Chinese-Made Brass Instruments; Thoughts from a Retired Educator and Active Musician

It has been a little over a year since I last contributed to this blog page, though I see that there has been over 8,000 views of it since I started it.  In that time I've pondered whether to keep the page, or scrap it.  I've in the past written on some important events in my life and teaching career, shared favorite recipes, and featured some photos that I have taken as part of my other hobby, photography.

These are all great subjects, and I am sure that each one of them (and more) is worthy of the time, but I do believe that I do have something of value still to share in my chosen profession - music education. As such I believe that my views, insights and tips can help students and guide parents as they navigate through the modern world of music study in the 21st century.

So while I will continue to share recipes and tips on photography that I have learned, I want to focus for now on subjects and that can help both students and parents in school music programs.  I will be talking a lot more about playing and practice tips, music education and theory topics and equipment choices, all aimed at the 5-12 grade music student experience.

Today let's talk about student brass instruments.  When I was a young pup starting band in the mid-1960's, families in my neighborhood could not afford to buy musical instruments, so our local school loaned them out to students.  For brass instruments it was the venerable Olds Ambassador line cornets and trombones and baritones, or the occasional Conn.  These were well built tanks, with heavy bracing and high grade brass and nickel joint ferrules and durable lacquer finishes, capable of withstanding the pounding and neglect that a 5th grader could heap upon them.  In hindsight they weren't always free blowing, but they could take the abuse.  Today they command respect and can fetch a tidy sum on the open market, because they were so well built.

As I advanced into high school I began to look at other American makers more seriously; Bach, Conn, King and Holton, if anything because I figured that I had outgrown the old school instruments and kids were buying them with money they had saved from summer jobs.  But I was still poor, and for the time being I still played on a school horn.  My father purchased for me a used Buescher trombone, a nickel-plated odd ball, in my senior year, which I carried in my first year of serious music study at DePaul University in the mid-1970's.  It was a conversation piece to be sure.

By then, Yamaha had begun to make important inroads into the brass instrument market.  I remember being asked to play a school-owned Yamaha silver-plated euphonium for the DePaul wind and concert bands.  It was a dream, and I carried the horn around with me everywhere.

In those days, Yamaha was following the Asian manufacturing model - copy successful American and European brands until they could reproduce them equal or better to the originals; only then could their own innovations and characteristics be allowed to come forward. Their model for the euphonium was obviously the French Besson, which I played as an undergraduate as well, but preferred the Yamaha. 

A little more about my journey with brass instruments before I turn to the current climate facing today's students and parents.  About my sophomore year at DePaul I turned to trombone full time, ditching the odd Buescher my dad had bought me in high school.  My trombone teacher, Mark McDunn, was a clinician for the Selmer company and had subtly suggested that I consider a Selmer Bolero, a .509 bore tenor trombone that he himself played.  I agreed to buy one and he offered to pick up a horn off the assembly line on his trip to the Paris factory in the summer of 1976.  He sold it to me at cost, about $680. a bit of a King's ransom in those days, but I was working in the summers and managed it.

The horn was the best that I'd played to date; open, bright and penetrating, with a fine slide and resonant hand-hammered bell.  But it later proved to have one of the worst lacquer jobs I'd ever seen; my hands and neck would turn green from the contact points with the metal.  Maybe that was a positive sign of how much I was playing in those days, but I did not enjoy that.  I eventually sold the horn after I got married much later, but now regret doing so.  I could have had it refurbished, but being a newlywed, we needed the money.

In graduate school during the early 80's I purchased what I considered the standards in tenor and bass trombones, the Vincent Bach Stradivarius 42B and the 50B. Both of them turned out to have build quality issues and were real dogs, with very noisy valve linkages and workmanship.  I played them though grad school and beyond, but ditched both for a Getzen bass trombone in the 90's, a horn which I love and still play principally today.

So a long discussion leading up to today's world, in which students and parents are presented with a flood of brass instruments from so many different new markets, at all price points.  Instruments from the Pacific Rim are bountiful, as are domestic and European models.  The question is, which is right for any given student? A trumpet can be found on Amazon for $99; a trombone can fetch as low as $129 on some sites. while music stores can rent a domestic or Japanese horn with an option to buy for about $20 a month.  Are these instruments any good?

In my last two or three years a band director I saw horns brought in by students under the Mendini, Aamoon, Giardinelli and Moz brands, plus a few others I have forgotten, along with horns from more familiar brands as well.  These odd-branded horns, which more often than not come with white gloves (😅) sometimes would separate, come apart at the braces, had rather soft, dent prone metal and seemed to suffer from major fit and finish issues.  At one point early in my career Jupiter was a brand to run away from, suffering from some of the defects these newer horns have.  Repair shops wouldn't touch them. Taiwan based, they have truly improved over the years and are no longer cheaply manufactured.  Their XO brand line are professional horns.

I suspect that the standards for the lesser known brands are rising as well; they have to if they expect to keep selling horns.  In the instrument business these "knock-off" horns are called stencil horns, manufactured in a couple of Chinese factories and branded by the importer.  One such maker in Jin Bao, a company which is moving to improve workmanship on their products because they now have competition from other Chinese companies producing increasingly better made brass instruments all the time.   One such company, Eastland, has even purchased an American boutique trumpet and trombone maker, Shires, and is building and importing Shires designed instruments from the mainland.

In Europe, the English boutique trombone manufacturer Rath, a  maker of very fine professional trombones, teamed up in the last few years with a former builder in their factory, John Packer to collaborate on a new trombone, the JP/Rath line.  The horns are designed in the UK by Rath owner Michael Rath, built in China to Rath standards, and then shipped to the UK for final inspection and set-up before being exported world-wide.  I had been curious about these instruments, and knowing that I did not want to spend $5K on a Rath that I would never make my money back on, I ordered a large bore JP/Rath tenor trombone a couple of years back from a trusted dealer, Hornguys.com.  I had previously purchased two Wisconsin-based Getzen horns from them years back and still play them.

This new horn ran about $1750, maybe half the price of a Bach 42B and two-thirds of the price of a Conn 88H.  I received my horn in 80/20 brass rose brass, with a beautiful lacquer job and in a flawless condition.  I've lived with this horn on many concerts for the past two years and cannot find a fault with it. Tubing ferrules are artfully welded, with no sign of acid bleed around soldered joints or the bell bead.  There are no tooling marks whatsoever, and the slide right out of the box was great.  For the money it has played superior to any Bach that I have every played, and aligns itself quite well with the narrower slide Conn 88 style.

This instrument, and others in its class are considered intermediate, or step-up horns for the advanced student, but I must say that I have heard and read many positive reviews of these instruments by professionals. I've never had any hesitation about playing my JP/Rath in the concerts and shows that I do.  Now I am not a paid endorser of the JP/Rath line, nor am I of John Packer's own line of band instruments, but I do believe that in the instrument business you get what you pay for, especially at the lower end of the spectrum.  If I had a young fifth grader would I buy them a $99 horn online to start band, or a $1700 horn, not knowing if they will want to stick with it? Tough call, but I'd probably go the rental route for the first year; if progress is being made and my child was growing in musical ability and interest, yes I'd look at the intermediate instruments from JP/Rath, Yamaha, Jupiter, Bach and many others.  Brass students can grow with these horns, with little fear that the horn will crumble in their hands onstage.  I've seen that too!

If you have a question about one of these horns, I'll be happy to discuss them with you.  There are a lot of choices out there.  It can be confusing.