Want to buy a good trumpet, need advice?

Question:I'm looking to buy a trumpet for a high school student who plans on majoring in music, and money is not a real concern. What should I get?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I'm looking to buy a trumpet for a high school student who plans on majoring in music, and money is not a real concern. What should I get?

When shopping for musical instruments - money is only not a real concern when you're shopping in the $10K+ range for a trumpet. That's where the top level instruments are. You'd be looking at a custom, hand made horn.

For the best of the mainstream instruments - Monette is the horn. http://www.monette.net/newsite/index.htm These are out of the reach of most HS and college students. Wynton Marsalis plays on one of these.

Of the usual candidates - the primary band instrument manufacturers in the US - very many advanced HS and college players swear by the instruments of Conn-Selmer in the Bach Stradivarius line. http://www.bachbrass.com/content/categor...

Those who don't lean toward the Bach Strad tend towards the King (2055T or 2055S) [really sweet jazz horn] or the CG Conn (series 1).

In these example, we're looking at just over $1000 for the King or between $2000 and $2500 for the Bach or Conn.

There are things like slide pulls/saddles and finish (silver, brass, combination) that the player needs to decide but more important things like the feel of the instrument and how it responds are individual. When spending this sort of money, you need to play the horn before you buy it. Find a shop that has some of these in stock. Unless you go with the Monette -- then they'll take care of custom fitting the horn.

The thing to do is go out and play a lot of horns. When he/she finds his/her horn - they will know it right then and there and say "this is my horn, it's going home with me" Anything less and you're still looking for the right horn.

Bach is a really good brand. I've had a Bach all through my musical career.

Talk to your Band Director, Trumpet Teacher, both current and if you are looking at Colleges, try to get in touch with that or those Trumpet Teachers.

Otherwise...remember 2 words: "Bach Strad."

Give yourself plenty of time to play as many different brands as possible. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the lines you are going to encounter so you don't waste your time with mid-tier instruments. Look through "The Woodwind and The Brasswind" catalog and the "Giardinelli" catalog to see what is available. Go to manufacturer's websites too. I have owned a fair number of trumpets in my lifetime (I've been playing for 50 years) but keep coming back to the one I bought myself before I went to college. So take your time, your choice may last a lifetime.

A Bach Silver one. You can buy a gold plated mouth piece as well. Beware of Ebay please!

It's not clear from your question if the high school student has much trumpet playing experience, if he/she does then a Bach Strad would probably be the best fit. If not, I wouldn't get a professional grade horn until a moderate level of proficiency has developed. I say this for many reasons. The pro-line horns are much more fragile as they are built with softer and often thinner bells that can dent very easily. Schilke makes a trumpet that can be damaged just by inserting a mute with too much pressure.

A professional instrument needs to be fitted to the individual. Without having some level of competency, it might be more guess work determining the bore size and such.

If they do have some experience, try out as many horns as possible. I know of one pro trpt player that swears buy his Yamaha and old Benge.

Hope this helps.