On this page you are probably expecting to see something about what gear I use. And I will state that I own several great horns. My primary horn presently is a Patterson Geyer, using a modified Laskey G cup mouthpiece with a Houghton H-3 screw rim rim, although a close second is my Paxman 25AND. I also have a post-war Kruspe that I very much enjoy playing on.
But that is not what I want to cover here, I instead want to look at the horns I have constructed or completely rebuilt over the years. If I go way back to when I started college, I was a music business major that aspired to be an instrument repairman. And here I am at ASU! While basically a hobby at this point, with horn building having been the focus of my sabbatical in the spring of 2021, I believe the deeper understanding of how instruments are made will benefit my playing and teaching in the coming years.
This was built in 1989 under the guidance of natural horn maker Richard Seraphinoff during Doctoral studies at IU. It uses a Cousenon concert mellophone bell and first branch from the early 20th century, reworked to follow the pattern of an English instrument from the late 18th century. It can be crooked with the system of crooks and couplers into every key from C alto to Bb basso, and has a main slide for low pitch as well. More
This was started in the 1990s and completely rebuilt in 2020-21, following the pattern of a Gumpert model Kruspe from around 1880. The design allows the horn to be crooked as high as Bb alto. This was also started under the guidance of Richard Seraphinoff. F, E and Bb crooks were made for it using Seraphinoff tapers.. The majority of the parts are King, with sets of valve slides for F (E) or Bb (A). More
This horn was put together in 2021 using mainly parts from a 1960s era Mirafone, but with a Yamaha valve section. This follows the design used by Schmidt (and others) for single F horns in the late 19th century. It was constructed with an extra set of slides so that the instrument may also be pitched in G. More
This 2021 project put back together a Geyer single F from probably the 1940s which was lacking a bell (the original bell having been removed by a prior owner to restore a Geyer double) and had a very damaged leadpipe. The new bell is a vintage King bell, and the new leadpipe is Yamaha. It is similar to the Schmidt pattern horn, but different in many details. More
The final major 2021 sabbatical project horn was this one, rebuilding a Yamaha single F to take crooks. Using crooks based on altered Chinese natural horn crook parts, this horn can be set up either as a conventional F horn or as an ascending third valve instrument, as seen in the photo..
Next up was this mellophone to natural horn conversion, completed in late 2021 and early 2022. It combines a 1930s Conn mellophone bell with various modern parts and crooks built with Seraphinoff tapers. More here.
The body of this horn was completed in the early summer of 2022, and the crooks completed spring 2023. More here.
All of these horns came out very well, with the recent ones greatly enhancing my post-pandemic practice. And I have worked to varying degrees on many other horns as well. I’ve been asked about building other horns, and I have a few ideas I’ll work on in the coming years. Building these historic horn designs has been a great way to work on my skills again, and, as stated earlier, I am using the insights gained to benefit my students.
Below is a video on the building of the sabbatical horns.