A live Horn Hangout from the horn factory Gebr. Alexander, where Sarah Willis learns how to take care of her horn, advised by Alexander´s top technician Thomas Lehr.
Transcript
Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.
[Music] hi welcome come in it’s the 5th of January at gabura Al here in M look the Christmas tree is still there don’t you just love their decorations welcome very exciting live forn hangout today for many people this place is Mecca the Alexander Factory it’s not their original Factory down in the baroff shasa is they moved here a couple of years ago we’re going to be finding out all about that and
I thought we’d have a quick look at what it is in here that makes it so special and look at this this is the wall of fame not the Wall of Shame the wall of fame we have photos from all Alexander horn players it’s incredible we could spend just hours doing a hangout here and here is the boss himself philli
Alexander we are here Sarah and we are ready for our Hangouts thank you for having us today ladies and gentlemen Philip Alexander hi everybody your office how many years have you been here in this place now now 5 years 5 years already it seems like yesterday that we were here oh my goodness it’s a long time a long time and here we have
Ryman panrs hello Ryman how are you Ryman where is your horn hangout T-shirt oh I brought it you brought it you’re supposed to be wearing not bringing it yes thank youe for you rymond is uh the heart and soul of this place we couldn’t do any of this without him and doesn’t he look doesn’t he look fantastic in his horn hang t-sh see you later
Ryman thank Lat have a good day so who else we got here Casper kov hi Casper say hiar Where’s Your Horn hangout T-shirt oh I need to get one you need to get one right okay you know where to go there’s boxes of them and we have here the showroom which is where you would come to try out all the horns take you quite a long time to try out all these horns isn’t it’s just a great space we love to come and play in here my colleagues and
I played at the opening right we’ve lost Phillip let’s go back let’s go back into the V shop and see if we can find him Phillip we lost you I’m here you’re here waiting show us the way to your factory the vat the workshop just straight ahe we love all these hotos they are fantastic yeah they are remembers from the past got so many here’s the bid area brro
Corner the history of alanders fantastic is everyone looking forward to the hangout everybody is very happy they are cuz they get an hour free right yes so ladies and gentlemen here we are here is where it all happens and here is my star of the show Thomas Le oh hi sir how are you well thank you for your time today you’re welcome we’re not live yet but we will be in just a very few seconds a little bit nervous but
Thomas is is fantastic and think he’s actually because because I’m here I decided to give him my horn for a few minutes just to I can try it now it’s like he’s been reborn thank you so let’s get over to the bench and talk about taking care of horns [Music] hi everyone welcome to mes welcome to the
Alexander Factory happy New Year this Bell is rung every time a new horn is finished here at the factory so an angel gets its wings when you hear this Bell welcome we are so happy to be here we’re so happy that so many you of you are watching as I said we’re at the Alexander Factory here it’s mecca for a lot of us
I love being here and um we have a great hangout plan for you today we have people watching from all over the place handsome Tim is of course awake in Melbourne thank you thank you Tim for organizing the stream the horn Hangouts team are here Alex is behind the camera yakob and George are here in the back and we thought we would talk about how to care for your horn cuz it’s a subject which
I’ve been playing the horn for so many years and I still have no idea which oil to put where so we’re going to be talking about that but first of all I want to introduce you to someone very special Philip Alexander you’ve just seen him at the beginning just seen his office and now we’re here in the vshot welcome
Happy New Year to you too to everybody also thank you for letting us take over your vat your factory we are quite happy you are here and we can show everybody how to take care of the instrument the boys are still working it’s a normal work day we have Frank and eart here on the on their desks and de back here everyone’s hard at work um
I just thought we’d start off because people have been asking a few General questions about Gaba Gaba means Brothers Alexander why are you called Gaba Brothers Alexander this is from the past this is the official name and it was in the past we were always Brothers yeah but still today and when was the when was the firm founded it was founded in 1782 wow so now we are in the seventh generation and we have some photos don’t we yob of of the really old original
Factory um where people would they worked there’s a picture with someone smoking their pipe when they were banging on the horns yeah and some other pictures how the house looked in the past and the workshop where they had the old transmission places for the saw and other things so how long have you been here because a lot of us know your your showroom in the bar
Hof stasa right you get out of M’s uh the train station you go up the street and there it is but now we’re a little bit further away this is our new workshop we are here since uh 2011 now yeah it’s a little bit bigger and more modern it’s great it’s huge and you have a showroom which we saw and and then most of the stuff happens here a lot of the a lot of the the hard cleaning stuff happens behind closed doors back there there’s cleaning areas polishing and sandpapering all all different areas fantastic um
Phillip somebody had written in and asked um why how what is the development going going to be of of making horns I mean you see them at work it’s a really hand hand work it’s a very fine work there’s no way you can factory produce French horns we are still using the the old traditional way but of course in our modern days uh we use actually quite modern ways when we develop a new instrument like uh 3D printing or other things we use already for many many years yeah you can see in the background maybe there’s a picture we use
CAD designing for parts so we use modern ways combined with the traditional ways so to have the original hand work style fantastic and just tell us something we’ve all changed over to hand hammered horns in the Berlin fil what exactly is the difference between hand hammered and not hand hammered Bells the hand hammered horn is uh the
Bell is hand hammered but not the the spout only the part from here to here get a special treatment after bending it will be specially hammered and this changed the material to an um more harder material and this affects the sound but it there’s a lot of hand hammering going on here usually I I must say you guys it’s really quiet in here now we’ve turned off the turned off the air control we and everyone’s being very quiet so usually there’s a lot more noise going on in here much more noise well good well thank you
Phillip um we’ll see go and have a look and see what people are asking in the chat and we want to talk to one of your top technicians your Meister Thomas Lair where is he he’s hiding in the background there Thomas um has to quickly put the microphone on so uh is everybody okay out there let me just see what’s going on on the chat we have people from
Switzerland Boston Panama Ecuador Juan hi from Ecuador um David Cooper is on our new principal horn he’s in Dallas Dave you said two alarms I know it was hard for you to get up well done I think we’re going to start with your question actually Susan from Canada tranos from uh Sweden I love it you guys are so
International thank you all for watching if any of you have a horn hangout t-shirt then put it on take a photo we want to see where you’re watching from Thomas come and join us G this is Thomas Thomas great Happy New Year to you aome and isn’t it a great surprise to have to suddenly talk live in front of a lot of people in
English I’m a little bit nervous but I think we do this together we do this together we I remember when gabo takov our principal trumpet did the he said I can’t speak any English and so I thought okay we’ll translate but then his English was was pretty good and it’s like yours you say but I know you
I’ve heard you speak English before so we just heard that our principal horn our new principal horn David Cooper is watching in Dallas and his question I actually wrote it down he wrote a question which I think we all want to know how of often should you oil your valves and grease your slides how much oil and how much grease and where so why don’t we start on one we have prepared earlier yeah well and now we know this is very clean horn your horn but um normally
I think first before you start oiling clean the instrument yeah and when you say clean the instrument you don’t just mean take a polishing cloth not only polishing um it’s important that you clean the inside of your instrument uh especially the very important thing is your lead pipe the lead pipe yeah that’s pretty gross actually cleaning the lead pipe oh thank you then
I don’t think we want to do that now here today we we pull pull out the main tunic slide yes yeah and um you can use a brush like this I don’t really like these I can’t get them through my horn I’m always afraid going to break okay then we use the BR yeah just to show you go inside when when
I clean instruments at the company first um moisten the cleaning utensils okay yes very important you can also you use a little bit soap or detergent that’s okay if it goes in the horn yeah no problem and then you can go inside here mhm through and through and through comes out here yeah yeah we can do I think okay
I think I actually did it recently so look how sah you you guys know what this could look like oh and it’s clean did you just do this before no no no no Well I obviously didn’t eat as much at New Year as I thought you can can do this okay don’t be shy it’s no problem yeah good so that’s really important to do before how often should you do that depends on how depends on on the personal habits of the player this is not so easy to say okay right and now what do we do okay oil
I won’t say less oil problem for your instrument too much oil also against the fast w action okay you said something about the professional people who play a lot don’t need as much oil as the people that play maybe once a week or something like that it’s usually not necessary to oil the valves in from the inside okay when you you play every day or nearly every day it’s normally the the moisture inside is enough to keep um this sliding surfaces lubricated okay so we put oil in here and which oil now that’s very important that’s very important there are different oils please don’t change
The oil you have um what do you mean when don’t change the oil don’t use different brands no don’t change the oil you use for this and for inside okay you use the same oil no no no no you don’t you have a sorry we have a bearing oil bearing oil bearing oil is that the thin oil no this is medium oil medium oil okay medium oil we use at the company here this 13.5 oil we use that one yes and um give a little bit oil if you have got a instrument with a lubrication channel it’s very easy can oil directly inside okay that
That’s what that whole for actual B it’s like a hummingbird hummingbird okay okay and also a little bit here outside okay just a few drops and how often not too much should we do that I think you have to control this by yourself yeah don’t oil too much I think look every two weeks or once months and um you unscrew like we do now um this
Val cap yeah then you can see it looks very dry yeah then you have to oil a little bit okay so if the valve cap is dry then you oil it what about putting oil here yeah axle here you can also put also from this um baring oil at the axle here at the Springs are yeah okay you can hold this ah yeah oh a okay then we have turn it over two
BRS at a horn okay oil directly here is there is it dangerous if you put too much oil there on the on the on the pads no um okay be careful that you don’t put any oil on the rubber mhm ah okay no oil on the rubber if you put any oil here on the rubber please remove them because oil on rubber soften the
Rubber and they will be ruined after some time okay and then you have to have the horn back yes there was somebody that wrote and said he’s just bought a 5003 and Leo I think and he said he hopes he can see it hanging here he’s just ordered it so maybe it’s hanging here somewhere the best is you can see not any oil at your complete instrument good so also we can use this barring oil for for the balls for the mini balls are the mini balls here yeah you can use top of this here mhm if you have got an older instrument you can
Use also a ball joint yeah a little bit thicker the thing is I’m noticing here Thomas he’s putting like literally a tiny you know when we we all our horns were probably guilty of just going and squirting it he’s putting like one tiny little drop here into the horn not not too much less is more less is more sometimes yes okay so and you would do that uh every couple of weeks but you remember what
I said about when when I go on holiday and then I come back and and or fly somewhere for a long trip and then I want to then the valves don’t work you had a good tip for that yes please clean the instrument before you go to Holiday or you or you know that you don’t play for a longer time it’s better clean before yeah um we do clean the the lead pipe and also you can uh remove all tuning slides and uh remove crease inside here you can use
I have a stick here I do this okay you can clean first first here inside ah okay yeah all right so you don’t you can use a water mhm it’s getting just the oil out if you if you clean this before you don’t flush any old crease inside the valve casing so you put it like that it’s important okay this is like
Sesame Street yeah okay okay got it yeah but then before you go away put the oil put a couple of drops of oil before to keep it first first we clean everything with with water I keep skipping that part so detergent something like this uh I can show you this um pretty new tool here we have this is um a jet cleaner you can connect this with your shower shower
H and then you can go inside and you know what happens when you do that it goes yeah okay be careful put your instrument in the bath in the bathtub yeah and then also put on your yeah bathing suit to do it and with this you can also go inside here yeah I think it’s can we buy this yes you can buy this we can buy this we might even actually give one away at the end of the program if
I can think it’s a good competition I can see Philip starting to sweat presents Philip free gifts H this is no this is uh pretty new from C Min okay this the company produced the live section for us that’s a good idea I think also this it’s good um somebody just asked who what did I see Isaak
Vargas asked how often should the rotors be taken out never never never please don’t please don’t do this bring it to Thomas if you need to do this bring it to um professional repair man so um that’s quite that’s what it would look like right yeah yes that’s I find that quite cool actually you can see the
RO where hang on which way around does it go okay this you can see inside the rotor it’s also here this part yeah you can see here this this hole and that’s the rotor so we do there’s the rotor inside this case our rotors don’t look like that do they they’re covered in green this this is a pretty new okay for new instrument please don’t remove the rotors by yourself okay it’s not so so easy to do this job uh you need a lot of experience to that the
Wes move again after very inserting marito horn asks is it okay to wash the horn in water and citric acid or is it better with washing soap washing up soap um sometimes I when I on repair trip I use also this uh citric citric citric acid CIT citus okay this removes the remains from the saliva the lime saliva removes is pretty good so it’s it’s okay yeah if you use this uh use um a lukewarm water lukewarm not cold not cold and also not hot yeah if you it’s hard work you have
H cold not hot lukewarm twice a week clean your horn out I don’t know if anybody really does that um oh you told me a really good tip this is a really good tip I’m it does maybe not in the right order but I didn’t want to forget it lacquered horns and unlacquered horns clean the we’ll get back to the valves in a minute but you just while
I remember the unlacquered horn should always clean off the horns when they’re finished it’s very important please clean your instrument after each playing session uh from fingerprints because uh aggressive hands wet yeah can oxidize the horn make the material it’s involed so we don’t want that so unlacquered horn players clean your horns after playing and clean your hands because nobody likes a green hand yes okay sorry back to the back to the oil so we’ve oiled our horns we put the oil in here we put it here we don’t put oil in here we do not put oil inside there no at the moment we
Just used this one this bearing oil this is for the balls for the bearings here between the action wing and the steam or stem then the the oil here inside yeah this yeah okay in the in the little hole that’s right and just like one or two drops we put it in there and this is all only for the bearings if you feel that it’s a little bit dry the instrument inside you can use u a light rotor oil okay what do these numbers mean that number 11 this says 13.5 the bearing
Lage oil this is a very light oil okay and where should that go inside inside in there here this needle is very helpful so you can give this directly inside here yeah but never in the slide and then tip it into the no no no so you when you do like this you flash okay all grease inside the casing and then you have a slow valve action speaking of
Grease you to that one cuz I can’t get that out and also a tip if you remove slide please press key yeah yeah ah when you remove the slide press the key that’s right cuz otherwise you go yeah it’s funny noise but uh sometime you have problem with your Wes because they’re stuck and that can happen from taking them out long time not clean instrument okay and the the remains inside can can change yeah from this vacu vacuum vacuum vacuum yes so now we want show yeah this is quite that’s now instrument to repair this has been sent to be repaired cuz there’s a huge
Great big dent in it but when the slides the inner slides look like this then you should sinking over to bring it to a professional repair man this is very heavy here inside yeah and that would go down into the valve and make it slower yes also muffles the sound yeah aha it’s not good for the sound yeah ah so if you want a better sound clean your horn yes also you know what
I don’t think though sometimes I’m we’re a bit superstitious and we don’t like to clean our horns just before big concerts you know because we want it to feel the same um but always afterwards then we’re amazed at the how free it is okay so none of none of this disgusting stuff here just before I ask about the grease someone has asked um
Steven has asked citric acid what ratio citric acid to water if you have a package like you use for the cooking machine yeah I think this is enough that’s enough coffee machine package size in about half a liter of water something good good you guys you have you have tough questions out there um Roto or rymond is in his office right now
I hopefully wearing his hanger t-shirt um answering all the oil questions thank you rymond for doing that Grease Grease yeah Greased Lightning you have different we have uh this is like a slide Gale yeah I have a sort of pot of grease that you s it’s about 100 years old use like that shoe cream you put that on your shoes
I I use I use this you use smells terrible smells like a a stable horses okay when you crease your slides um I use my finger you can also use um paint brush something like this yeah like like that no yeah yeah a new one perhaps it’s okay um apply just a little bit small let’s get this into right up to the to the no
I I start here yes and be careful no grease inside inside the slide yeah okay then you can use your instrument once again so it’s really like a cooking show isn’t it TOA pull inside and turn a little bit move back and forth so you spread the grease evenly on on your slide yeah also on the other side okay so now when we complete what is that brand of
Grease isak just asked this one big one here this is uh number eight also from from hman we have the headman this is the big professional one you guys don’t and you also can use this seven slide gel I wonder if any non-horn players are watching this they’ll be [Music] like my mother she’s probably watching this thinking oh okay well now she knows she can clean my horn next time she comes you can use both yeah for a new instrument it’s this perfect okay for a little bit older instrument you know wear of material so you how do you get the you know like um
Where’s this nasty one this one is so sorry I just made it go plop you’re not supposed to all this disgusting green stuff how do you clean all that off um I don’t know whose horn this is I hope they don’t recognize it no problem at home it’s a problem yeah in this um Citrus Citrus citrus acid okay it’s okay you can remove this but normally you only have the chance to to do that but then it doesn’t yeah that’s what
I like about when it comes to you because then it gets all really nice we we polish this a little bit okay I think you can not do this at home so getting back to David’s question we’ve every two weeks or whenever you think it’s looking dry the grease how often would you do the grease it’s the same yeah you have to decide by yourself you check sometime and um don’t hold the slides always in the same position yeah very often we have the the main not the main tunic slide but the the
B tuning side and also for the uh flat F on always in the same position then they move then they get stuck you mean they get stuck so so it’s important to move them up and down yeah but we do that every time we pour the water out yeah but sometimes we have this problem instruments come and they are stuck okay so do like
I showed this before okay let’s get this smelly stuff out the way also also here yeah yeah turn and so you spread the grease and then you don’t need too much grease H there’s a nice question from David what happens if I don’t clean my horn well you probably have a horn that looks like this it’s good for us you have to buy a new one okay guys that’s the motto of the day don’t clean your horn but buy a new one and then this nice little bell will will ring every time every time there’s a new one made um
Campbell hi Campbell who’s in Berlin he says he often hears that too many dents in the bell and getting them removed too often makes the Bell less resonant how can you tell if your bell is already is is has finished its life that’s that’s right when it’s if the when the bell gets too thin I mean like you took you took a dent oh no you didn’t it’s still there if you do take out too many dents it doesn’t matter
Campbell doesn’t matter if you get a dent this is a question from me where does it make a difference to the sound I mean if you get a little Dent here no no problem I think the lead pipe be careful with your lead pipe because uh sometimes we have this um bending here and then you have here also yeah damage so
I think this is very important for the sound okay and what happens if you get a dent like somewhere in here the the diameter is not too close it’s no problem normally but still we don’t like dents in our horn yeah we we have one I think this ah yeah that’s an ouch one a little bit too much that one there
I think you can notice this you get that one and you play and I would say and you notice that where you play but you’d also notice that one can you see that that’s a that’s a really painful one how did that H how did that happen you home player yeah I don’t know oh well um what about the um the some people get it when they put it on their knee and try and pull out a slide and then then it dents that’s when the slides get stuck yeah what about the
I have a play on a fixed Bell but um do you have to take care of the Ring around a non-fixed bell that should always work no problem okay okay good is there a special product for a lacquered horn to clean uh we use um this laer polish MH like this okay and that’s for lacquered horns not
UNL okay yeah okay I think it’s very good just a little bit inside here and I yeah please you can use my horn horn hangout t-shirt no canuse this here okay and removes perfectly the fingerprints and also the I don’t have some of that I need from condensation the water here it smells yeah this hey that looks much better it smells very good it does actually it does smell very nice um uh
I yeah I mean everyone should have a polishing cloth in their horn cases because um you know use this please yeah use it you should I think that’s something that I i’ I learned is from you is it really to to rub to rub your horn down after you played it because of even the lacquered ones but more important for the non- lacered ones
Alexander has a nice little kit here um which what would go in there that yes see this here and we thought we thought actually we could do a little competition but I haven’t thought of what question we need a good question Phillip you have to think of two good questions and we’ll ask them at the end and the first person to write the answer in the chat gets a little
Alexander horn horn thing with a little cloth and pencil pencil also with a clip yeah pencil and a clip oh that’s cool all right okay um back to the questions we have people asking a lot of questions can you manage to okay problem uh I use unipole to clean the slides what’s that unipole it’s okay or will it wear away my horn this is um to polish sometimes we use also this unipole to polish uh the surface okay instrument there’s another question which you can’t answer but maybe someone else could answer from
Mary is Tim still as handsome as ever Tim are you still as handsome as ever send us a photo please ashor hangout we want we want to see oh and there it goes again and we want to see if you’re still as handsome as ever I’m sure he is oh yeah how Howard pink from Nashville says he’s a firm believer in preventative maintenance he’s been playing the same horn for 54 years always oils valves and grease the slides on a regular basis and does the lead pipe every few weeks that’s an example for us all same horn but you don’t really want to hear this
Do you Philip because if he plays for us you guys it’s terrible you don’t want somebody playing on the same horn for 54 years um Sarah from Canada nice name Sarah one of my valves on my horn feels free most of the time but sometimes it sticks it feels like there’s something stuck inside I try and clean it even took them out oh but
I didn’t see anything when when a valve works but suddenly stops what is usually the problem you you know what I had that with my mine the one you fixed it’s not so easy to say um so I have to see this is cannot say now it’s always this problem or this problem it’s like online it’s hard for them to say what the problem is perhaps um all horn player carry his horn like this and press the tunic interesting tunic slide down here yeah and this pressure can go to the valve casing and that’s really interesting can block okay the rad ah okay could be
Could be cuz this is always the this is always the one where the stay comes undone here this always the one that’s the problem I think it’s better the stays the soer place here broke yeah then you have this and something gets stuck yeah here inside yeah okay good so when we carry our horns don’t press too hard looks pretty good but uh be careful sh in a lacquered horn is it
POS possible to damage the lacquer by not cleaning the fingerprints so if you don’t clean the fingerprints away from a laid horn what would happen it just doesn’t look nice like um removes the aggressive fingerprints removes also the Leer ring yeah and then you have little holes here sometimes you can see this also here at the keys not at your instrument now we have no this is this is my favorite one here this can we can we do another can we make one of these later did you jump on that not not
I not you other guy aha okay I like that one um sorry Le I can remove from aggressive hand sweat also okay so Hand sweat can be a real problem I I I use a a hand guard yes to stop the hand from from slipping but my colleague Stefan says he prefers it if it uh um if if it’s not there cuz it’s better for the sound so what can you do good this looks pretty pretty but it’s only half a year old so uh what is the worst case you’ve ever had to deal with what is what is a bad thing when you get
A horn and you’re just thinking oh can you judge how much work it’s going to be like like this one is going to is is this Bell dead yes this Bell is dead no when I remove the dance inside here normally I need two hours okay to remove all dance only here in the Bell section yeah and um there are a lot of
U dance inside also here and here and this is a problem this is a place you cannot work very good on this part here so sometimes we have to this part we re remove and install a new one yeah so the instrument from our company it’s no problem for us so we have this you have these parts yeah from other companies or sometimes we have to bend something
Bend something yeah okay but the worst case is when you can’t get these out um when people send send them to you or you oh here we go here we go we like that noise okay so couple more questions yes Mindy asks does Humidity and heat affect the performance of the horn for for the material we often have this in in
Asia you you can see that um everything how to say mut uh uh it’s it’s it’s not shiny it’s it’s dull dull yeah you have this but for the instrument for for the material to to play it’s normally no problem only the the billions of the surface looks not so good I think I had a um I met a horn player from
Brazil from the amazonas and yeah and he his horn was green it was like completely green outside and I said what do you do he says oh he leaves it outside sometimes he practices outside and leaves it outside at night that’s probably why his horn was green is it better to when you put the horn away to pack it in the case or is it better to leave it out leave it out that’s also a good tip because in in our horn room we leave all them all of them out but yeah yeah it’s better for your instrument so they can air out yeah that’s
Good also remove the condensation from your instrument after playing mhm yeah and um don’t put it in the case so um if you’ve got a especially for a yellow brass instrument yeah this um saliva accumulating saliva ACC Sal saliva ACC saliva accumulating uh on the balls of the tubes yes can attack and ATT yes I know I
I play on a on a on a yellow brass and I have to replace that quite often this red Point some yeah so it’s it’s important also to get the water then out after a concert rather than just leave it and go and have a beer okay let’s see if we uh that’s from New Year’s Eve what is it today on the 5th
Thomas this is this is fantastic oh yeah funny somebody just asked Nicole just asked it’s very is it very important to empty the water out of the horn after eat practice or performance yes yes Nicole very very import important um yeah Franklin says uh he’s a trumpet player and to have the instrument in a gig bag causes a lot of
D yeah but you trumpet players you know you just throw your horns around um David David says when he leaves his horn out he practices more often yeah good that that’s that’s a good one that’s a good one um oh a nice question isak isak you’re doing good questions today do technicians play the horn I played the horn but
I’m also a trumpet player ah okay so I I try if everything on the right place frankia plays the horn I’ve heard no you play trumpet Frank play trumpet horn horn P trombone okay trombone horn trumpets trp is there anybody here that plays the horn yes he yes yeah lots of people Heidi asks are there horn playing gloves that can be used instead of a grip do you know this instead of instead of a hand grip if you can use use gloves yeah it would be quite slippery any more questions for our wonderful technician
Tomas because uh oh one more what tips would you give for cleaning the mouthpiece ah mouthpiece that’s a good we forgot the mouthpiece thank you Sergio cuz mouthpiece cleaning is really gross also can use your uh mouse piece brush yeah first also clean with water with water then you can use this one inside here and also from this side yeah yeah very often yeah yeah
I think this is very important clean the mouse piece and also the lead pipe once or twice a week there are lot of remains can I have one of these cuz I the one we have in the horn room is so disgusting in Berlin you don’t want to put it anywhere um and it’s like maybe got three bristles left and and cuz the head fell off in somebody’s horn you don’t want to know but but this one this one
I find difficult this one here but you like this one better some some people like this more but I think it’s no problem it’s harder to pull through huh yeah yes I use this one but you have to decide by by yourself okay I not say it’s not it’s not a good tool for fix first competition question you guys ready on the chat to win one of these fantastic music
Gaba Alexander care cases with a uh cloth and a pen and a pencil and a clip someone just wrote that the pencil Clips are the best part about playing the horn in what year was Gaba Alexander founded go anybody watching so we’ll put that on while we’re talking about that first person to get that um I often use toothpaste to clean while using the brush you use toothpaste on your teeth or do you use your uh use toothpaste on the brush is that good put toothpast through your horn no sorry no
Q-tips somebody Miriam from Dublin hello Miriam nice to see you online I use Q-tips to clean the mouthpiece yeah that’s okay wash them out with water yes yeah it’s better than using Q-tips to put down the yeah that’ll get lost uh 1782 is that right Phillip isaach you have won one of these send me a message on
Facebook and with your address and we will send you one of those congratulations ah Hugo just a little bit too late Isaak is the first one I saw um yeah he’s the first one good write that one down well done so I think who was the second one Hugo Mack 1782 Hugo gets one too okay and who was the third one
Ryman Pankratz uhuh he doesn’t get one um besides the lead pipe where can we use the snake well yeah you can use this also for the for the tuning slides for the tuning slides show me yeah we’re learning a lot today ah yeah inside here so you bend this a little bit Yeah you can also use here yeah good good great this is a little bit more stronger than this okay somebody just asked where can we get all these things they’re all in the
Alexander online shop if you’re in America you can also order at Ken Pope I’m sure Ken has a lot of the stuff um in London you can you can get get these things online Paxman I’m sure so that as well or here of course in the online shop these nice little bags which Hugo and um and and isak have just won and rymond not you can get those here too so any more questions before we leave let me just see this takes some sometimes a while to to is there anything you think you missed out that we need to know ah
I have a question yes I have a rim on my mouthpiece and it’s stuck and what happens when your mouthpiece gets stuck in in your horn so that’s two questions how do I get the rim off and how do I get my mouthpiece off it’s stuck that’s a problem stuck mouthpiece inside a lead pip it’s better you’re ping it to a professional yeah but what happens if it happens just before a concert don’t you use any tool for this cuz
I’ve seen people hammering on mouthpieces before concerts you can you can try this but be very careful okay yeah because you can also try and um put a little bit of this oil okay in there inside okay that’s why these are good you guys because they because of the the the the dosage the hummingbird noses also the this
Rim here yeah the rim is stuck yeah and it’s not stuck it’s not stuck then also you can use a little bit of this baring oil and then from time to time try to can you unstick it for me yes thank you okay let me just have a quick look um at our last questions oh what do we do about sticky slides s sticky slides um you just have to have to unstick them oh here we got
Mickey Mouse coming in look um yes um that’s the problem because that’s what I said before yeah from time to time move the slides so you don’t have this problem always move your slides okay I think you cannot do very you can try to use clothes like this and then um that’s a good tip you know cuz our slides always stay in the same position usually if we play in tune then we leave them in the same place and that’s when they get stuck be careful let do this a little bit longer like this and then um go through mhm here and then try
I pull with with that okay yeah okay you can try this okay if this don’t move come out bring it to a bring it to a professional bring it to a professional so but these things always tend to happen just before you go on stage that’s in my experience how do you remove a stuck removable Bell if there’s a if the
Bell is stuck and won’t come off uh we also hit carefully with a hammer around and hope that we can lose this after Cindy asked horn stand yes or no whether I think she means whether we she would recommend rather than putting it on the floor to stand it up doesn’t matter doesn’t matter it’s the same but it looks prettier standing up
I think um has anyone sent a mini camera into the horn to to the moving vowes when it was being played do you know that Susanna asks sometimes we use uh mini camera to look inside if there are some um an endoscopy I don’t know what it’s called and yeah if the older place is perfect yeah but the w action
I think we don’t do this before okay check this with the camera see it’s always the same it’s like in a master class you go to a master class and you ask are there any questions no one says a word until 5 minutes before the end and then they all ask their questions there’s some great questions coming in here
I’ll just go really quickly Nicole military horns in Switzerland have non- removable Bells that’s right A friend of hers let it get off she get it cut it and put on a removable Bell is it good to cut a horn and put a removable Bell it’s just taste it’s just it’s not proper but you have to decide if you want this yeah the sound change a little bit the sound does change my colleagues in the burin field prefer except gor and myself all play on a fixed we play on a fixed spell the others for a removable
Bell and they say it sounds better we think it sounds better like this it’s it’s a matter of personal taste Miss Su ask how often do you need to completely have your horn cleaned by a professional once a year once or two okay yeah professional hor player I think they we do we look after it a bit better more care and professional also it’s important that the rotor moves in the center of the valve casing a professional can tighten yeah the valve bearings a little bit so they move more in the center of
CAS that’s important thing also all right so good one or two year one or two years well there’s Ryman has been great in answering also some uh Sergio asked quickly for noisy rotary valves what would you do oil them yes um this is also a job we do you have sometime this um this is interesting to see the the valve comes a little bit up and down here after sometime you for a longer time you use the instrument you have this is a little bit um wear on material we um turn a little bit from this rim and so it comes more down yeah and
Then you don’t have this noise okay okay this is something from Mo order the valve bearings um not tied enough yeah yeah okay good thank you I think we have answered a lot of questions philli you’re sitting in the back there do you think we missed anything no I think it’s great thank you all for watching I have another question
I have a competition question and the prize is going to be a horn hangout t-shirt and an Alexander’s t-shirt who who was the who was interviewed in the very first horn hangout go very first horn hangout first prize horn hangout t-shirt second prize Alexander t-shirt and if if someone third if a third person answers properly then they might get another another pack and while we’re doing that
Juan just asked how long how much time does it to take to to maintain an instrument when you get it you need about two hours 3 hours just a cleaning we need two hours yeah um then it depends on what we have to do do you know how many horns are built here in a year in a year yeah uh
I think last year we had about all instrument not only the horns about 900 instruments 900 wow one year 900 people all wow this V 900 times this Bell yes oh nice Stefan door no sorry ISAC it wasn’t Stefan door we will keep a lookout on the chat do send us a photo send us from where you’re watching from we’d love to see that um send it on on
Twitter or on Facebook and um if you’re wearing your horn hangout t-shirt send us a photo of that too and we’ll put you in the horn hangout Heroes I’ve got some news I’ve got a new website coming out very soon so by the time the next horn hangout is coming there will be um a new website I sincerely hope
I see Alex behind the camera is helping me Casper Casper vicious is that right Alex yes he’s he’s nodding and he’s wearing his horn Hangout Too t-shirt too he’s been helping me out um and we’ve got a new website coming out with lots of lots of exciting stuff and that will be coming out in February we have
Andrew Bane coming up on the next horn hner Andrew Bane is principal horn in Los Angeles philarmonic and uh Star Wars expert so we will be having him on live from Berlin Thomas thank you so much I have a little present for you oh we have a new horn hangout mug so that you can always think of us thank you so much
I love horn Hangouts there’s the logo at the back so when you have your coffee very nice do you even get any breaks here at the Alexander Factory yes yes no just no problem thank you it’s really fantastic if you have any more questions write them in the chat we’ll go and have a look at them now afterwards and see if what we can answer rymad has been great with answering some stuff so keep going let us know where you’re where you’re where you’re watching
Tim thank you for staying up in Melbourne thank you to five stream for streaming the stream Alex for doing the all the all the difficult closeups um Jakob and George behind the camera there our video editors and thank you we had fun coming down from Berlin yesterday thank you to you happy New Year see you next time on the horn
Hangouts
Horn Hangouts are created by Sarah Willis of the Berlin Philharmonic. Brassbanned is a proud long-time collaborator and streaming partner.
