Dude is That a Strad?

It's amusing to walk in to a room of horn players and they all "check out" what kind of horn you are playing. Sometimes who made your horn is enough to get respect among certain players. It's the musical equivalent of what kind of car you drove in high school. The Edwards and Shire's horns are the Porsches and the jaguars while the Strads and Pro-Yamahas are the classic Camaros and shiny new Corvettes. The intermediate Bach and Yamaha horns are the economical sedans and the Blessing and Olds (most of them) are the beater Festivas and Gremlins of the trombone world. I remember when I bought my Edwards in high school: I was a freaking rock star that day among the brass players. All the girls were asking for my number and all the dudes were asking if they could play it. It was all I could do to fend them off! I'm only one man! OK..maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit..OK OK a lot but still everybody was really impressed and it was the talk of the section for the next week. OK fine, the rest of the day...and marching band practice too though! My point is that my stock automatically went up just by buying a new horn. Its both amusing and amazing to me that there is a direct correlation in some people's mind between the brand of the horn and how well the owner can play it.