me on those.

[tubaspmcc]

Thankyou for your replies

The parts are in Concert Pitch, Bass Clef (as if for Bass Trom).

The fingerings aren't too hard to work out, but if anyone already has a fingering chart it would save me some time constructing one.


Thanks again,

Simon McCauley

[imperialbari]

You hardly will find a published fingering chart, unless you contact the British Army conservatory at Kneller Hall. I did that a decade a go about other matters via the British Embassy, where the resident staff sergeant/adjudant did a helpful job by contacting his job fellow at Kneller Hall. I think it was helpful to my credibility, that my requests on information was based on a fairly deep knowledge of the British military band structure as of 40 years ago and on knowledge gained from more or less frequent contacts with British military bands visiting Denmark.

Your question made me pull my own G bass fanfare B&H Imperial trumpet out of its case. I live in a condo, so live tests wouldn’t earn me any love at this time of the night.

I couldn’t find the original mouthpiece, which may or may not have followed the bass trumpet (the information maybe is truncated in the old TubeNet).

However neither tenor nor bass trombone shanks fitted the receiver. The two samples fitting were the Denis Wick 4AM and the probably unobtainable Besson G8, which came with my 1978 B&H Imperial G bassbone with the D valve and of course a handle for the slide. One of the last symphonic G bassbones ever made.

The production of the G bass fanfare trumpets was stopped a few years before 1990.

I met with a fairly highly ranking Besson/B&H executive 8 years ago. She referred any requests on the fanfare trumpets to McQueens of Manchester. I don’t think they make these fanfare trumpets, but they probably are the experts in keeping the existing ones in working order.

As I understand it, the fanfare trumpets had only one purpose: blowing the opening fanfares of military displays in the Brit tradition as highlighted at Edinburgh castle every year.

The tiring, but necessary disclaimer: There is an ongoing medical fight to save my eyesight. I do my best, but there may occur oddities in the text.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[imperialbari]

If it's keyed in G you could just ask a drum corp guy. They play on G bugles, they'd know the fingerings I would hope.

The original poster is in Australia, where drum & bugle corpses (sorry!) aren’t as common as they are in the US.

And even if they had been common there, it wouldn’t necessarily help that much, as all G bugles play with trumpet fingerings from treble clef music. Anything British intended for the G basses, be they slided or valved, is written in bass clef concert.

My discussions, mentioned in my previous posting, with Kneller Hall were carried out with a person, who must have been one of their teachers in band arranging. He told, that the G bass fanfare trumpet still traditionally was played by the bass trombonist of the band. My correspondent didn’t find that being truly sensible after the general shift from G to Bb bassbones. He suggested, that the G bass fanfare trumpet rather should be given to the Eb tubist of the band (the smaller regimental bands, that is those with no state ceremonial duties around HM The Queen, only have 1 Eb and 1 BBb bass).

The posting I reply to may not represent the most informed level of engineering, but my suggestion to the original poster may be called sort of backwards/reverse engineering:

Take a blank sheet of music paper. Write the full chromatic scale in the relevant range. Write in the fingerings for the notes, which are already indicated in your part.

You may have been raised on a 4 valve instrument for all of your musical life. If so get the help from one of your friends playing a 3 valve brass instrument. He/she may wonder about the bass clef notation, but together you soon will realise, that the chromatic fingering sequence of the G bass fanfare trumpet follows the exact same logic pattern as on any other 3 valve instrument.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[Tom Waid]

During my first 3 years with the Army Band I was in the Ceremonial Band and, from time to time, played G Bass in the Herald Trumpets. I remember using a euphonium mouthpiece and all the parts written in transposed treble clef.

[imperialbari]

During my first 3 years with the Army Band I was in the Ceremonial Band and, from time to time, played G Bass in the Herald Trumpets. I remember using a euphonium mouthpiece and all the parts written in transposed treble clef.

I cannot disagree with you in the mouthpiece matter. As for the notation matter I only can congratulate you in having a pragmatic bandmaster

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[tubaspmcc]

Thankyou all for your help, especially Klaus with his enourmous insight.

In the end, I put together my own fingering chart on Sibelius.
I will consider getting a new mouthpiece if I am asked to play in the
Fanfare team again.

Simon
'Good Luck and Good Soldiering'

[ken k]

any chance of posting a picture of this beast?

ken k

BTW, i like your avatar, tubas and beer, two of my favorite things, all else i need is pretzels!
k-

[imperialbari]

any chance of posting a picture of this beast?

My personal sample, obviously from the cage paintings fomerly owned by a Brit military band, can be seen at:

Thumbnails of a Boosey & Hawkes 1969 Imperial G Bass military ceremonial fanfare (Herald) trumpet:

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/yo ... re+trumpet

Its Bb tenor equivalent can be seen at

Thumbnail of a Boosey & Hawkes Bb Tenor military ceremonial fanfare (Herald) trumpet:

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/yo ... +in+Bb.jpg

You will have to join

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YorkMaste ... PhotosIII/

which also holds the indexes of one of the worlds largest privately maintained gallery series of brass instruments. Quirky? Yes! Interesting? Your decision!

BTW, i like your avatar, tubas and beer, two of my favorite things, all else i need is pretzels!
k-

This avatar started out as a Tuborg commercial on the back cover of the 1989 or so booklet of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre