Expert: Kenton Scott - 10/3/2006

Question
I have just acquired an old conn HP bari - serial number dates it around 1925 according to internet research. My question is - can it be made to play in tune with modern instruments? have heard that it may be possiblebetter to tune it sharp so that it plays as an "E" bari instead of trying to make it play like a traditional A440 Eb horn. It is in pretty bad shape at the moment - didn't pay much for it and am having fun trying to restore it on my own!

Answer
James,

Unlike brass instruments where you can adjust (either by sliding them out, or by adding additional tubing) the length of the main tubing and all the valve tubings and bring a high pitched instrument into tune, the keyed instruments are already set at one ideal pitch and all of the keys can't be further adjusted.  So, even if you would change the overall length of the instrument, the key settings would be wrong and intonation will be compromised.

You might be able to get it to E, course you are going to have to re-write all your music, and play in some pretty strange keys!