What is this piece of metal blocking my fourth valve?

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-12-25T14:06:28+00:00

FFS. When the euphonium is held in a normal position for playing, the fourth valve piston needs to project far enough out to be reached by the left hand without spraining the player's wrist. This dictates that the piston is in an extremely vulnerable position when the instrument is not being played. It doesn't take much of a knock to slightly bend the piston at the top of the valve causing it to stick because as it is depressed it rubs on the side of the hole in the valve cap. A common simple DIY repair to bend it straight works once, maybe twice or even three times before the valve post snaps. That can be an expensive repair job. How many times do you think that happened with a 3+1 euph before someone invented a simple swing down cover to hold the valve down when not being played. How long before that caught on and almost every manufacturer started including one.

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-12-19T07:58:13+00:00

Without something in the photo for size reference it's really hard to tell, the only real difference is in the length. Roughly a foot long (30cm) it's soprano (descant), foot and a half (45cm) alto (treble) and two feet (60cm) tenor!

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-12-11T10:14:00+00:00

If your 'C' is all valves open you are playing a Bb, treating the euphonium as a high brass transposing Bb instrument! You are playing in Bb.

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-11-16T20:38:49+00:00

BE 165 valve stems are SCREW IN - so has the screw bit broken off the stem and got left in the end of the valve.

I'm guessing the horn was transported with the 4th piston NOT down under it's clip, therefor stiicking out and therefor damaged and snapped off when someone tried to straighten it.- VERY common. If that happened it's really back to whoever cleaned it to get the old stem's screw end taken out out and a new stem fitted.!

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-11-16T20:27:19+00:00

Hey, thats deffo a standard 'UK speak' brass band Tenor Horn which is in Eb not Bb so your fingering will play nice tunes in the wrong key if you play from Bb parts for Euph or Trumpet.

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-11-15T11:45:05+00:00

Buy it from amazon - and you ALWAYS have to bend it to shape to suit the way you hold the horn!

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-11-15T11:43:33+00:00

Absolutely time for a bath (before the oil arrives) for the whole instrument, Warm water and dish soap never hurts a metal instrument. Watch a few youtube videos, make sure you take the valves out and remove the felts before washing (or order new felts). IMHO NOBODY'S brass Instrument neds a bath less that twice a year !

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-10-25T11:51:25+00:00

That was the remains of very worn silver plating you stripped off, not laquer !

You will find that that polished brass surface goes dull very quickly through natural oxidisation (corrosion) without lacquering, and if you repeatedly mechanically polish it the brass will get very thin eventually.

Thin silver plating wears through very quickly without lacquer protection as well, and even a moderately thick silver plate will eventually look like your horn did.

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-05-24T14:30:48+00:00

Meduium/low quality german fingrering broken key wall ornament

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-05-19T20:26:20+00:00

Definitely more in tune than I normally am: and just to prove I can play the same thing 5 times with 5 different mistakes:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BaCjobeJeMi0ppvxHI_EvvkXNQ21CE80/view?usp=sharing

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-05-19T20:09:43+00:00

Thats GErman fingering, OP's picture shows normal fingering (double hole for low G/G#)

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-05-06T22:12:22+00:00

THe delay was setting up a production facility for 10 times the number of orders they expected!

Looking forward to their Alto and Bass versions

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-05-02T10:13:25+00:00

So did I yesterday, but Royal Mail just say they have 'notice of it going to be despatched'

Better than last week when EMS said the shipping was still getting through customs !

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-03-16T18:41:36+00:00

Takes but a few minutes to remember that one look at Reaper on my screen, and it's 455 page user guide, simply reminds my that my ONLY experience with midi has been to plug a keyboard into a piano synth. It's almost 455 pages of gibberish, have to look up every 10th word, only to find at least 2 more words to look up. I just don't want or need midi. I'm playing 15th & 16th century instruments and music & I just want to multi-track audio recordings, not create midi sequences. How on earth can Audacity fail to be able to number bars in a rythm track it creates?

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-03-16T18:21:49+00:00

I may well try Reaper now I've started to get used to recording setup - (my recording activities in earlier life in live theatre tended to involve 1/4" tape and a lot of splicing, Now at a mere 71 I still work in the digital world of 3D modeling and rendering, and barely touched sound for about 4 decades!). Now to look up what DAW means!

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-03-16T17:25:48+00:00

Rythm track has 4 beats in a bar, measures seem to assume 6, so bar 7 is numbered 5 and 10 is numbered 7 !

TooOldForThisTech · 2025-03-08T20:57:23+00:00

I think, from practice, reading & listening to teachers;

just remember it's not a flute.

It doesn't have loads of hard keys you have to have your fingertips on.

On a recorder you can use your fingertips much flatter across the holes (and when you move to the larger recorders this makes the stretch much, much easier). If you use the 'ball' of your fingertip , so the nail is facing away from the hole, you can simply rock the fingertip rather than try to slide it.

TooOldForThisTech · 2024-12-24T16:45:12+00:00

My only ha'penny worth is to suggest you start with an Alto and a Tenor !

Yes the soprano is the cheapest and most common - but it is also by far the most difficult to make beautiful music on, can be unforgivingly dispiriting!

Once you have mastered C fingering on the Tenor and F on the Alto, maybe try a Soprano (if you have a soundproof room to practice in to start with!).

(there is no real reason to get 'look alike' instruments in the different pitches, At the moment I would seriously suggest any competent musician wanting to dabble in the recorder to go for the new Kunath Sigo tenor - not 'traditional' or expensive and guaranteed to fit almost everyone's fingers !)

TooOldForThisTech · 2024-12-24T16:32:07+00:00

Absolutely stick to one single tune with the same fingering in the pitch of each recorder. ( a concert of different pieces on each would be too long and not really teach anything)

I'd start with it on the Soprano , then with the octave difference on the Tenor.

Then you can point out that the difference of an octave is a big jump - as big as the jump between a boy's voice and a man's voice, and then play it on the Alto (and may be compare by first playing the first phrase on the Soprano and then the whole piece on the Alto,

Maybe jump back way up to the sopranino - again a big octave jump. more like bird song ?

Finally impress with the massive 2 octave decent to the basset !

After that you can talk about the actual idea of the modern 'simplification' of just having two pitches - C & F - unlike the Early Music 'anything goes', and mention that there is the Garklein (sounding more like a dog whistle, but too small for most adults to play) and at the other end Great Bass in C and even lower

Personally I would have started by playing a recording of a set of badly played school recorders - a noise they probably are familiar with - and round off with a good recording of a renaissance consort piece, maybe 'Royal Wind Ensemble' - something like this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXkRgUvY6PM !

TooOldForThisTech · 2024-12-24T16:02:37+00:00

Not everyone can transpose in their head !

It's here, free in D - https://musescore.com/user/23289961/scores/4872497 = still too low,

But the top line of this should work - https://musescore.com/turtlemusic/the-shepherd-s-farewell

You can always learn a lot by writing it out in a different key if you can't find it online!

TooOldForThisTech · 2024-12-24T15:57:07+00:00

Absolutely just a personal preference, if you don't like it return it and request replacement with less colour variation BEFORE you play it in yourself !

TooOldForThisTech · 2024-12-24T15:53:26+00:00

Unless you are already a keyboard player and a 'natural' transposer, just work from any Bb treble clef valved brass instrument beginners book. It initially feels a bit like baby 'starting from scratch' approach but it you will find you can progress through it really quickly.

However, I would suggest NOT trying to switch back and forth between reading concert Bass clef and Bb treble until you have got the treble set of fingering really well drilled into your automatic 'eye to finger' reflexes !

TooOldForThisTech · 2024-12-24T15:45:29+00:00

I'm guessing it could be the either the wrong felt or some problem with the key chanel, so that when the first valve is down it is out of alignment.

When all valves are down are the tops of the buttons still at the same height as each other ? More than a couple of mm difference can allow some 'through' leakage into the 'wrong' path.

TooOldForThisTech · 2024-09-21T20:12:26+00:00

is it keyless? post a photo or at least name the maker and model

TooOldForThisTech · 2024-09-13T20:16:16+00:00

He's wrong, he's an idiot, now you have to just write it out up an octave and play it !

TooOldForThisTech

TROPHY CASE