Hirsbrunner instruments


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Posted by Scott on June 22, 2001 at 10:47:46:

A couple of years ago I had the chance to play a HB-21, and I liked the horn, it had a nice tone, it was easy to play, etc., but I didn't think that the sound was very interesting. At the time I thought that it was just me; I was a BBb player playing CC for one of the first times in my life. Since then I've heard many descriptions of the Hirsbrunner sound, ranging from "gray" to "vanilla," so I'm thinking that maybe it was not just me.

Well, last year I was playing on my school's Besson and got completely fed up with the intonation (or lack of it) on that horn, so I started shopping for a good used horn. I happened to find a Hirsbrunner at a good price (i.e. I could sell it later after I had a better idea what I was looking for and get all of my money back, if not make a little). My first impression of the Hirsbrunner euph was very much the same; good consistent tone, easy to play, reasonable intonation (okay, I had been playing a Besson), etc., but a very colorless sound. After a few months with the horn, I figured out how to make the horn sound like the way I wanted to, so much so that I picked the Besson up again and found that my sound on the Hirsbrunner had become almost identical to the classic Besson sound.

After all that, my question is this for the Hirsbrunner tuba players out there: did you have similar experiences with your tuba? Do these instruments require a "getting to know you" period, or did I have an atypical experience with my euph?

Scott


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