🙌🏾 That’s awesome! I’m glad my videos helped!

Electric guitar… great analogy! I will be using that one, thanks! Lol Thank you for your comment! Always good to hear from another old head.

My band director makes every mellophone use an adaptor

You’re welcome! Have fun at band camp!

Thank you!!!

Concert Mellophones and Marching Mellos are different shapes

Hi! I will be making some mellophone videos in the next few weeks. Thank you for the suggestions!

Only the Kanstul has a bent lead pipe, the reason we use Mellos over Marching French Horns is for projection, weight and cost to manufacture

@@QuietWyatt2005 Yamaha makes Marching French Horns but they have a little bit larger mouthpiece.

Hey Lawrence! It can be a surprisingly polarizing subject, lol.

Thanks! Yes, the mellophone is also in F.

@@jsquaredhorn Same Key and you can use a French horn mouthpiece with an adapter on that instrument so that you don't have to switch between mouthpieces also if you Hold the Mellophone at a slight angle then the French horn mouthpiece and adapter will work again

Behold! 💚💛✊🏾

Behold! 💚💛✊🏾

replying for my future's sake-- I thought I was going crazy thinking my French Horn in F is an octave lower than my mates' mellophones.

Flugelhorn is kind of similar to the mellophone. The flugelhorn is a little smaller and it’s in B flat like a trumpet. But, to me, they do have the potential to have a similar mellow sound, although flugelhorns are more used for jazz and mellophones are made more for outside. Good luck with learning the flugelhorn. How is your horn playing these days? Thanks so much for watching my videos!

@@jsquaredhorn You are the best! Thanks for answering my question. I have found an excellent horn teacher and am making some progress. It is a difficult instrument. With the fluegelhorn you learn the fingering and you get the note. Seems like magic after the horn.

@@anitahaslam2302 definitely, easier than the horn! I’m glad you were able to find a great teacher. It’s so worth it once you get it.

The main difference is the pitch and the size, especially the size of the bell. Fingerings are the same. It’s a very easy transition. You’ll do great!

Mello and trumpet are very easy to go between. At Troopers, we have people switch between them all the time.

That's interesting. I wonder what happened to the mouthpieces that came with the instrument. Although, if the mellophones have been around for a few year, the mouthpieces could be anywhere. Like I said, it's not impossible to march with a horn mouthpiece, it just makes things a little different.

@@jsquaredhorn Yes and the French Horn Mouthpiece and adapter have the advantage of being able to have the embouchure stay put when switching between the 2 horns. I have to be rather careful so I don't split my lip.

Yes and an adapter

Thanks for commenting! I will definitely be making more mellophone videos this spring. As far as a book goes, you should use a beginning trumpet book. The mellophone range and fingerings are the same as trumpet, just in a different pitch (meaning, a C played on the trumpet does not sound the same as a C played on the mellophone). So, you will be able to play everything in a trumpet book. The fingerings for french horn are different.

Welcome to the mellophone family! The fingerings are the same as trumpet. The notes just don’t sound the same. For example, F is first for both. But F is B flat concert on the mello and E flat concert on the trumpet. Have a great season!

😂 Don’t worry. It won’t take long to get used to it.

I harp on students over the wrong mouthpiece for mello. Worst I saw with a student: 7C trumpet mouthpiece. Yuck. I set the whole section up with Hammond Design 6MP mouthpieces.

For the record, I myself play on a B-flat marching French horn (erroneously lumped as a mello, but is tapered more like a concert horn, complete with taking a horn mouthpiece natively).

@@guitarmansegovia I’ve seen those, but I’ve never played on one. How do you like it?

@@jsquaredhorn I personally prefer it to mello, though it’s a bit more challenging to play (basically the B-flat side of a double), but it was the first marching horn I played on before I moved to a school that used mellos. I play a King 1122, with a Hammond Design custom horn mouthpiece.

While you can use the trumpet mouthpiece with the mellophone, I recommend a mellophone mouthpiece. With the trumpet one, the sound will be brighter. The mellophone mouthpiece will give you the darker more mellow tone. Here’s one you can try: www.musicarts.com/blessing-mellophone-mouthpiece-main0025042

@@jsquaredhorn thank you for the information!!!

@@Lesliestevens92.1fm you’re welcome!

@@jsquaredhorn A 3rd option a French Horn Mouthpiece and Adapter. 4th option the Alto Horn Mouth because it's kinda a Marching Alto Horn

Hi! I have many mellophone friends that come from the clarinet section. My number 1 tip to get started would be to get a mellophone mouthpiece and start learning how to buzz. I would love to post some mellophone tutorials, but I have to borrow one from a school because I don't own one. With it being marching season, they're a little harder for me to borrow. But, now that I've been asked to make some, I'll work to find one that I can borrow and make a few videos for you.

@@jsquaredhorn Thanks so much! That'd be so appreciated

@@jsquaredhorn Do you know anywhere I could get a good and decently cheap Mello?

@@djchicken1936 I do not. Does the school provide one for you? You’re probably never going to play a mellophone outside of marching band.

@@jsquaredhorn I think they do provide mellos

Mellophone is an awesome choice for oboe players for marching band. I know quite a few oboe players that marched mellophone (one of them is a middle school band director I work with).

Or, the mellophone is a mellophone and takes a mellophone mouthpiece 😊 www.musicarts.com/yamaha-ymp-204m-series-marching-f-mellophone-main0135490#!#full-description

@@jsquaredhorn It's essentially an F Alto Horn that you hold like a Trumpet. You can also use a French Horn Mouthpiece and Mouthpiece adapter so that the embouchure stays put, but keep in mind that adapter would have to be bent at a 45 degree angle so you can use the same embouchure.

@@RockStarOscarStern634 the angle of the Mellophone is why I recommend a mellophone mouthpiece. Most band directors want their instrumentalists to have their instrument either parallel to the ground or with a slight angle up.

Hey the 'mellophone' you think looked like a french horn might've been a mellophonium, I'd check it out

@@kristian_courville I checked it, and the mellophonium pictures I saw showed the bell as being in line with the mouthpiece and lead pipe, with a circular coil of tubing in between. Here's a video showing the "French horn" type of mellophone. In addition, there is a video (whose address I can't locate, because it wasn't on KZfaq) showing a man playing this type that was manufactured in 1913. Thus, I suspect this type of mellophone is a rather old-fashioned type. The one I saw in 1961 may have been a few decades old.

@@bobjacobson858 You saw the "classic" or "concert" mellophone which is indeed essentially obsolete/extinct. Its the same horn acoustically as the Marching mellophone that's common now, but intended for concert bands as an easier to play substitute for the French Horn.

@@veiledzorba Thanks for this additional information. A couple months ago I bought one of these old horns (Conn New Wonder, made in 1924) for $50 with the original case but no mouthpiece, so I'm using the French horn mouthpiece I already had. The original Conn advertisement referred to this as a 'French horn alto' while a similar instrument on the page was called a mellophone. It sounds essentially like a French horn, and seems very easy to play--I get the impression that just by putting it to my lips it just about plays itself, being easier to play than the tuba-shaped Conn 14-C alto horn I also have. I'm having a lot of fun playing this Eb mellophone, although it's more difficult to play the lower notes than those on the alto horn (pitched in F, although extenders can bring it down to Eb if I can get the tuning slides moving). I've been told that French horns are difficult to play, and I suspect it's because the music written for them requires the use of high partials. When people think of my instrument as a French horn, I point out that I have the mirror image of that instrument, and with piston valves rather than rotary valves, and pitched differently. (None of my instruments has rotary valves.) I've seen the mellophonium and the double-belled euphonium advertised, but now having 10 brass instruments (although I guess the mellophone is actually nickel/silver!) I figured there's no point spending the money for these two 'curiosities' that don't really provide useful functional additions to what I already have. In addition to this instrument bought via eBay but picked up in person, the seller had several other instruments sitting around that he was willing to sell for $20 each to get rid of them due to his failing health, so I bought three cornets of different makes (to see how different they are from my trumpet), and although they sound different from the trumpet and from each other, I'm not certain I can discern the difference between the trumpet and cornet, but the latter seems to have better weight distribution when holding it, so I'm happy with it. BTW, I also now have a Conn 20-J recording tuba whose sound I love, although it's the only one for which I have take a minute to get oriented (i.e., get my lips loosened up) to play while the other instruments I can play almost instantly after finding the respective pitch in each case.

@@bobjacobson858 I actually have a Conn Mellophone from 1911, also called a "French Horn Alto" although its just another Mellophone. Funny thing - I also bought a Cornet - a King Cleveland Superior for $3.25 - then proceeded to dump about $200 into it. Its now worth about $75... I have a couple of videos about them on my so-called "channel".

Hammond Design’s mello pieces are widely sought after. They were tested well in drum corps, and designed with a balance in mind between how hornists play, but keeping that nice bright bugle-like sound. The section I taught last marching season played on his 6MP, and sound amazing, and it was unanimously decided that they loved them better than the stock Jupiter mouthpieces that came with their horns (Jupiter 7BM)

@@guitarmansegovia Actually the Jupiter mouthpieces have been updated

@@RockStarOscarStern634 hmm…I know they had the 7BM and 7CH (horn hybrid). Nice they’re being encouraged to continue to innovate.

It can definitely be frustrating to be moved to an instrument you’ve never played before. I’ve played in mellophone sections with people that play bassoon, oboe and in college, even the piccolo section leader did a season on mellophone. Honestly, I’d much rather carry a mellophone than a bari sax! The bari is so much heavier, lol. Welcome to the mellophone! It seems that your director thinks that you can handle it. That’s a good thing.

It's not really heavy so it's easy