Hi!
I am writing on behalf of my brother.....

He has been playing the cornet for almost 5 years, but would like to move on to jazz and so is looking to buy a trumpet.
He is about Grade 5 on the cornet...ie he is not unfamiliar with brass instruments (following the debating the indication that grades give.. )
Unfortunately we don't really know what is the best model/brand to go for... should he have an intermediate instrument as he can play the cornet already?

Any help or advice would be appreciated

Thanks!
Kate and her Brother!!!

As he's got his grade 5 I would suggest going for the best he can afford.
No point in buying a student model.
Might be best to get a second hand professional model.

Has he discussed this with his teacher?

Cost???

New trumpets (good ones) can cost a lot of money.
You need to know what to look for if you are buying second hand.

Also, to get an idea of costs look up Yamaha or Conn or "Boosey and Hawkes" brass in any web search engine.

Hope this helps.

Kate,

What's your budget? Would you consider second-hand (don't worry, I'm not trying to sell anything)?

To give you some idea of what's out there I picked up 3 second-hand 'professional' trumpets (a Callet Soloist, a Yamaha 6310Z and a Boosey & Hawkes Sovereign for £600, £400 and £250 respectively) and they are all fine.

Regards,

Mark.

P.S. there's no reason why your brother can't play jazz on his cornet. A different mouthpiece can also alter the tone to make it more bright. It's probably better to have a trumpet for jazz playing, though (as I do), and you can't take any of the ABRSM Jazz Trumpet exams on a cornet (which I think is ridiculous, but that's another topic).

Thanks for your replies!!

...not sure of a budget, I think it's more of a "What's a good deal at the time" kind of thing!

We decided that it's better to go for a better model second hand than a brand new student model or lower quality instrument... I guess that's the right idea? - Correct me if I'm wrong.. thats what I always thought anyway!

The thing is my brother wants to do jazz exams. Not straight away... he's getting a new teacher after he does Grade 5 cornet this weekend, and this new teacher says "We'll work on your range and all the scales and exercises and do exams when you're competely sure of those." Seems like a very sensible idea to me! No use jumping straight in at the deep end!

Thanks!

i have taken pupils through the jazz syllabus from 1 to 5 then taking the grade 5 exam. It seems to work ok when they are already experienced on their instrument.

I'd recommend the Yamaha 4335, many pro features yet not as expensive as the pro line models but considerably better than the student line instruments. New- £299 Gold brass or £350 in Silver.

Kate,

There are a few instruments on ebay at the moment that catch the eye, for example this one (a Bach Stradivarius):

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...7334299446&rd=1

It looks like you want the best you can get for your budget, so you might need determine what that budget is otherwise it's a bit difficult for others to comment.

Regards,

Mark.

I think we saw something similar to that some where else... thanks very much!!!

Hello


Maybe it's possible to have a good brass instrument on ebay, but we must to be care !
Indian 's brass are not playables and if you want a trumpet for 20 $ sure that's a crape made in india. We see a lot of messages of Tristar on a lot of forums.
Tristar is exactly like the other junks made in India.
It was proof that Tristar use a lot of accounts on ebay for to sold crapy brass.
See :
tristarmusic_com
indiashop
valuebrass
econotrumpet
etc............................ Craponotrumpet.
The most of feed backs are on private solds and if you look very fine
you see a lot of negatives evaluations arranged. That's the best way for to have a good score on ebay. But don't forget that a lot of buyers are not musicians and
are please because it's nice for the price....
When we make a search on yahoo for Tristar Music :
http://fr.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=fp-pu...c&ei=ISO-8859-1
You see that tristar export vase flowers and décorative brass .....
exactly like the other resellers of indian brass junks and crapophones !
When you look too a tristar brass or a Empire Brass, raisonband ect... You see
that exactly the same items with all détails ...
There is no brass manufacture with the name Tristar in India it's a reseller name like the others .

Also if you want a good brass with a raisonable price on ebay, you must to be care...
Brass made in india on ebay = BIG JUNK !