The Transitional A/Bb Cornets- Did They Play In Tune?

Shortly after posting my article Why Did The Cornet Become a Second Rate Citizen?, I became more interested in the Cornet and one of the questions which kept me up at night was this- “did the transitional cornets (cornets manufactured as a fundamentally A pitched instrument but converted to play also in Bb), play in tune”? I tried testing a Bb with its slides extended to an A instrument but the intonation was so bad, I gave up the effort. Then a good friend of mine said that he had an A/Bb cornet and would loan it to me for my testing. Little did I know how important his cornet would be. After checking the internet I found that the Holton Company made an exquisite instrument called the Clark Cornet and after closer examination, I realized that the one in my hand might be the best example I would ever come across. The condition of this 1920 horn was absolutely perfect in every way. The valves were excellent, the finish was better than my modern Bach cornet and even the case was in perfect condition and included the original slides, mouthpiece and cleaning rod. It was all there. Even a work order receipt from an instrument repair shop which indicated that the instrument had been rebuilt shortly before the original owner past away. And this is the most remarkable feature of this instrument- THE CASE DID NOT SMELL BAD!. For those of you that have no idea as to what I was referring to in the last statement, find the oldest brass instrument in the oldest pawn shop and ask to sniff the case. It will knock your soaks off. This case has the same fragrance as the first day it was purchased. That was a great plus for me.

A little history of the test subject before we start our tests

The instrument is a Holton cornet with the serial # 58471. After checking the Holton Loyalist Page, I dated it to be manufactured in 1920. Because of the condition of the water key corks, I would guess that the instrument was used very little after the last overhaul. There was a noticeable amount of engraving loss on the bell which indicated to me that it had been re-lacquered at the last visit to the repair shop. As I stated before the valves were in excellent condition which meant this instrument would be the perfect subject to find out how an A/Bb instrument was able, in the 1920s, to play in tune.

Procedure for testing the Clark Cornet’s intonation

I wanted to be as accurate as possible when testing the instruments intonation and decided to use as much modern equipment as possible. I also wanted to take any personal biases out of the equation. My testing procedure was this-

• Test only an instrument that was warmed up.
• Begin with the Bb side of the instrument to become comfortable with the horn.
• Record all of the exercises in the same fashion on each key.
• Use a tuner activated from the test recordings.
• Do three complete tests and average the results for a more accurate representation.
• Begin in the middle register and gradually extend up and down.
• Do the tests at different times of the day to make sure I was fresh.
• Use the original mouthpiece in order to duplicate the instrument and its own playing characteristics.
• After testing for intonation differences, I wanted to list a few playing characteristics which I found important.
• Finally I wanted to test the Bb side of the test horn with my Bach Stradivarius Bb cornet to see if there were any noticeable differences in intonation as well as playing characteristics of each.

Due to the fact that I have only sketched out my intentions at this point, the final out come may be interesting. Be sure to come back to see how the project evolves.