Muted trumpet: C or D?

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God, I find that sound so annoying 99% of the time.

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 01:14 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.leepresson.com/photos7/butt-trumpet.jpg

― JaXoN (JasonD), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 01:52 (twenty-one years ago)

worst sound ever. even worse than saxophone.

― el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Muted but putrid.

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 02:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Fuck you guys.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc000/c029/c02971994ka.jpg

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 03:49 (twenty-one years ago)

that gent with the red tie looks like Fagen

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 04:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Best album ever that prominently features a muted trumpet (or a "mutant" approximation of it):

Ben Neill -- Green Machine

Easily.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 04:20 (twenty-one years ago)

C on this T

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 04:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that why trumpets on 50s recordings sound all weird? I LOVE that sound!

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 10:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Goin' Back to Cali!

― JoB (JoB), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:14 (twenty-one years ago)

totally classic.

― AaronK (AaronK), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:16 (twenty-one years ago)

worst sound ever. even worse than saxophone.

You just don't like horns = squaresville, baby. Unless what you're saying is that full-on, red-faced Maynard Ferguson shrillness is better. Otherwise, exempted from argument.

Classic, by the way. I played cornet in school band because it was loud, came to prefer the mute because it was cool.

― briania (briania), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Even better - muted trombones

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Muted with a derby.

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Kinds of mutes for trumpets:

Harmon - this is the "Miles Davis" mute. Common in jazz, can also tend to get used in lame soundtracks to evoke "sophistication".

Straight - this mute makes the trumpet softer but more tinny and piercing. It's often used in orchestral pieces, and sometimes in old big band recordings, but you don't hear it much in rock charts.

Cup - this mute has the opposite effect as the straight mute, in that it makes the trumpet less piercing, more of a rounded, "dead" tone. You hear this sometimes in old big band recordings, but rarely, if ever (?) in rock charts. There's another related mute called the "bucket mute", which is literally a big bucket-looking thing you attach in front of the horn's bell, again sometimes found in big band music.

― Dominique (dleone), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Also worth noting that the Harmon mute has a stem, which can be removed. Miles Davis always plays without the stem, and it sounds a lot less cornball that way. You sometimes hear old big band recordings where the trumpets leave it in, and can simulate a wah-wah sound my moving their hand over it.

― Dominique (dleone), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:31 (twenty-one years ago)

And then there are plungers, literally the plunger you would use to, um, decongest your toilet. You hear this lots in old jazz and blues trumpets, and it can also help with a wah-wah effect. (if you know how Charlie Brown's teacher sounds, that's a trombone using a plunger)

― Dominique (dleone), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Lots of plunger mute in the older Ellington recordings. The mute helps to give brass different voices - the effects box of its day.

― briania (briania), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought Harmon was a manufacturer..

http://thm-br1r2.search.vip.scd.yahoo.com/image/5326145 http://thm-br1r2.search.vip.scd.yahoo.com/image/110217389 http://thm-br1r2.search.vip.scd.yahoo.com/image/225055231 http://thm-br1r2.search.vip.scd.yahoo.com/image/34418359 http://thm-br1r2.search.vip.scd.yahoo.com/image/164918247
http://thm-ar1r2.search.vip.scd.yahoo.com/image/418160931 http://thm-ar1r2.search.vip.scd.yahoo.com/image/337154967

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Harmon is a manufacturer, and they invented the mutes you show above in pictures #1, 3 and 4. However, they didn't invent #2 (which is a straight mute) or #5 (which is a cup). #6 looks like some kind of modified straight mute, but I've never seen it. #7 = haha

Trumpet players just call 1, 3 & 4 "Harmon mutes". The stem is the second bell coming out of the end of the mute.

― Dominique (dleone), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:43 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.toolworkschicago.com/work_pictures_045.jpg

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 13:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmmmm...generally classic, but if used in ballads, mostly DUD for me. Something vaguely lonely and pathetic about the sound tends to depress me. Which I know is kinda the point, but still...This is the same reason I never listen to cheatin', hurtin' country music. I don't need music to get depressed, I can do that on my own. And so as a result, I've deprived myself of countless country classics. My own loss, I know. (So sue me.)

But I still like Miles Davis's playing, and certain isolated solos by Freddie Hubbard, Bill Dixon, etc. employing a mute for mysterioso effect rather than its "crying" qualities, are a whole different thing altogether. And of course, wah-wah is always cool, whether done electronically or naturally.

And thanks for the info, Dominique!

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 13:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, this thread has been very infotaining. The first "wah-wah" type effects had to have been Bubber Miley and Sam Nanton, slurring and growling and working the plunger mutes to make the "jungle" noises in Ellington's Cotton Club-eara band. Nothing pathetic about those sounds.

― briania (briania), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 14:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Jon Hassell to thread . . .

― Drew Daniel, Tuesday, 21 September 2004 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay so maybe there are some exceptions (and there are more varieties of muting than I realize). That Miles Davis "mysterioso" muted type sound just bugs me most of the time.

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

All are set up to take electric jacks including a tenz jack securely

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

― JaXoN (JasonD), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 15:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Weren't you bugged by ALL jazz drumming as well?

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 15:50 (twenty-one years ago)

djdee2005, I was bugged by almost all of constant cymbal-tapping style jazz drumming.

JaXoN, yeah, that's a little more intense than what I was looking for (er, for the sake of posting).

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 21 September 2004 17:48 (twenty-one years ago)

(But I do like the Arkestra's drumming, most of the time; I like Susie Ibarra some of the time; Hamid Drake some of the time; and some other exceptions.)

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 21 September 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

So basically you don't like jazz.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 17:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, as I've admitted before.

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 21 September 2004 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

But I like aspects of it, and it's one of the living musical forms that I think has the most potential to grow in unexpected directions, even just by the nature of its emphasis on improvisation and change. Some of my favorite music happens to be jazz, and when I like it, it can take me to very particular places that I don't get to from other types of music*, which makes me keep poking around it and checking it out. Plus I really don't think that jazz needs to stick to a lot of its conventions that I don't like. (Of course, that's up to jazz musicians and jazz fans and so on to decide.)

*I don't know, maybe you could say that about any type of music I really like. I'm not so sure.

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 21 September 2004 19:23 (twenty-one years ago)

five years pass...

No Eddie Henderson on "Killer Joe," no credibility.

― Borinquen C (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 6 December 2009 04:01 (fifteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWpF7hCpVow

― Action Orientation (Eazy), Sunday, 6 December 2009 04:49 (fifteen years ago)

Everything bad about 1980s production, but get through the first few minutes and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S_L9wfg1Ww

― Action Orientation (Eazy), Sunday, 6 December 2009 05:10 (fifteen years ago)

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