Posted by Jay Bertolet on February 18, 2000 at 19:08:25:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Mutes: A different opinion posted by Rick Denney on February 18, 2000 at 16:39:55:
The Humes & Berg Mutes are that good. They are really well made and they work really well, at least for me. My mute has taken a real pounding over the years but it still sounds great and it doesn't have any of those wonderful extra noises you get with older metal mutes.
Lee taught me that trick with the extra cork and it works great. I have velcro covered corks of various sizes so that my mutes will always fit in any of my tubas. I believe it is a good idea to do this anyway because the corks get old and hard, prompting replacement, and you get to custom fit your mutes to a given tuba for the best results.
My first teacher made a wooden mute stand for me once that works pretty good if you lay the mute down on the floor. It is essentially two pieces of wood about 1' square that are attached to each other at one end so that they form a right angle. He then cut a semi circle in one side, and weighted the other, so that it made a nice little cradle for the mute to lay down into. This would keep the mute in one place by not allowing it to roll around on the floor. I just got tired of carrying it around with the horn and the mute! Nowadays, I just put a music stand next to me and set the mute on that, upside down. You just have to be careful that nobody bumps the stand because the mute is very unstable in that position.
I've tried the various incarnations of the metal straight mute with wooden plugs at both ends and made of a corrigated metal. I never could use one of those with a straight face because it always looked like I was using somebody's rolled up screen door for a mute... ;-)