Standard Strad

I went to the Birmingham Conservatoire playing on my Callichio Trumpet this was not only a great trumpet that suited the way I played but was another characteristic that set me apart from the other players, who all played, you guessed it!!! Bach Strad’s.

After a year of being told I should be playing this “standard trumpet” by the head of brass, my first teacher and most of the people giving master classes I eventually had enough. So when I said the phrase “I’ll play a Strad. if you give me the money for one” I thought that would be the end of it. Unfortunately it was. But not quite how I’d anticipated. The result was that I was given a grant for a trumpet?!

The double-edged sword of, “this is great!! a free trumpet!” and “oh crap, now I have to play a Strad.” was the start of my three-year affair of playing this trumpet.

The advice you might get with this particular make of trumpet is usually polar. That is to say you’ll have the players who swear by them and those who hate them. As I was forced on one I think that I have a good perspective.

Like someone forced to live with a person they don’t really like but who know the only way to get through is to grit your teeth and just get along.

Positive

Ideal to study on for a trumpet player with classical aspirations. It has a round clear tone (a little on the bright side) with a clear range from bottom G (below the stave) to top C (above the stave).

And The Rest

If you are aware either through secret experimentation or rumours of some bloke called Mayonnaise Ferguson (or something) that there are notes above top C that can be reached without aid of a piccolo trumpet this is not the trumpet for you.

Before I used this trumpet I had a solid range up to top F (yes, above top C – lots of people can get it but not many on Strad’s.). After C the resistance very quickly becomes like wading through treacle and the slotting is reduced so much that blinking will cause you to slip the harmonic.

Needless to say my upper register declined over 3 years of practice and I’ve only recently managed to build it back and start increasing it (using my Callichio).

There are other flaws in this trumpet as well but these are mostly in its flexibility.

Evaluation

This is a trumpet made and ideal for orchestral, chamber and middle of the road solo playing (this is why most classical trumpet players will play the 3rd movement of the Haydn on the Eb Trumpet. The Bb Strad simply bottles it on the top Eb).

It is a simple horn with no bells and whistles. This means that it doesn’t enhance any attributes of your playing and limits any strengths that you have which lay outside the realms of the classical genre.

This is perhaps why the powers that be in colleagues might put on the pressure for you to play one. In this was they can churn out trumpet clones all of similar abilities and all equally unemployable when they graduate.

The best way to describe this trumpet is as the simply Standard Strad