My cat was very concerned hearing the baritone portion but thank you for an in-depth look. I was looking to get one of these for my kiddo and see if brass is a good fit for him.
I play trombone and a little baritone. I feel for the concept of this instrument, and it being used purely for fun for myself and practice, it's not bad. I do struggle a little with finding good pitches on this. I still have fun with it.
@@ladybard As a matter of fact, plastic will replace brass as a more environmentally friendly instrument material. The Portsmouth International Symphony has already replaced 3 of their French horns and 2 of their bass trumpets with the Nuvo JHorn. Not only that but they use pBone trumpets and Tiger bass trombones. The violins are made of boxwood (an environmentally friendly plywood) to reserve natural habitat for endangered species where the jackwood naturally grows (which makes the most beautiful wood instruments). They are the first symphony with a shaman blessed oboe to reduce spiritual anomalies during tuning. You should really look them up!
I started on trumpet in fourth grade but when I went to sixth grade my family move to another city in the same state the middle school band director worked with me for as long as she could stand listening me! after a while, she got tired of not having and bass in the brass section of the band so she tried me out on a baritone horn! I loved it and never played trumpet again in school band. I only used it to play Taps at military funerals one a month or so. I prefer to play my euphonium that I bought at a thrift store last year for about fifty bucks, which to me was a great price for a pretty much new instrument with absolutely zero defects! It has a solid silver finish and it still sounds great!! I just wish I had started out on Euphonium and not trumpet because I can only play that notes correctly if they're in treble clef! I've tried for a total of ten years to switch to bass clef, but it ends up setting me to far back to bother trying to learn it. If I'm given the music enough in advance, I can transpose it to treble clef in my Finale music software program so I comfortably play in whatever ensemble I am playing in! About ten years ago, I start brass quintet in Northern Virginia in the county I was living in! I put and ad in my local newspaper explain I was starting a bras ensemble and want to meet with anyone who wanted to become part of the group I got enough people from the community interested to start rehearsals the next week! We had practice every week in the band room at one of the local middle schools. I had about a total of ten of twelve musicians, top quality musicians! But against my will, that all changed about six of seven years ago when I had a seizure while driving my motor scooter to church one Sunday! I went limp or paralyzed on my left side and couldn't get my scooter to stop because I two hand brake handles to pull on to stop my scooter, but I could, for some reason, on;y use my right hand. One brake wouldn't stop the bike, so to get the help I needed I had to force myself to crash! Once I was on the ground, the rescue squad revived me because when my helmeted head hit the road, the helmet shattered, and I was dead! After I had revived, I was put onto a waiting rescue chopper and then flown to an emergency room near DC! About a month later I woke up from a drug induced coma!Doctor said I had a stroke which left my left side paralyzed! I learned to cope with having only one arm, but one arm and two lips and a lot of air are all I need to keep playing my euphonium so I play in my church's small orchestra every Sunday morning!
@@tesmith47 I don't live in the DC area anymore! I moved back in with my parents after waking from the coma the doctors put me in after my accident! Even while recovering from a stroke, I still play in the tiny orchestra at my parent's church in Southwest Virginia
@@d.schoepflin2247 glad you recovered enough to play, small ensemble work is really gratifying, everything from fugues to ragtime really lets us shine! You got the winning attitude , and I am glad for your recovery and success!!! TUBA BROS ARE STRONG!!!!
I got one out of curiousity. I have played the Tuba for around 25years as an amateur, and have not touched for the past 10years or so. I agree with you the lower notes do sound horrible and I find it hard to get the notes right as well as the intonation. Really unstable. It gets slightly better as I move the range higher but still find it hard to push the right notes out 100%.
I have one of these, just started with it (never played brass before). It is designed as a brass training tool, not to replace a genuine brass instrument. I only started playing yesterday and managed to get a few notes out of it, but its very hit and miss. But not having played brass before I can't tell how much is me and how much is the instrument. I might get a proper mouthpiece for it later
I suggest you get a real instrument, a good quality second-hand student model would be sufficient. As you can hear has trouble maintaining control on the K-horn even as an experienced player. Would hate to try it as a beginner.
The way I think of it, if you get one of these and mess around on it enough to play the right notes, that will help with a real brass instrument. So I don't think of it as a "beginner" instrument, but as a tool to help improve your precision. That's NOT what it's intended for, that's just how I've been using it. It's almost like...if you learn electric guitar, then try to play acoustic, the acoustic is more difficult to play because the strings are harder to push down. But if you learn acoustic and then go to play electric, it feels way easier. By doing the harder one first, you are helping yourself in the long run. (Which is why I make most of my students start acoustic guitar before I let them play electric).
@@LarryShone I've tried it with my trombone mouthpiece and it's not much different. I would be interested in trying it with an alto horn mouthpiece but i don't have one
Thanks for the review and video. Do you think this could be used as a practice (home) instrument for a sousaphone? Would a "real" sousaphone mouthpiece fit? My son is a trombone player that is switching to sousaphone for marching band. He would like something to practice on without having to spend thousands on a sousaphone
I think it would actually be great as a PRACTICE tool, because it's HARDER to make it sound good than a normal instrument. But my euphonium mouthpiece didn't fit, so a sousa wouldn't either. Would have to use a trombone or similar.
@SamTomMillerMusic tysm was not expecting such a fast response I play b flat trumpet so I wanted to see if I could just have a little something to mess around with when u don't have it with be for trips plus u really like lower type instruments you were a big help thxz
Good video and good review. Do you think that the instrument is suitable to be played in the street, together with a small musical group like a brassband? A cordial greeting.
Not quite sure what you're asking. In terms of durability, it would probably handle things like temperature, humidity, and rain about the same as normal brass instruments, but might fare better against drops, scrapes, scuffs, etc. If you're asking about sound output, my perception is that this wouldn't necessarily be as loud as a standard brass instrument, but that could very well be due to me not spending a lot of time on this. Of course I'm going to be better at getting what I want from instruments that I spend more time on. If someone spent a good amount of time on this, especially if they used a real mouthpiece, the sound output would probably be comparable. If you were asking about something else and I misunderstood, please let me know!
@@SamTomMillerMusic Thank you very much, I was referring exactly to the last point you made, about sound projection. I was thinking of acquiring one to play on the street in a small musical ensemble. I guess I'll dare. Thanks for the reply!
My theory for the reason you had problems finding that starting note after you played the trumpet is because the jHorn is in B flat and your trumpet is in C. They’re keyed a whole step apart.
very interesting.... would be great for beginning band directors I would think (to save space around the podium)... the concept of the multi-mouthpieces is clever, but could it be improved upon in the future...?
I almost think it could be useful as a tool to teach players to have more control. If they are constantly hitting wrong partials in a piece, practicing on this might make them more accurate on their primary instrument.
@@SamTomMillerMusic yes! I saw a video once of a director who would place a straightened paper clip wire into the mouthpiece tube before she put a tuba mouthpiece in, and this would make it harder for the player to find pitch. Evidently, her tuba sections were legendary...
I heard a couple people play advanced music on the jhorn why plastic will never surpass a metal instrument, it is is ment to introduce children to playing brass instruments which is why it had the different mouth pieces so the child can see if the small trumpet like mouth piece or the medium trombones or the larger trombones mouth piece suits there interests more. A professional French horn player using a real French horn mouth piece made it sound really good especially for a plastic instrument. If your really wanting the jhorn to be a thing for you , just work at it and get a better mouth piece. Please don’t be offended I enjoyed your video.
As for it "being meant to introduce children to playing brass instruments", I know that is the line that NUVO likes to use, but in reality this is about the last thing I would want to hand to a beginner player. Beginners should be taught from the start to concentrate on good tone production and intonation, not so much technique, and (speaking as somebody who owns one of these jHorns) it is inherently unstable, essentially un-tunable (for ensemble playing), and it has a tiny, toy-like tone, especially when trying to play 'big' on it. I anticipate that it would frustrate beginning students and do much more harm than good for their development. It is true that experienced brass players, within certain constraints, can manage to get 'almost starting to be mostly pretty good' sounds out of it. In my experience, the biggest single trick to making it work and sound best is to NOT try playing it big like one would with 'real' brass instruments; instead, work at playing 'sotto voce', with just enough power to make it sound reliably but no more than that. This cuts down on the blattiness and helps avoid overshooting to other partials.
@@brasschick4214 right you are, I was partially wrong, that version was called “ Dr.Who” the previous mentioned Hey song is a different rendition. Sorry for my error.
@@robkunkel8833 awful lot of typos and strange punctuation in your comment to be criticizing someone's grammar! Pretty sure we all know what snowy meant, so language is doing its job just fine.
My cat was very concerned hearing the baritone portion but thank you for an in-depth look. I was looking to get one of these for my kiddo and see if brass is a good fit for him.
I play trombone and a little baritone. I feel for the concept of this instrument, and it being used purely for fun for myself and practice, it's not bad. I do struggle a little with finding good pitches on this. I still have fun with it.
BUT it'll never replace a good brass instrument.
@@ladybard As a matter of fact, plastic will replace brass as a more environmentally friendly instrument material. The Portsmouth International Symphony has already replaced 3 of their French horns and 2 of their bass trumpets with the Nuvo JHorn. Not only that but they use pBone trumpets and Tiger bass trombones. The violins are made of boxwood (an environmentally friendly plywood) to reserve natural habitat for endangered species where the jackwood naturally grows (which makes the most beautiful wood instruments). They are the first symphony with a shaman blessed oboe to reduce spiritual anomalies during tuning. You should really look them up!
I started on trumpet in fourth grade but when I went to sixth grade my family move to another city in the same state the middle school band director worked with me for as long as she could stand listening me! after a while, she got tired of not having and bass in the brass section of the band so she tried me out on a baritone horn! I loved it and never played trumpet again in school band. I only used it to play Taps at military funerals one a month or so. I prefer to play my euphonium that I bought at a thrift store last year for about fifty bucks, which to me was a great price for a pretty much new instrument with absolutely zero defects! It has a solid silver finish and it still sounds great!! I just wish I had started out on Euphonium and not trumpet because I can only play that notes correctly if they're in treble clef! I've tried for a total of ten years to switch to bass clef, but it ends up setting me to far back to bother trying to learn it. If I'm given the music enough in advance, I can transpose it to treble clef in my Finale music software program so I comfortably play in whatever ensemble I am playing in! About ten years ago, I start brass quintet in Northern Virginia in the county I was living in! I put and ad in my local newspaper explain I was starting a bras ensemble and want to meet with anyone who wanted to become part of the group I got enough people from the community interested to start rehearsals the next week! We had practice every week in the band room at one of the local middle schools. I had about a total of ten of twelve musicians, top quality musicians! But against my will, that all changed about six of seven years ago when I had a seizure while driving my motor scooter to church one Sunday! I went limp or paralyzed on my left side and couldn't get my scooter to stop because I two hand brake handles to pull on to stop my scooter, but I could, for some reason, on;y use my right hand. One brake wouldn't stop the bike, so to get the help I needed I had to force myself to crash! Once I was on the ground, the rescue squad revived me because when my helmeted head hit the road, the helmet shattered, and I was dead! After I had revived, I was put onto a waiting rescue chopper and then flown to an emergency room near DC! About a month later I woke up from a drug induced coma!Doctor said I had a stroke which left my left side paralyzed! I learned to cope with having only one arm, but one arm and two lips and a lot of air are all I need to keep playing my euphonium so I play in my church's small orchestra every Sunday morning!
Woŵ I am in DC too, which church you play at
@@tesmith47 I don't live in the DC area anymore! I moved back in with my parents after waking from the coma the doctors put me in after my accident! Even while recovering from a stroke, I still play in the tiny orchestra at my parent's church in Southwest Virginia
@@d.schoepflin2247 glad you recovered enough to play, small ensemble work is really gratifying, everything from fugues to ragtime really lets us shine! You got the winning attitude , and I am glad for your recovery and success!!! TUBA BROS ARE STRONG!!!!
I got one out of curiousity. I have played the Tuba for around 25years as an amateur, and have not touched for the past 10years or so. I agree with you the lower notes do sound horrible and I find it hard to get the notes right as well as the intonation. Really unstable. It gets slightly better as I move the range higher but still find it hard to push the right notes out 100%.
I am getting one for Christmas
@@Mariagordono32383 awesome
I have one of these, just started with it (never played brass before). It is designed as a brass training tool, not to replace a genuine brass instrument. I only started playing yesterday and managed to get a few notes out of it, but its very hit and miss. But not having played brass before I can't tell how much is me and how much is the instrument. I might get a proper mouthpiece for it later
I suggest you get a real instrument, a good quality second-hand student model would be sufficient. As you can hear has trouble maintaining control on the K-horn even as an experienced player. Would hate to try it as a beginner.
@@brasschick4214 you should check out the french horn player who plays one. It sounds amazing, so its certainly capable of being musical
The way I think of it, if you get one of these and mess around on it enough to play the right notes, that will help with a real brass instrument. So I don't think of it as a "beginner" instrument, but as a tool to help improve your precision.
That's NOT what it's intended for, that's just how I've been using it.
It's almost like...if you learn electric guitar, then try to play acoustic, the acoustic is more difficult to play because the strings are harder to push down. But if you learn acoustic and then go to play electric, it feels way easier. By doing the harder one first, you are helping yourself in the long run. (Which is why I make most of my students start acoustic guitar before I let them play electric).
@@SamTomMillerMusic also I believe it is vastly improved if you get a proper mouthpiece for it!
@@LarryShone I've tried it with my trombone mouthpiece and it's not much different. I would be interested in trying it with an alto horn mouthpiece but i don't have one
but doesn't that nuvo horn have longer tubing than the trumpet you were comparing it to?
Do you still have your jhorn because if you do can I have it because I want one so bad?
@@MariaGiordano-y1m yes i do but no you can't
Thanks for the review and video. Do you think this could be used as a practice (home) instrument for a sousaphone? Would a "real" sousaphone mouthpiece fit? My son is a trombone player that is switching to sousaphone for marching band. He would like something to practice on without having to spend thousands on a sousaphone
I think it would actually be great as a PRACTICE tool, because it's HARDER to make it sound good than a normal instrument. But my euphonium mouthpiece didn't fit, so a sousa wouldn't either. Would have to use a trombone or similar.
Its cool i am a trumpet and i am just about to get a baritone
Can u show us a video of what the lines look like
What lines?
@@SamTomMillerMusic well can u show us the music mb I have a one I wanted to know how to play all the notes or note nanes
What is the song called when he played euphonium
The hey song
Great information, thanks!
My school has land of a thousand dances for pep band (richview) as well as hey song
So does it have the same notes and fingerings
It comes with multiple sets of tuning slides. So you could play in on Bb like a standard baritone, or in C.
@SamTomMillerMusic tysm was not expecting such a fast response I play b flat trumpet so I wanted to see if I could just have a little something to mess around with when u don't have it with be for trips plus u really like lower type instruments you were a big help thxz
@@Isaiahdraws2 it could definitely work for that. You could use standard trumpet fingerings but I think the pitch is an octave lower.
@@SamTomMillerMusic ok thank you
The actual playing starts around 6:30
Thank you
Good video and good review. Do you think that the instrument is suitable to be played in the street, together with a small musical group like a brassband? A cordial greeting.
Not quite sure what you're asking. In terms of durability, it would probably handle things like temperature, humidity, and rain about the same as normal brass instruments, but might fare better against drops, scrapes, scuffs, etc.
If you're asking about sound output, my perception is that this wouldn't necessarily be as loud as a standard brass instrument, but that could very well be due to me not spending a lot of time on this. Of course I'm going to be better at getting what I want from instruments that I spend more time on.
If someone spent a good amount of time on this, especially if they used a real mouthpiece, the sound output would probably be comparable.
If you were asking about something else and I misunderstood, please let me know!
@@SamTomMillerMusic Thank you very much, I was referring exactly to the last point you made, about sound projection. I was thinking of acquiring one to play on the street in a small musical ensemble. I guess I'll dare. Thanks for the reply!
are the songs played in this video common marching band songs? cuz i played all those songs this year :P
I tried to pick common pep tunes
You should look at Ferran french horn RUclips channel , he use a brass mouth piece and it sounds very impressive -just fyi.
what is the song you played on the trombone mouthpiece
I think we just called it "the hey song"
@@SamTomMillerMusic I'm talking about the one before that
I play that one twice, once with the plastic mouthpiece and then again with the trombone mouthpiece
And also once on the euphonium
My theory for the reason you had problems finding that starting note after you played the trumpet is because the jHorn is in B flat and your trumpet is in C. They’re keyed a whole step apart.
My trumpet is not a C trumpet
very interesting.... would be great for beginning band directors I would think (to save space around the podium)... the concept of the multi-mouthpieces is clever, but could it be improved upon in the future...?
I almost think it could be useful as a tool to teach players to have more control. If they are constantly hitting wrong partials in a piece, practicing on this might make them more accurate on their primary instrument.
@@SamTomMillerMusic yes! I saw a video once of a director who would place a straightened paper clip wire into the mouthpiece tube before she put a tuba mouthpiece in, and this would make it harder for the player to find pitch. Evidently, her tuba sections were legendary...
I heard a couple people play advanced music on the jhorn why plastic will never surpass a metal instrument, it is is ment to introduce children to playing brass instruments which is why it had the different mouth pieces so the child can see if the small trumpet like mouth piece or the medium trombones or the larger trombones mouth piece suits there interests more. A professional French horn player using a real French horn mouth piece made it sound really good especially for a plastic instrument.
If your really wanting the jhorn to be a thing for you , just work at it and get a better mouth piece. Please don’t be offended I enjoyed your video.
As for it "being meant to introduce children to playing brass instruments", I know that is the line that NUVO likes to use, but in reality this is about the last thing I would want to hand to a beginner player. Beginners should be taught from the start to concentrate on good tone production and intonation, not so much technique, and (speaking as somebody who owns one of these jHorns) it is inherently unstable, essentially un-tunable (for ensemble playing), and it has a tiny, toy-like tone, especially when trying to play 'big' on it. I anticipate that it would frustrate beginning students and do much more harm than good for their development.
It is true that experienced brass players, within certain constraints, can manage to get 'almost starting to be mostly pretty good' sounds out of it.
In my experience, the biggest single trick to making it work and sound best is to NOT try playing it big like one would with 'real' brass instruments; instead, work at playing 'sotto voce', with just enough power to make it sound reliably but no more than that. This cuts down on the blattiness and helps avoid overshooting to other partials.
Where did you get em
I ordered mine through musicians friend, but you can also get them on amazon.
It could be a choice in a recording studio, if you wanted the brass instrument to sound more mellow, and sit in the back of the mix.
What is the song you are playing on euphonium?
I think we just called it "the hey song"
The hay song
Originally known as ‘Doctoring the TARDIS’ by the The Timelords.
@@brasschick4214 right you are, I was partially wrong, that version was called “ Dr.Who” the previous mentioned Hey song is a different rendition. Sorry for my error.
HEY ! HO ! HEY HO!
Thanks mate could just play more talk through playing demostration , , but i appreciate your points
you explained it good in my opinion
Thank you!
I just used the jHorn in the video I posted last week! Check it out if you're interested!
… explained in “well” it answers how, making it an adverb…, “good” is an adjective. Don’t make that mistake in class.
@@robkunkel8833 awful lot of typos and strange punctuation in your comment to be criticizing someone's grammar! Pretty sure we all know what snowy meant, so language is doing its job just fine.
Bro tries so hard to be Trent Hamilton
I have no idea who that is...
Looks like he does a lot of brass stuff. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip.
@@SamTomMillerMusic he is one of the most popular RUclipsrs in the classical music scene
@@reactlux1203 sounds cool
They all sound the same