Cool Horns Are Cool But…

So yesterday’s post had a picture of Ibrahim Maalouf and his custom trumpet – a four valve horn that, when the fourth valve is depressed, allows him to lower a pitch by a quarter tone. According to Maalouf’s website, his father designed (“invented”???) the quartertone trumpet in Beirut back in the 1960’s. An interesting aside: Don Ellis had Holton make him a quartertone trumpet in 1965. Which came first? Who knows. Whatever. Maalouf plays a nice looking horn. I’m not sure who makes it. Might be Selmer of Paris where Maalouf has lived and studied since he was a boy (his family fled Lebanon when Maalouf was young because of civil unrest there).

Maalouf's horn:

Don Ellis' horn:

Checking out Maalouf’s trumpet (the fourth valve is at an interesting angle), I started thinking about other new designs for trumpets. A buddy of mine, guitarist Richard Somerville and I were having a discussion last week about guitars. Richard knows a lot about various makes, models, designs, etc. He asked me if there were any new developments in the design of trumpets. I immediately sent Richard some pictures of Dave Monette’s horns – in particular the Prana Decorated and the flumpet:

Then I thought about the horns that Edwards makes. They appear to be great horns too. Perhaps Monette rip-offs by appearance, but they are certainly a bit cheaper than the Monettes.

Then I remembered seeing a picture of Roy Hargrove’s trumpet and flugelhorn which are made by the Swiss company, Inderbinen:

I went to the Inderbinen website and checked out some of their trumpets. Some of these look pretty nice and some are starting to get a bit carried away. Check these out:
The Alpha:

The Studie:

The Toro:

The Inox:

And the blingy-est trumpet around, The DaVinci:

My buddy and bandmate in several ensembles, Adam Hershberger remarked/joked about Inderbinen’s descriptions of these horn: “the horn has a huge, dark sound, and a relaxed upper register. Lots of volume.” As if the horn can play itself! Another trumpet player friend, Chris Aschman also commented on the Inderbinen pictures I sent him: “why do they feel a need to keep reinventing the wheel?” A good point. Made me think a bit.

I didn’t even send them this crazy looking trumpet “The Mutantrumpet”:

Or this one – “The Shew Horn”:

All of these horns certainly look a lot cooler than my 1972 LA Benge:

But will I really sound any better if I played one of these as opposed to my horn? Would most people be able to tell a difference in a blindfold test? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I guess if a horn feels easier to play, then perhaps the player will feel more comfortable and therefore perform at a higher level. But I still feel like the old adage must be true: it ain’t the horn (or the mouthpiece); it’s the player. So the good news is, it doesn’t matter that I cannot afford an Inderbinen Inox. I just need to practice more. And speaking of……