6/22/2023 1880s (?) Thaon of Turino Helicon Tuba
By far the oldest brass instrument I have ever played and I have had my share of 100 year old instruments. The Thaon came to me unplayable and Eric Swanson was given a budget to make it playable and he did. His comments were 'this is a lot better playing than you'd expect'. With an instrument of this vintage and considering the valves over bank (no perfect alignment) and age, and that a Bach 24aw is the only mouthpiece with a stem small enough to fit, it takes a while to work with the thaon to get what I can out of it. I think with some work It could be a unique horn. As I hold it up note that it looks like a regular BBb tuba that was sort of 'unwound' to make it into a helicon form. The horn could be newer because my dating system is based on comparison with horns of similar construction. However, 4v and being BBb, makes me think it very well could be newer. Regardless it plays like its 140.... :P But it does play. I played the selections twice to see if having another go would improve the performance. Since the valves don't always reset well, you get rotor leaks into slightly switched tubing. Just spending time and adjusting the bump stops in the linkage would probably help, but the linkage is sloppy. Aligning and drilling and putting in new screws would make it play more consistently. The Thoan in a 'tip' job for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ak_1O-rO6w&list=FLEue7sBs4E_R_CRLZBueyTQ
By far the oldest brass instrument I have ever played and I have had my share of 100 year old instruments. The Thaon came to me unplayable and Eric Swanson was given a budget to make it playable and he did. His comments were 'this is a lot better playing than you'd expect'. With an instrument of this vintage and considering the valves over bank (no perfect alignment) and age, and that a Bach 24aw is the only mouthpiece with a stem small enough to fit, it takes a while to work with the thaon to get what I can out of it. I think with some work It could be a unique horn. As I hold it up note that it looks like a regular BBb tuba that was sort of 'unwound' to make it into a helicon form. The horn could be newer because my dating system is based on comparison with horns of similar construction. However, 4v and being BBb, makes me think it very well could be newer. Regardless it plays like its 140.... :P But it does play. I played the selections twice to see if having another go would improve the performance. Since the valves don't always reset well, you get rotor leaks into slightly switched tubing. Just spending time and adjusting the bump stops in the linkage would probably help, but the linkage is sloppy. Aligning and drilling and putting in new screws would make it play more consistently. The Thoan in a 'tip' job for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ak_1O-rO6w&list=FLEue7sBs4E_R_CRLZBueyTQ