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It was eleven years ago today that I woke up confused. I didn't understand what was happening, yet I was not alarmed, but quite content to lay in my tiny bed hidden within a secret studio where I slept inside my machine shop. I had given up my apartment to focus on my work, which could be considered an obsession at the time. My studio "apartment" contained a bed, a wardrobe, microwave, hot plate, bean bag, space heater, and a video monitor cycling through cameras inside each CNC machine and the entire shop. Oscar, my 5-pound dog, slept with me every night to stay warm since Minnesota winters could get down to sixty below zero. On some nights, the temperature in my studio was below 40 degrees fahrenheit. Laying there in confusion, I began to notice I was slipping away mentally. My perception of what was happening was from a completely different perspective than a normal person. I could feel my mind drifting into a new world of carefree solitude. Then I realized that I need to let Oscar down from the bed, which I had built over a storage space approximately four feet high. If I died, he wouldn't be able to get down. Who would find him? And would he survive until someone noticed I was missing? Oscar became my focus despite most of my mind wanting to drift away. My arm didn't move. My leg didn't move. I began asking my arm and leg to move, but nothing happened. They seemed invisible in that moment. Then I remembered having very bad chest pains the night before. So bad that I had violently sat up in bed in the middle of the night in terrible pain. Why won't my mind recognize the left side of my body? How will I save Oscar. It was clear to me I was not going to survive more than a few minutes. All I could think of was Oscar. That's when I realized that my right arm was working! I grabbed Oscar and tossed him over my body and onto the floor. I hope he is alright. To this day, he has been suffering hip and knee issues, maybe from May 11, 2012. This is when I realized that Oscar was still in trouble. The false wall that was actually my studio bedroom door was very heavy. I designed it with a magnetic spring lock system that required much more force than Oscar could exert. I needed to get on the floor and open that door for him, so he would be found and not starve to death in my room. We all learn from our mistakes, and as a designer, I have learned my fair share of lessons. On this morning, I discovered a major design flaw in the bed frame I had built. I had cut a piece of plywood to fit the length of the bed from a 48" x 96" stock sheet. I left the original stock 48" width and made that the height of my bed out of convenience to save extra cutting. My actual mattress sat down approximately 6" below that external frame, which now acted like a wall holding me in the bed. With only my right side working, and the only exit from my enclosed bed also on my right side, I was having major issues getting over that 6" design flaw. Without the use of my left leg, it seemed impossible to push myself over the edge. Shapes of objects were becoming less important, and I felt like giving into the freedom of not thinking about it anymore. Then I noticed Oscar. He was whining in a way that made me very concerned. While laying flat, and looking straight up to the ceiling, I used my right arm and leg to pull myself over the edge, back first. I fell onto the step stool I regularly used to get in and out of bed. Oscar ran up to me and licked me incessantly. As I laid on the floor, I realized I could not save Oscar. My phone had fallen out of bed with me, and I held it in my right hand for awhile wondering what it was. A strange glassy black object that is thin, but relatively heavy. It was a wonder. A light on the phone blinked. I said out loud, "Oh, this is a phone! I can use it to call for help." But what I heard made no sense at all. I could no longer speak. How can I call for help if I can't talk? And who will find me here behind a false wall in a machine shop? All the doors to the shop were locked, and each was more than 100 feet away from my hidden location. I attempted to send a text message to Jen asking her to find Oscar and help him, but I didn't realize at the time that she was on vacation with her boyfriend many hours away. She sent a text message back, and I realized I couldn't read it. In fact, I couldn't read my own message to her. What is wrong with my phone? Maybe they aren't used for words? I should just go to sleep. I awoke to Oscar licking me and whining. He seemed so upset, so I made an attempt to open the massive false wall door, which was easily 6 feet wide and 7 feet high. I crawled to the door and pushed. It opened easily, but Oscar wouldn't leave. I thought, If I could get to the front door, I could let him outside. The floor was like sand. Moving in the correct direction was an impossible task. All of my effort moved me just a few inches. "Why am I so weak?" My speech was garbled. I have no idea how long had passed from when I awoke until I made it over 100 feet to the door, but I got there only to realize the door lock was too high to reach. After numerous attempts, I stood up on one leg and leaned into the door, unlocked it and got outside. My Tahoe was right there! I could get help by driving to the hospital. Oscar would be okay. There was originally a 4-foot high loading dock at this door, as this was an industrial building originally used to manufacture the monitor displays for NASA Apollo missions in the 1960s. Back then, components were heavy, and those monitors were small, but thick and heavy, so I guess they made a lot of them and loaded them into trucks on this dock. I've seen the original Apollo and other NASA monitors and devices made here, as the owner of the building has a small repair shop where they still service them today in the building next door. The good news is that there was a railing along the edge of the original dock, and the dock had been filled in with dirt years ago to form a ramp so we could use a forklift to load our CNC machines into the shop space. That railing is barely reachable from the front door, and my Tahoe was parked on the ramp. I stumbled with one leg and one arm to the driver side door and found the key in my pocket. For some reason, I had gone to bed in my clothes with my keys, wallet, and phone in my pockets. Maybe I wasn't feeling well the night before? I don't recall. Once in my vehicle, I thought I would drive to the hospital. After some serious difficulty trying to enter "hospital" into my phone GPS, I started driving. The GPS showed an arrow to make the next turn. Now does that arrow mean go left or right? What is left? What is right? What is an arrow? It was too late. I had lost all ability to read or interpret simple symbols like arrows. The concept of one way or the other was no longer part of my reality. I drove and drove and drove until I found a red cross symbol on a sign. I believe it was the red color that made me believe it would be helpful. Today, I know firsthand why hospitals around the globe use that recognizable red cross symbol. Eleven years ago, it was the only symbol that meant anything to me. I had taken an exit following the sign, but could not find the hospital. What is a hospital? Why am I going there? Who am I? I continued driving around and saw another red cross symbol on the top of a building. I was so tired. Maybe I should close my eyes. Are all of my limbs missing? Or just some of them? Confusion was my reality, and I was slipping away. I drove directly towards the red cross sign. Later, I learned that I had driven over medians, bushes, grass, parking blocks, and anything in my way to get directly to the door of the building with the red cross symbol. I crawled to the door and it opened automatically. I asked for help. A nurse ran to me and helped me get into a chair. She asked for my insurance. "What is insurance?" The nurse realized I could not talk. I closed my eyes. I believe Oscar saved my life on this day, eleven years ago. And today, he's laying right here next to me at my desk, sleeping contently with sore knees and hips. I am forever grateful for so many blessings in life, one of them being my best friend on four legs. He'll be thirteen years old in July, and I'm starting to see him show his age. I celebrate May 11th every year. And I always imagine today is "Oscar Day" since he is very likely the reason I didn't slip away that morning. There's obviously much more to this story, and yes, it is all true. I was born with a large hole between my left and right atrium that caused dozens of strokes and heart attacks throughout my lifetime. This particular stroke followed a heart attack the night before, and resulted in me losing all of my memories from before that event. My life as I know it began that morning at 37 years of age. I was also born with only one carotid artery, which was a contributing factor, and explains why all of my strokes were left side only. Why did I share this nearly tragic event with you today? To remind you to take care of yourself and be aware of the risk factors of cardiovascular events like stroke, heart attack, and pulmonary embolism. I've suffered all of these many times, and was lucky enough to survive. But I am the exception. Please take a few minutes today to reflect on your health and the health of those you love. Ask yourself how you can prevent a stroke or heart attack. Do you know how to respond in either situation? How can you get training that could potentially save a life? Your doctor should be your primary resource for your personal health, but you can also learn a lot very quickly from organizations like the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association. Please remember my story and share it with others. We all need to feel comfortable discussing health concerns, so that we can be aware, and consciously make good decisions. Learning to recognize the risks and signs of heart disease can save lives every day of the week. I cannot imagine life without me here today. That sounds funny, but I have literally worked with thousands of trumpet players since May 11, 2012. And all of those people have helped shape who I am today. Maybe I had some impact on them as well. Since I had my first stroke as a child, I knew there was a good chance I would not live much longer, and that reality encouraged me to live up to my potential so that I could experience and share as much as possible. Today, I'm 48 years old, and I cannot believe that I've lived so long, learned so much, and experienced so many amazing people, places, and events. Let's all find ways to improve our physical and mental health. And let's do it together by sharing our experiences. Discussing these challenges in a positive way can be the first step to creating a better reality. Happy Oscar Day! Jason 
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Most people think of trumpets when they hear the name Harrelson. In reality, we are a true technology company focused on research and innovation much more than building trumpets. Yes, we do build trumpets, but our production capacity has been very small in our industry since I started this journey in 1993. In fact, I have only produced around 2500 trumpets in that time, in a market that encompasses millions of customers.
Many years ago, I found myself bombarded with offers from consultants, investors, and well-meaning supporters to grow my business. The theme I heard again and again was that they could help me scale production, make gazillions of dollars, and Harrelson would become a household name. Of course, most of those people were hoping to get a cut of the action. And this was not in line with my vision, not even close! My pursuit is a simple one. I am driven by the creative urge to overcome obstacles in a user-centered, technically-engineered, beautifully-designed form. My approach is not driven by profits, although it should be to some extent, because my passion is the process. Where the average company would explore ways to make a better mousetrap I ask, "why are mice a problem?" When trumpet players have difficulty playing high notes, pretty much all trumpet companies will quickly establish that, "insert famous person's name" has overcome this problem, and he/she plays our special, "insert fancy product name" mouthpiece, trumpet, or tool. If you buy our product, your problems will go away. There's no end to the number of variations this has played out over time. Look at almost any trumpet product today, and you'll see this formula is used by 99% of all companies. Where is the innovation? Where is the personal approach to solving your specific challenges? Why doesn't anyone listen to what you have to say about the problem? Because the one-size-fits-all model is very profitable, and personalized custom solutions require a great deal of thought, organization, engineering, and care. There's so much irony in our industry. The vast majority of trumpet players I know are very passionate about their musical craft. They view themselves as lifelong learners, artists, interpreters of profound thought, and the bearers of knowledge, perhaps even wisdom. Yet so many trumpet players allow themselves to fall victim to the simplest paradigms. They work hard, practice diligently, try harder, and eventually create their own form of mythology based on their personal experiences. They begin to believe that their own personal history holds the secret ingredients to success. Trumpet playing almost becomes a new type of religion, reinvented in the minds of each and every one of us complete with beliefs that have nothing to do with reality. That may sound harsh, but I've been there, done that, and I've had the privilege of getting to know thousands of you! My first trumpet teacher had convinced me that Arnold Jacobs knew everything there was ever to know about playing brass instruments. I followed his careful advice for two full years before failing miserably. My mouthpiece pressure habit was never addressed because Jacobs' teachings ignored most factors other than the ability to control air flow and visualizing tone quality. After having the dentist tell me that trumpet playing could cause me to lose my front teeth due to excessive mouthpiece pressure, I came to the conclusion that my trumpet teacher had been hurting me more than helping. I'm not saying that he or Mr. Jacobs had nothing valuable to offer, but their approach was flawed in that it ignored many factors that are crucial to the success of any brass player. As I continued to work through my range, endurance, and mouthpiece pressure challenges in college, I slowly discovered the many specialized mouthpieces, instruments, and teaching methods built around the opportunity of turning my lack of knowledge into profits. At the time, I sincerely believed these products were created to solve my problems. And, to some extent, I believe some of the manufacturers and educators involved in this segment of our industry have convinced themselves of the same. However, almost every solution on the market today grossly misses the mark as comprehensive solutions require a broad perspective, deep understanding, and real life data from actual trumpet players like you. Continuing on my journey, I fell into more trappings of trumpet culture with peers suggesting lead mouthpieces, professors promoting long tone and lip slur studies, and manufacturers claiming specific trumpet models to solve my performance challenges. Again, all of these people were trying to help, but their solutions did little to resolve my range, endurance, and mouthpiece pressure issues. I became quite confused that a music school would employ professors who did not understand or teach the principles of brass playing. They cannot teach what they do not know. Over the next two decades, it became apparent that this is a worldwide problem with no prejudice against age, experience, or level of education. Trumpet players with multiple doctorates can be equally as uneducated on the physics of brass instruments as a fifth grade student. And while there are many highly qualified educators who do teach the more important physics concepts required to understand the physical nature of brass playing, they are few and far between. How does this relate to Harrelson being a technology company? In my first year of college, I recognized the fact that I did not understand how to play the trumpet. Despite all the advice given to me in high school and beyond, I was on a journey to understand the rules of brass playing. This approach is likely a result of studying martial arts, which taught me that you cannot do what you do not know. In martial arts, you can defend yourself with your mind, body, and objects around you regardless if you have an actual weapon. I learned that your mind is the most powerful tool available to anyone. I began examining the problem. I had difficulty playing any note for more than a full breath as endurance would suffer. To counter this, I was taking a lot of breaks and buzzing my lips in the air to circulate blood into the mouthpiece pressure zone. I could not reliably play specific notes above the staff. And my tone was full, vibrant, and beautiful despite these other issues. My teachers and directors were usually fooled into thinking I didn't practice enough, which led some of them to imply I didn't care enough to be a better player. This was far from the truth. I cared more than was healthy, which eventually led to creating this company and dropping out of college with only 3 days remaining. I broke down the brass playing system into two parts, the player and the instrument. In later years, I further explored all the variables including the oral cavity, dental structure, muscle development, lip durometer, aperture size, air flow, air velocity, lip vibration frequency, tongue shape, tongue placement, aperture range of motion, aperture size, mouthpiece rim, cup, throat, and backbore attributes, venturi, impedance, gap length, leadpipe taper, thickness and length, tuning slide shape and wall thickness, bore size, valve alignment tolerance, bell choke, bell tail diameter and length, bell taper, length, and diameter. Yeah, that's a lot of variables, each of which I have researched in depth! Getting back to my freshman year of college, I began formulating hypotheses related to tone production from both sides of the system, the human body, and the man-made instrument. This led to me studying with a physics professor employed by Yamaha as a musical instrument acoustic scientist. He assisted me in discovering how to assess, measure, and evaluate the acoustic nature of a trumpet as well as many other instruments. And my experience in the physics lab led to me becoming a believer in science, technology, and the human spirit to create and achieve nearly anything. To make a very long story fit into two paragraphs, I learned the fundamentals of brass acoustics, and ran with this knowledge to discover new ways to match the impedance of a specific human body (a trumpet player) to the trumpet by creating modular systems. The intended result is maximum bell resonance, which I coined as MBR many years ago. The human body is a dynamic system that can change nearly simultaneously with our environment. But a fixed brass instrument design cannot change, which is why people spend years, even decades training their bodies to meet the impedance requirements to consistently create resonance and MBR. I realized early on that a modular trumpet and mouthpiece designed to have adjustable components that directly affect the most important variables could nearly eliminate the problem of practicing so much. After all, pianists do not need to spend four hours a day practicing to reliably hit a high C. And it turns out that trumpet players don't really need to practice all day to be consistent when impedance matching results in maximum bell resonance. And that is how Harrelson became a technology company from the very first day. I'll be diving into the various technologies we use here at Harrelson in my next blog entry. And I'll be sharing many of the exciting new technological developments used in aerospace and medical industries that we have embraced, which will change the nature of trumpet design. And ultimately, these new approaches will lead to more efficient and useful designs in all industries worldwide. I'm happy to share more of my journey with you when you visit us in Denver. Trumpet playing is very personal, and finding the best solutions is a different experience for each and every musician. Allow me to lead you through a seamless transition into a new reality where trumpet playing is extremely rewarding in ways you never imagined. A place where science meets sound. Email me at harrelsontrumpets@gmail.com or call me at 303.657.2747. - Jason I have a notebook in my desk drawer with over 400 people who have requested information on a new or used Harrelson trumpet that costs under $2500. This is the most common request I see in my profession, people asking for something "cheap" yet also "high quality, well designed, beautiful, unique, feature-rich", or you could say "expensive".
So why do so many people want everything for next to nothing? I guess they see other people (probably on social media) with my instruments and think, "I need one of those amazing trumpets". But then, at the very same moment they think, I don't want to pay for it, so I'll ask to get one cheaper. The reality is simple. I have invested millions of dollars into the research, innovation, design, and production process to make our trumpets. And there is no physical way to offer them for "cheap" and not go bankrupt. As you can imagine, my goal as an inventor and creator is to grow my vision day after day so that I can bring my clients even better solutions year after year. This requires my pricing structure to be realistic. This brings me back to the $2500 request that I receive so very often. The vast majority of the people asking for this extremely low and unrealistic price point also tell me they own a wide range of trumpets already. Some even own more than two dozen trumpets that easily cost over $2000 each. So it seems absurd that they would ask me to "dumb down" my innovations to offer something they can "afford". In reality, I've come to realize that most people are lying to themselves. They want to buy that magic bullet that will take their playing to the next level, but the list of excuses to not move forward is greater than their desire to become a better musician capable of unknown territory. You see, most of us think we want to improve our abilities, but until we actually take action, this will never happen. Almost every single person on the aforementioned list has the resources to pay a $500 deposit on a new custom built trumpet in the $3,000 to $7,000 range and make payments over the course of one to two years. And some of them call me and say, "Jason, it's my 50th (or 60th, or 70th) birthday this year, and I've finally decided to have you build me the last trumpet I'll ever buy!" This is usually followed up with, "I've been following you for 10 (or 20+) years, and have thought about calling you so many times." You really should call me right now. I'm saying this in all sincerity and for your benefit. First, I will never run out of customers as my work literally alters the trajectory of my clients' experience as brass performers for the better. And second, I make the widest array of innovations, accessories, and instruments in the industry. In short, I will have more work than I can handle for the rest of my life. You should call me right now, for YOU. Waiting until the timing is just right is an easy way of fooling yourself into thinking something will change on its own. Our lives only change when we make the changes ourselves. Ordering a new custom trumpet designed to fit your exact playing preferences should be part of a greater desire to take your practice routine up a notch, expand your musical vision, and re-ignite your passion for playing the trumpet. Take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, "Where do I want to be in six months, a year, and five years from now?" Having worked with thousands of trumpet players from beginners to Grammy recipients, to comeback players in their 80's, I have found that my career is most rewarding when I attract those who have identified their goals and passion long before we ever meet. I'm honored to be an integral part of your musical journey. All of my innovations have been answers to your sincere questions, challenges, and many previously undiscovered variables. My own journey has been a massive puzzle with each piece defined by another beautiful human being making their own unique contribution. I'm available to discuss your vision before the 15th of December. After that time, I will stop taking custom orders and close my books for the next 3 to 6 months to give my clients the time and attention they deserve. Jason 303.657.2747
Did you know that Harrelson does not make a profit from our mouthpieces offered on Kickstarter?
It may sound insane, but I personally price our Kickstarter offerings at a loss. I'll share with you why I decided to take this approach and how we can all benefit from this decision. 
You see, Kickstarter is a platform designed to help inventors and innovators launch new products. The key word here is launch. When a company, like Harrelson, produces a new product (we refer to them as solutions), we need to find a way to get the product name, concept, and actual hardware in front of the eyes of potential customers (our Harrelson family).
One way is to film a video and make an announcement on our website. Another approach is to combine this with spending money on an ad campaign through Google, Facebook, Instagram, print magazines, etc. And yet a third approach is to sponsor (pay) influential people within the market to endorse the product and brand. The most common product launch techniques:
At Harrelson, we have a policy against paying for advertising or paying trumpet players for endorsements. You would be surprised how many people make a lot of money selling their name, photo, and a one-sentence endorsement for a product. But how many of those people actually use the product for the reasons you believe they do? Almost anyone would endorse a product for money because it's like getting free money! And the advertised products are usually included as a bonus. So why don't I offer endorsements? The main reason is because endorsements are misleading and often lack transparency. The endorsing artist is surely not going to say anything critical or negative about said product or brand because, "you don't bite the hand that feeds". I know this first hand as I have accepted tens of thousands of dollars in endorsements from leading corporations in the CNC machining hardware and software industries. I've been featured on the covers of magazines and in numerous articles in the manufacturing industry and even in publications like Audi Magazine (the German car company) and PBS on television. I have received some of the highest quality machine tools available today for absolutely no money. Now, why would I say anything critical of these companies or their products? I personally know Bach and Yamaha artists who have received substantial clinic and performance bookings who would walk away from their endorsements in a second if I offered them the same type of contracts. I know because they have asked. In fact, I've had so many requests for endorsements over the past 15 years, that I had to write two previous blog articles on the subject in an attempt to slow down the requests. Would I like to work with these amazing trumpet performers? Yes, of course! But the nature of paid endorsements is the problem, not necessarily the people engaging in this activity. You may wonder, what's the harm in paying someone to play my products? Or maybe I don't pay them, but I give them a free instrument or a substantial discount? The problem is that this approach is unfair to You. Yes, you, the musician reading my words right now. I'm talking directly to you! By offering endorsements, my cost goes up, the product price increases and my sales increase. This usually works out to a better profit margin, but not a better price for the consumer. You see, companies charging you full price, while they are endorsing artists, will sell more products at a higher margin, which is exactly what I have been preventing for over 25 years. My goal is to reduce the margins and offer better quality, more innovation, and a lower price! This is the exact opposite of the corporate endorsement approach. I do this for one reason. I believe paid advertising is an unnecessarily expensive, and an unfair, way to do business from the perspective of the end user, you. I'm the rare business owner who is truly customer-centric. This means that the customer is the focal point of all decisions related to delivering my products to create unmatched customer satisfaction and loyalty. My customers go out of their way to help others see why Harrelson stands out from the crowded marketplace because they have experienced this first-hand. Look at our Google and Facebook reviews and you will see people who get excited to play trumpet day after day! Why have I chosen to take a loss on Kickstarter sales? I want as many people to have access to my innovations as possible. Unlike many of my competitors, I do not have a board of directors demanding quarterly profits. Jennifer Sandquist and I own Harrelson LLC with no other share holders, meaning we can make decisions quickly, efficiently, and in the best interest of our customers, the Harrelson family. And we believe in sharing our solutions with you at the lowest price possible because we both experienced poverty as children. Almost everything of quality was inaccessible to us until we experienced success with this company.
How much does it cost to make the SpectraTone Series mouthpieces?
This is the transparency you will not find with other companies likely spending 20-30% on advertising and endorsements. The true cost to produce each SpectraTone variation and launch it on Kickstarter includes the cost of our team to achieve the following:
How do you put a price on all of this work? Combine the physical material expenses with the time/labor costs over the period of time dedicated to the project. This is more difficult to predict, but easy to define after the Kickstarter campaign has ended and all rewards have been shipped.
How much money did we bring in from Kickstarter? This is determined by subtracting expenses from the gross Kickstarter sales.
How much money did we lose by offering you the lowest price possible? This is simply the adjusted sales number minus the cost to create, produce, and deliver SpectraTone to our Harrelson family of supporters. $50,244 (sales) -$76,800 (expenses) -$26,556 We lost (invested into our clients) over $26,000 by offering SpectraTone Yellow to our Kickstarter backers! The actual cost per mouthpiece was $304.76, which was substantially more than the $150 pledge that the first 55 backers paid. How can a mouthpiece that only costs $40.48 in materials actually cost $304.76? The answer brings us back to the beginning of this conversation, which is that key word, launch. In order to create a process by which we can deliver the highest quality solution to a relatively large number of people, we had to invest many weeks of time and energy focused on that one very specific goal. Every time we launch a new product, there is a massive behind-the-scenes undertaking at Harrelson. If we had simply created the new mouthpiece and put it up for sale on our website without Kickstarter, we would have potentially invested 3 to 4 weeks at $7400/week for a total of $29,600 plus material costs just to deliver the first mouthpiece that sells for $350. That approach would have resulted in a $29,000+ deficit on day one. Which is better, a $26k deficit with over 250 mouthpiece sales and 211 customers, or a $29k deficit with one mouthpiece sale and one customer? Well, the goal is to share our solutions with as many people as possible, so 211 customers is better than 1. We launch a new product or major variation every 3 months. The average company in the brass instrument industry launches a significantly new or improved design, or product every 3 to 5 years. At Harrelson, we release a significantly new variation or product every 3 months, on average. Over the past 25 years, we have introduced over 100 new products in our industry including 6 major technological breakthroughs. The most important of these include; Standing Wave Efficiency, Variable Performance System, Venturi Gap Receiver, Gap Solution System, 5MM Modular Mouthpiece System, Muse Modular Trumpet, and SpectraTone Mouthpieces. Now imagine how much time and energy was invested in these product launches. Tens of thousands of hours. How many SpectraTone Blue Mouthpieces do we need to sell to make a profit? Again, it's not easy to estimate expenses as there could be hidden obstacles along the way, but our goal is to be 15% more efficient throughout the entire process on the current SpectraTone Blue versus the Yellow variation in 2021. Material costs are slightly more expensive due to some inflation, so we're budgeting for approximately $262 per mouthpiece if we sell 250 in this Kickstarter campaign. This brings our break even point to around $72,000 in funding on the Kickstarter campaign. Essentially, we will lose money on this launch unless we pass the $72k mark. You must be thinking, "this guy is crazy, he's giving us the actual math and still believes this is good for his company?" Well, yes, I do believe this is good for you, me, and Harrelson LLC. My goal is not massive profits, but rather to get my products into the hands of open-minded, devoted, passionate trumpet players like yourself. Since my goal is to share my work with you, this is good! But I still need to make a profit, right? Absolutely! I need profit margins to grow Harrelson, and these exist in all of our offerings except when we launch new products. The regular price of a SpectraTone Yellow mouthpiece is $350 and the Blue variation is $400 due to the red brass upgrade. The same is true of our trumpets. In fact, we did not make a profit for the first two years of Muse MMXX trumpet production as these were all sold below cost, but now customers order them and there is profit to be made. Will you invest in a SpectraTone Mouthpiece below our cost? Now that you better understand my perspective, will you support me in launching SpectraTone Blue? This mouthpiece is a special variation of the 5MM system and all parts are 100% interchangeable. We expect to ship all rewards by the end of September. You can make this mouthpiece as warm and dark as you like. And it will transform into the brightest lead piece possible within seconds of changing the cup, throat, and backbore. I'm offering extra variations of throats and backbores below cost as well. Just select the throat and backbore add-ons you want after you choose to pledge for SpectraTone. I would love to share my work with you. As you can see, I'm 100% committed to gaining your trust by providing effective solutions at more than fair prices. Feel free to leave me a comment or question here or contact me directly at harrelsontrumpets@gmail.com or call me at 303.657.2747. I truly look forward to seeing your playing advance to the next level. - Jason Harrelson I see the present as an opportunity to shape the future. What I do today, will affect what I will be doing tomorrow, next month, next year, etc. My aim is to encourage and assist as many brass players along their musical journeys as is practical. I want you to succeed. And if you succeed, I do as well. This means we must let go of ideas, objects, habits, and such that are occupying space needed for future growth.
With this in mind, I will be discontinuing several products and strategies to make room for the innovative products of the future. The first will be our Mod Kits followed by our Gap Solution Kits. While these products are perfectly useful, and work very well, they must go to make room for the future. Some things were discontinued last year without notice. These include custom trumpet orders, the Summit One model, mouthpiece kit exchanges, most of our finger button inlay options, and long phone calls. Here are a few things we could let go of in our trumpet playing:
These could be replaced with:
These are just a few ideas based on observation of the trumpet community at large. There are many others, and I'm sure you can make your own list, but I challenge you to do so right now. Grab a notebook or post it note and write down three things you can remove from today to make room for tomorrow's growth. Last Wednesday was the 10 year anniversary of a major stroke that nearly took my life. Some of you know that I lost my memory and my ability to read, write, speak, walk, and much more. This was one of dozens of related events that have shaped my life. Having strokes and heart attacks was a regular part of my life since I was a child. I was fortunate enough to undergo two heart surgeries last year that will likely reduce my risk significantly for many years. The interesting part of this idea of letting go of habits, prejudices, and things today to make room for tomorrow is that this reality was forced upon me. Having had severe memory loss so many times throughout my lifetime, I have had to reinvent myself again and again. I learned decades ago to create one or two notebooks every year to document my goals, progress, projects, etc. When I re-learned how to read and write, I would review my life's work in these notebooks (I have boxes of them today), then make a plan to pick up where I left off. Every single time, I realized I had to let go of some unrealistic goals, habits, and objects to move forward. This is the lesson some of you have already learned, and one that I share with you today. To make the most of today, you must recognize what is holding you back and make a conscious decision to leave those realities in your past starting now. Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences with myself and your fellow readers in the comments. Jason Most cutting edge technology was invented years or even decades before it became popular. Take the electric car for instance. The first working test car built by Robert Anderson was created in the 1830's. That's nearly 190 years ago and we're just now getting around to putting them into mass production. Why did the electric car take so long to catch on? Well, it required nearly sixty years of research and development for the first real electric car to go into production in the 1890's. So the answer to the 190-year-old question is that a lot of development of automobiles, batteries, software, computers, and much more was required. When I say a lot, I mean generations of scientists and entrepreneurs devoting their lives to this effort. And what about demand for the electric car? Did this exist before the hybrid Toyota Prius debuted in 1997? Was it Tesla Motors' Roadster launch in 2008 that got everyone excited? The demand for electric cars was barely present throughout most of those 190 years and many would argue that demand barely exists today. So what changed? I'll give you a hint, the answer is related to governments and the planet. I'll diverge for a second to note that putting millions of electric cars on the road today will only reinforce our need for more coal powered energy plants, which may be counterintuitive to... well, let's just move on. Now consider all of the great innovations that have come about on the trumpet over the past several hundred years. There are many origin theories so let's just choose one. How about the theory that trumpets were used to communicate the commencement of battles, hunts, and ceremonies two to three thousand years ago. The first innovation was likely the use of bronze and brass. What happened next is anybody's guess, but it involved a lot of people trying a lot of different ideas. There were open holes, then keys, and finally various valves to change pitch sometimes by adding tubing, but not always. We eventually settled on piston (Perinet) valves and rotary valves (1830's) still common on french horn and many other brass instruments in Europe. Innovations throughout the mid and late 1800's mostly included creating brass instruments in a wide variety of pitches and ranges from tuba to cornet to piccolo trumpet. The early 1900's saw the trend shift from wide-tapered-bell rotary trumpets and flugelhorns to cornets as they became one of the world's most popular instruments along with violin and piano. With the introduction of live radio, we soon saw cornets stretch into a longer, thinner instrument often known now as the pea shooter. This was really a cornet trumpet hybrid designed with a smaller, more narrow-tapered bell to project into microphones and out to live audiences in dance halls. The Big Band era saw a full shift to the basic trumpet design we know and play today. There were some very interesting and notable experiments throughout the 40's and 50's that most trumpet players do not remember. The Wohlrab trumpet with one or all three slides moved to an internal piston/tube design. High efficiency bracing systems from Holton and Huttl were complemented by high efficiency mouthpiece body designs by many manufacturers including Olds, Conn, Holton and others. Fast forward to the 80's and you'll see both Monette and Bach essentially copying these mouthpiece body designs (even the rims) to launch a new era of "innovation". Heavy bracing became a fad in the 90's and remains a quirky, yet prized innovation today, but this is where things start to get strange. I became a student of brass acoustics in 1992 thanks to an experience that changed my perspective for life. In short, I handed my 1960's Bach Strad to my friend, who handed me his brand new Bach Strad and we compared instruments. His trumpet played hands down better despite being the same make and model. If you want to know the entire story, check out my blog entry on this subject and Standing Wave Efficiency. In 1992, my goal was to make my Bach play like a new Bach by adding weight. There was a lot of talk about how weight made trumpets darker and better, but I really didn't know what that meant at the time. I made a custom set of heavy bottom caps and sure enough my trumpet was more stable on some partials, but the oscilloscope showed no change in tone color. This blew my mind at the time so I made heavy top caps and they also helped. Next was heavy finger buttons, which did make a small difference on one partial, but nothing exciting. It wasn't until a year or more later that I finally added heavy bracing to my Bach and the results were...mixed. I liked it and I didn't like it. Some notes played much easier than other trumpets, even better than new Bach Strads. But many notes were still very problematic and the trumpet became more difficult to play than when I started. It was like playing a piano where only 1 out of 3 keys was working properly. Fast forward to 1994 when I had really started to dive into the acoustics literature and fully understand the energy within anti-nodes. I soon realized that the nodes and antinodes are fluid, they move around as you play different pitches and slip up and down based on the tuning slide. I had a breakthrough when I discovered that heavily braced trumpets were more of a marketing gimmick than a true innovation. I had been convinced for 3 or 4 years that those really expensive trumpets in 24k gold with cut-outs and bracing everywhere were the holy grail. Now I was left with the realization that what you see is not always what you get. Bracing is important, but it rarely provides the results that most people claim to be true. It turns out that heavy bracing was not much of a useful innovation, which is why it is not included on my trumpet feature comparison chart. However, the placement, size, and shape of bracing is in fact very important. More bracing is not necessarily better. More weight is definitely not better when generalized with a measurement on a scale. I have likely invested more time and energy experimenting with bracing designs than perhaps anyone in history. Having built hundreds of different trumpets, each with their own unique approach to bracing revealed my ignorance, often based on common trumpet mythology. Like the heavy bracing myth, there have been many innovations that eventually did not translate into lasting, useful solutions. The A/Bb tuning crook, adjustable micro tuning slide, Jerwin variable cup mouthpiece, reverse tuning slide, acousticoil inserts, slide-less pistons, cryogenic treatment, clocking the mouthpiece, and wooden tone boosters are all examples of innovations that either didn't work well or did not catch on. And there were amazing ideas that should be in production today that simply didn't gain traction. The pitch finder is one of many examples of technological advancements that worked well, but didn't stand the test of time, at least within the perspective of today's market. I have not scratched the surface on the true number of innovations that were, at some point in time, introduced on brass instruments as that would be an entire book. But I would like to discuss the most useful innovations that were not derived directly from effective marketing. We will not discuss hand hammered bells, reverse leadpipes, round tuning slides, heavy bottom caps, and the like as these innovations pale in comparison to the technological wonders that exist today.   *Overall configurations include 12 VGR settings from a set of 96 variations **Venturi Gap Receiver system offer full adjustment of flexibility, slotting, air flow, impedance, resonance (e) = estimated number of options 1) High Quality Pistons & Casings
This may seem obvious and unimportant to us today as nearly all manufacturers offer great valve action, durability, and reliability. But before any of us were born, some brass instruments were made with wooden pistons. Others were made from copper, bronze, brass, and other alloys with or without a hard plate of nickel. The metallurgy required to create a high quality piston and casing is more complex than you may realize and we should appreciate this great innovation regardless of how commonplace it is today. 2) Finish While the original finish of the earliest brass instruments was in fact raw brass, the most common finish today is polished silver. We have grown to love or hate (I personally like all finishes) the mirror-like silver that coats most of our trumpets, but there is a price to pay in terms of upkeep and wear. Silver is soft and will wear relatively quickly while tarnishing daily. Brass is more durable, but can also degrade as acids in our hands and saliva erode the zinc within the alloy sometimes causing pitting and brittleness. Newer finishes include powder coats, which are very durable, but require a special application and thus far Harrelson trumpets have never used powder coat technology. This primarily due to the fact that it would essentially make the trumpet plastic coated and reduce resonance. Other finishes now include Acoustic Armour, which is a two part epoxy combined with metal and ceramic dust baked onto the brass surface. AA provides a long lasting, durable finish that can look like real metal with depth in the right light. Another finish that was likely pioneered by Taylor Trumpets is automotive enamel. While Andy sends all of his work out for painting, these finishes can be just as hard or harder than Acoustic Armour offering amazing beauty and durability. I am currently upgrading our spray booth and oven to accommodate enamel finishes that will likely go into production in 2022. 3) Water Keys This is another innovation we take for granted today. The lever water key is the traditional option on most trumpets followed by the Amado (push button cylinder). Both have issues with reliability and air leaking. Grab a paper clip and bubble gum if you're relying on either of these designs because your days of reliability are numbered. The newer Joy key is an interesting innovation designed by Andrew Joy. This design allows air and water to escape through tiny filtration balls like in an aquarium aeration system. Another innovation is the Saturn water key invented by Denis Wedgwood. This system relies on a simple stainless steel ball to seal the hold offering extreme reliability and ease of use. 4) Modular Leadpipe and Bell systems Modular leadpipe and bell systems are nothing new, but the ways in which they have been innovated in the past 5 years offers more flexibility, reliability, and efficiency than ever before. Schilke trumpets have long offered modular and tunable bells, but these tend to bend and break with use. These are great for resonance, but require extra care. Getzen/Edwards has also offered a similar system, but with modular leadpipes that slide into a tube and screw in place. One of my favorite systems created to date is credited to Will Spencer, who also makes beautiful trumpets. The Spencer modular system can be adapted to almost any leadpipe and bell. Maximum Bell Resonance and Standing Wave Efficiency were the top two priorities when I designed the Muse Modular trumpet design that currently offers 10 modular leadpipes with 40 interchangeable segments allowing you to create your own custom leadpipe. And, the modular bell side of the Muse offers 16 standard variations with dozens more in prototyping including examples fully CNC machined, laser sintered, 3d printed, and hand hammered from brass, bronze, aluminum, copper, stainless steel, and titanium. The Muse system also offers the option of removing a bell from any trumpet and fitting it to the system allowing the player to change to any bell that has ever existed in just a few seconds. 5) Adjustable Mouthpieces The concept of an adjustable mouthpiece likely dates to sometime between WWI and WWII, though I cannot find an exact date. I personally own dozens of examples of adjustable and modular mouthpieces as I've thoroughly researched this topic over the years in preparation for my own 5MM system introduced in 2011. There are very few trumpet manufacturers offering modular mouthpieces as most of the market is represented by custom mouthpiece makers. Terry Warburton makes an excellent system that offers a wide variety of "tops" (rim/cup segment) and backbores that include the throat segment. The advantage of a modular mouthpiece design becomes obvious the first time you ask to try Rim X with Cup Y while changing the throat diameter independently of the backbore. The 5MM system may be the only mouthpiece on the market offering this advantage. 6) Leadpipe tapers Every leadpipe is made to a specific taper. Well, that's the hope! Not all leadpipes are created equally so the accuracy and effectiveness of this theory gets put to the test with many of the inexpensive imports on the market today. But the major manufacturers like Selmer Bach, Yamaha, Schilke, Getzen, and many others have a library of as many as a dozen different leadpipe mandrels with which they create their library of models. A trumpet marketed towards lead and commercial players will often feature a small venturi (the inside diameter of the leadpipe entrance) and a relatively small exit diameter to create more sizzle and resistance suited for upper register playing. This is not always the case, but often times we see smaller leadpipes for high note playing and larger variations for bigger Jazz combo or Orchestral playing. The Harrelson leadpipe options include drawn tubes, which are made with the same process as most manufacturers. And fully CNC machined high efficiency variations that allow undercuts, varying segmented rates of taper, higher accuracy, thicker walls that resist antinodal transfer of energy and prevent red rot over a very long life. 7) Bell tapers Like leadpipes, bell tapers and diameters have an effect on the tonal character of the instrument. The easiest way to visualize this in basic terms is to picture a piccolo trumpet bell taper and compare that to the taper (and tonal character) of a flugelhorn. There are hundreds of bell variations, but the vast majority of all professional trumpets sold today are made with tiny variations of just three tapers. David Monette should be credited for stretching our ears with a wide array of tapers and diameters that likely did not exist before he put his creative mind to work. In addition, Monette exploited annealing and new bell thickness variations that forever changed the landscape of what is possible in the brass world. 8) Bell Chokes This innovation is not new, but has been pushed to the wayside for many years. Some manufacturers are using bell choke technology to create more sizzle and zing in their lead/commercial models, but do not advertise this fact. Perhaps this is to protect market share? Regardless, the earliest piston valve trumpets sometimes used bell chokes. The concept is loosely defined as exchanging some segment of tubing within the bell tail with a inner diameter different than the bore size, often using smaller tubing. This creates a distortion type effect on the far end of the scale and more vibrancy on the other. The Muse Modular trumpet offers interchangeable bell chokes in five variations. 9) Receivers The topic of mouthpiece receivers is riddled with examples of good marketing that produces very little in terms of added functionality. Thin receivers easily transfer sound wave energy into vibration, thus robbing your hard earned standing wave of amplitude and stability. Thicker receivers prevent this problem at the expense of added weight. 10) High Efficiency Design This is an innovation that has completely revolutionized trumpet design in the past thirty years. Despite the fact that a fair portion of this "innovation" was explored throughout the history of the trumpet, especially in the 50's and 60's, the true results were not realized until the late 1990's by just a handful of makers. I recall exhibiting my instruments at a conference in the early 2000's and getting lots of strange comments about weight, bracing design, thick leadpipes, tuning slides, and so on. One group of French-speaking men came over and picked up my trumpets, giggled, took photos with all of our inventory and walked away. Later that day, another vendor informed me that they were important figures from Selmer. The following year we saw the introduction of the Selmer Concept TT model, which featured a new leadpipe that looked much like my original Muse trumpet leadpipe design. I got one and disassembled it only to discover that Selmer had soldered a hollow tube over the top of an existing leadpipe. After some testing on the spectrum analyzer, I confirmed that the SWE value was very low on almost every partial as the antinodal energy was transferring much more energy into vibration of the leadpipe than the original drawn leadpipe design. Several other manufacturers followed suit making hollow twin tube designs, which again resulted in instruments that were more difficult to play. The other negative experience that has been shared by many twin tube leadpipe design owners has been the sound of metal rattling inside. What Conn-Selmer and others didn't know was that the Muse leadpipe was solid lead fill between a brass drawn leadpipe and outer tube. This tiny detail made all the difference in the world. Nearly every component of Harrelson trumpets are designed from the ground up to offer the highest SWE values possible while maintaining Maximum Bell Resonance. These are the golden rules I live by when designing models like the X-series, Summit, and Muse. The exception is the H-series which is more like a standard design with added efficiency where possible within the constraints of a lower production price point. My original approach to fabricating high efficiency leadpipes, crooks, bells, etc. was to bend thick tubing. However, despite consulting specialists throughout the tube bending industry, we could not find a way to bend thick brass tubing without creating a porous inner and outer surface that would require further metal removal to correct. If left porous and in a soft annealed state, the metal would be prone to attack by acid leaching the zinc away eventually causing red rot. The other concern was that dents cannot be repaired. After exploring casting, laser sintering, and hydroforming (and years of trial and error), I finally turned to CNC machining. Nearly 20 years after purchasing my first CNC machine, we are now home to some of the most unique custom CNC mill and lathe production equipment in the United States. We don't have the most expensive machines, but they are very good and specifically modified to perform to higher standards than any of our previously explored techniques mentioned above. By machining entire tubes, tuning sides, bell crooks, bells, and valve casings from solid material, we can control factors to a higher degree while producing a more efficient and more accurate component. We have invested over a million dollars into machinery, software, tooling, and time into creating the most advanced trumpet production process today. The goal has always been to produce the most responsive instrument possible while increasing overall resonance. 11) Maximum Bell Resonance Speaking of resonance, this is one area that must be done correctly or the entire system will fail. Bell resonance is more important than efficiency, as Yamaha has clearly demonstrated. Schilke, Yamaha, Monette, and many others have devoted countless hours to achieving maximum bell resonance. When the standing wave can set the bell material into a repetitive motion that accentuates the original wave, we have something very special. To put it kindly, not all manufacturers make this achievement their goal. 12) Advanced Materials This is new territory for most manufacturers and will likely be explored by a select few. Schilke experimented with various materials, which was followed by Dan Parker and the crystal bell. Then you have the DaCarbo carbon fiber bell, which is an awesome use of advanced materials. At Harrelson, we are actively exploring the following materials throughout the trumpet including the bell; Aluminum, Stainless Steel, stabilized and natural Hardwoods, Tegris, Delrin, Titanium, Nylon, Carbon Fiber, Fiberglass, and Damascus Steel. Some of these are theoretically better than brass in terms of overall resonance and efficiency while others may reduce weight. Our goal is to approach a one pound Muse trumpet over the course of the next ten years and a sub-one pound fixed trumpet within 4 years. 13) Adjustable Air Flow This innovation is relatively unknown as Harrelson is the only manufacturer offering an adjustable venturi system available on both our instruments and as an upgrade to most other trumpets. The VGR system, Venturi Gap Receiver, is essentially a modular leadpipe system that works by changing the entrance to the leadpipe with precision machined attachments called inserts. You can make any trumpet fitted with the VGR feel as small or as large as you like within just a few seconds. This opens up an entirely new world of possibilities. This first five minutes playing a VGR equipped trumpet will blow your mind. Most of us having issues playing specific notes or partials will find that adjusting the venturi is often most, if not all, of the solution. 14) Adjustable Impedance This is the other half of the VGR system, but rather than adjusting the venturi, you adjust the impedance change value. This translates to making the trumpet feel more flexible between partials or the opposite, making them feel more centered and locked in. The VGR system offers 96 variations of inserts to fine tune the feeling of resistance, both in terms of impedance and air flow. If you have yet to experience this technology, you need to visit us in Denver, Colorado. 15) Screw-type Mouthpiece + Receiver systems I do not recall the first time I saw a screw-in mouthpiece as my memory is deep rooted in my own experience. My early mouthpieces were designed with a screw system that customers could not see as it was inside the mouthpiece assembly. These were introduced in approximately 2002, which may be my first introduction to the concept. I do know that in 2002 through 2010, we offered integral mouthpieces that were not removable and this concept upset a lot of people. What if you need to change mouthpieces was usually the question, but clients buying these integral systems were set on their size, for life. As I developed my 3-piece mouthpiece system into the current 5-piece (5MM is short for five piece Modular Mouthpiece), I started making prototype screw-in mouthpiece bodies that included the VGR system. We now offer these for our clients on a limited basis, but they will become a full scale production offering in 2022. This may be the first screw-in mouthpiece to trumpet design put into production as it pre-dates the Monette, Adams, and AR Resonance designs. I've often wondered if my VGR system was the inspiration of other makers to follow this path much like Conn-Selmer sought to produce their twin tube leadpipe. Regardless, a screw-type mouthpiece and receiver system is only as effective as the underlying engineering goals. If you cannot adjust air flow, flexibility, slotting, impedance, and resonance, then the system is simply a mouthpiece that screws into a receiver. With that said, AR Resonance is one of my favorite trumpet companies on the planet! 16) Custom Fit Experiences It's so great to see manufacturers work with their customers, the musicians who create so much beauty in our world. Almost every small manufacturer offers this service. The big boys don't care because their customers probably don't care either. Every trumpet player wants more or less out of their trumpet experience depending on the person. I spend many of my days working directly with my clients in our showroom, machine shop, and remotely to assist in designing and building the vision of each individual artisan. 17) Play Testing every option It's nice to read specifications on a chart and to hear others playing the trumpet model you may want to someday own. But what about testing all the options to see what works best for you? After all, you are not the person performing in the video demonstration and words on a page may not translate into what fits your skills, physiology, approach, etc. At Harrelson, you can play test every single combination of leadpipe, bell, tuning slide, air flow/impedance setting, with any mouthpiece ever conceived in one session. Our Muse Modular trumpet was specifically designed to offer every variation and can be configured to any variation in approximately 90 seconds. 18) Custom Fit Mouthpieces There are three primary components to any brass instrument. The player, the instrument, and the interface between the two known as the mouthpiece. Harrelson has over 20 years of experience fitting thousands of professional trumpet players to the mouthpiece variations that meet their needs creating the perfect interface between your body and instrument. 19) Trade Value - Upgrading Equipment All Harrelson trumpets are eligible for up to 100% trade value when upgrading to a new Harrelson model trumpet within five years of purchase. You can start with a $3300 H-series and trade up to an X-series a year later. And you can then take that X-series trumpet and upgrade to VPS Summit or Muse only paying the difference. Limitations may apply depending on the overall condition of your instrument at time of trade.  We make and sell a lot of VGR Kits to clients around the world. And those clients come to appreciate all that the VGR can offer in terms of added efficiency, adjustable flexibility, slotting, air flow, impedance, resonance, and so on. And then there's everyone else. Sorry to put so many of you into one category, but this is the reality. 99% of all trumpet players have never experienced the benefits of a Venturi Gap Receiver (the VGR system) and therefore, have no idea what they are missing. So, what are you missing? Well, to get straight to the point, EVERYTHING! You are working hard in the practice room learning to find the distance between wide intervals. You are struggling to lock in specific notes above the staff. You are using your air stream inefficiently. You are playing different genres on the same instrument, meaning you are compensating and compromising your performance in most areas. How do I know? Because I have worked with thousands upon thousands of professional trumpet players on these very challenges. And the VGR was designed to make all of these performance challenges easier. Do you know who should be using the VGR more than any other type of trumpet player? Classical musicians. Orchestral musicians are the specific players who stand to gain the most from adjusting the venturi, impedance, flexibility, slotting, and resonance because they are required to perform in the most demanding situations where the trumpet is both exposed and must blend with a wide variety of other instruments. Learning how to use the VGR inserts to fit the needs of each piece of music gives the Classical trumpet player a huge advantage. Adjusting the VGR between pieces of music, or even movements, is simple, easy, and requires around 10 seconds. Who else can benefit from the VGR? You know I'm going to say everyone, again. Any trumpet player tackling demanding music is going to see benefits. Imagine you're playing in a Tower of Power type cover band and you're playing challenging horn lines above the staff every night. Have you ever considered why those horn lines feel easier on one trumpet over another brand or model? The answer is that your favorite trumpet for this type of playing has the best (of your current options) setup in terms of venturi, impedance change (gap), and air flow for this type of playing. Does that same instrument lend itself well to playing Mahler in an orchestra or cornet solos? Probably not. But why not? Free VGR training, tips, and advice... Those of you reading this thinking, "I'm not missing anything" are the players who are being held back by your equipment. One trip to Denver could take your playing to the next level. Thousands of players know exactly what I'm describing, so why don't you give yourself a day or two to find out for yourself? We offer free VGR clinics every month and we can work with your schedule to give you hands-on training and experience almost every week day.  I have yet to meet someone who could play better without the VGR system, yet we get requests regularly for trumpets that have a solid receiver design. While we rarely build trumpets without these benefits, we often receive pre-owned Harrelson trumpets built before it was invented. These are high efficiency instruments that play very well, but usually require some adjusting to the venturi and gap settings with shims to be on par with newer models. Here are a few examples we have available today. See how the Venturi Gap Receiver works...
You have questions and we have answers. Follow this link to watch videos demonstrating the VGR installation on almost any trumpet, in-depth case studies, and general use. Our next free clinic and training session on the VGR system will be hosted at Harrelson Trumpets in Denver, Colorado on October 9th and again on November 13th. Click here for more information. Many people tell me that I have no right to criticize those in the music industry for profiting at the expense of cheap laborers in other countries. I'm told, "this is none of your business, focus on your work and leave China and India alone." First, yes, I do have the right to criticize what is destroying most of our industry and I feel obligated to say something. I see what happens behind the scenes that most consumers are completely oblivious to because I'm given information that is unavailable to the general public. If you want 95% of all instruments to be inexpensive crude copies of skillfully crafted high end instruments, then this post is not for you. Second, think about the people working in the factories producing these instruments. What is the goal of the factory owners (The People's Republic of China)? To make as many trumpet looking objects (or clarinets, tubas, keyboards, etc.) as possible in as little time as possible? Why? Because China's goal is to destroy the companies that supply high quality goods throughout the world in an effort to become the greatest super power. And they are doing this at the expense of the health, wellness, and happiness of their own people. Don't believe this their goal? Look it up. It's been happening for decades and as I write this today, Amazon, Walmart, and thousands of online retailers are aiding this agenda through their own efforts to profit from cheap imports. We choose to be blind to this problem because we like to have more "stuff" rather than higher quality. Third, how does profiting from pre-made, branded imports serve the consumer if this tactic puts the high quality competitors out of business? What you are left with is just one option, the same inexpensive products that do not perform on the level necessary to meet our definition of value. If an object costs 1/10th the price, are you going to buy 10 of them over your lifetime to meet the expectations of one high quality competing product? Probably not. You're more likely to never achieve the satisfaction, reliability, durability, quality engineering, design, materials, etc. even if you purchased 100 of the cheaper products.  One of hundreds of photos related to offers to purchase inexpensive trumpet objects over the past 20+ years. I posted some of this content on my Facebook page to get a feel for where my audience sits on this seemingly controversial subject. Honestly, I don't know how or why there is controversy. Would you want your son or daughter to find the cheapest low quality vehicle to take to his/her first year of college? We perceive quality for very good reasons and making these decisions can have a real impact on our lives. I'm not saying you need to buy a new BMW or Cadillac for your graduating senior, but sending them to school in the car with the lowest safety ratings is another story. Here are a few questions that may evoke a response and make us think...
What we choose is what we become. I spent several years of my childhood living in a semi-truck and many more living in a low income trailer court on the outskirts of town. When I was a kid, my parents probably took me to McDonald's for my birthday more than once. I understand that many of us do not have the luxury to choose high quality options every time. Do we have the ability to choose quality over quantity where it really matters? Even on a budget? Having made thousands of custom trumpets for individual clients, I have witnessed first hand the high percentage of low income trumpet players who choose the highest quality instrument. I have also noted a fair number of high income trumpet players purchasing the highest quality instruments. More (relatively) low income trumpet players buy custom Harrelson trumpets than any other income level. That really tells you something. Do you know who usually asks questions, kicks the tires, but never buys a high end trumpet? The middle class! So many people are convinced that having 12 inexpensive trumpets is better than having one or two high end trumpets, yet they come back and kick the tires again and again. I had a prospective client call me last year during the pandemic asking about a new Muse MMXX trumpet. This person had made hard inquiries on my instruments many times over the past 10+ years, but never made a purchase. He asked me if I would consider a trade towards the Muse. I asked him what he had in mind. He proceeded to tell me that over the past ten years, he has purchased a knock-off Harrelson from China, a knock-off Flumpet from China, and a knock-off Taylor, again from China, and many other inexpensive trumpets. He said, "I'm convinced none of these are as good as a Harrelson so I'd like to trade all of them for $8000 value", which is approximately what he had invested in them. In those ten years, he never spent $200 for a round trip ticket to visit our shop and try our trumpets. The deal didn't work out and, as far as I know, he still does not have a Harrelson trumpet. Why should I pay for all of his poor purchase decisions by taking them in trade. Do you know how much a second hand knock-off of a Flumpet or Harrelson sells for on the used market? Around $600 on a good day. The quality of knock-off trumpets is extremely low in comparison to the original products they attempt to copy. It's sad to see people promote them to their students in social media groups because the dimensions, solder, solder joints, materials, and workmanship are beyond questionable. They don't come anywhere close to matching a student line Yamaha trumpet. And for that matter, a 60-year-old Olds Ambassador is 20 times better than one of these trumpet objects. Do they look nice from the outside? Usually, but it truly is what is inside that counts.  An actual quote I received from a factory in China this week. Name or logo of my choice may be engraved on these instruments. I've posted the actual quote I received from the factory so everyone can see how easy it is to make $500 profit on them. There are many dealers having their company name (or some made up name) engraved on these and making huge profit margins at the expense of both the consumer and those working in factories. These factories are unsafe (in pretty much every way), provide very little pay for their effort, and do not care about their employees. Supporting cheap Chinese junk is exactly why it exists along with all the associated humanitarian problems.  My rant is far from over. I started this discussion with my friends and family when I was in 6th grade. This is when I first discovered the vast differences between cheap and great. I vowed to be an inventor and had over 50 inventions scratched into my notebook by the time I was 12 years old. I built Harrelson Trumpets out of my passion for great engineering innovations and I will continue my quest as this work is extremely satisfying.
If you need an inexpensive trumpet, think first about who made it and why? Was it made by someone who loves their work? If not, are you encouraging the opposite by supporting a company with different values than yourself? Would a second hand instrument made with great skill, care, and shared values be a better option? There are millions of high quality used trumpets (and other musical instruments) available on the market that will play easier, last longer, and bring more joy than a brand new knock-off import. Try an Olds Ambassador or a Getzen. Kanstul made a great number of French Besson trumpets. There are so many great used options. Or have a repair tech improve, repair, upgrade a pro instrument that has seen better days. The more we support something, the more it will exist in our lives. And to be clear, I have nothing against imports! There are so many great options available in this world and most of them come from outside of North America. I'm 100% invested in tools, machinery, and equipment made in other countries. It's all about choosing what aligns with our values regardless of the "normal sized" price tag. If you want to jump on every low priced item, you are racing to the bottom of the barrel and you will eventually win along with everyone who chooses quantity over quality. A lot of people have opinions on Heavy Bottom Caps! But what is the truth? How does science explain what we experience when adding inertia to the bottom of the valve casing? It just so happens that I have invested a fair amount of time, energy, and money finding the answers to these questions. The results are not surprising to some, but unbelievable to others. Today, I'll share with you the psychology behind this controversial subject. First, let's define a few things. Inertia is the subject of today's discussion so we'll start there. By searching for the definition of "Inertia" on google, I get the following: a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force. "the power required to overcome friction and the inertia of the moving parts" This definition is quite vague so let's move to the definition of Inertia according to Isaac Newton's first law: Newton’s first law states that if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force. In fact, in classical Newtonian mechanics, there is no important distinction between rest and uniform motion in a straight line; they may be regarded as the same state of motion seen by different observers, one moving at the same velocity as the particle and the other moving at constant velocity with respect to the particle. This postulate is known as the law of inertia. We will use this basic definition as it gives us enough parameters to apply to the inertia value within an acoustic brass musical instrument. There really is more to it, but the basics will be more than enough to get us started. So what happens when you add an ounce of brass (or any other material) to the bottom of your valve casing? If it is secured tightly (usually with threads), this added mass increases the inertia of the valve casing. And the added inertia reduces the amount of standing wave energy that is transferred into vibration energy. This results in increased standing wave energy to the bell, which increases resonance and amplification. In general, stability of some notes will be improved both on attack and sustain, potential for dynamic range increases, and potential for achieving the natural overtone series of the entire closed system increases. What does that mean? It will be easier to play the note. It will be easier to hold the note. The note will be closer to the tone color as defined by the tapers and linear relation to air volume within the oral cavity, mouthpiece, leadpipe, and bell. When I refer to the "note", I'm using a generalization to describe any pitch or pitches affected by the added inertia and resulting added resonance within instrument specific to the location of the anti-nodal high pressure zones within the tubing, pistons, valve casings, etc. This anti-nodal high pressure is present on every pitch beginning with the fundamental and increases in number as we move up to each higher partial. The fundamental creates one anti-node in the center (linear length) of the instrument. The next partial creates two anti-nodes, equally spaced between the nodes, which are the ends of each wave form. The second partial creates three equally spaced anti-nodes and so on. Any note that creates an anti-node near thin material tubing or features may set that material into vibration if the energy is sufficient to overcome the inertia in that area. Since higher partials have more anti-nodes, we have ever-increasing potential for material vibration as we play higher notes. By adding inertia, in the form of mass or some other mechanical design, the transfer of energy at anti-nodes can be reduced or completely eliminated. Harrelson trumpets were designed and engineered from the ground up to solve the low inertia problem. And heavy bottom caps existed over one hundred years before I was born. Someone understood and applied this theory long before my great great grandparents were alive. I simply rediscovered the basic theory of inertia and how it pertains to resonating musical instruments in 1992. This is not something I invented nor do I take any credit for the theory. But I have invested nearly 30 years into the application of this theory to achieve MBR, which is Maximum Bell Resonance. Hopefully, this explanation opens your eyes to the physics side of "heavy bottom caps" and maybe even gives you a glimpse into what is possible. Imagine a trumpet where anti-nodal high pressure zones have no affect on the energy potential of the standing wave and the bell resonates at its full potential. What would the world be like if we were all playing instruments that expressed every bit of energy we so lovingly put into them? Here's a video diving deeper into this subject...  I have a tendency to go all the way. If my options include; 1) some effort and thought, 2) more effort and thought, or 3) stretch myself further than I ever thought possible, I will choose the later. I understand why I am like this and it has nothing to do with childhood trauma or an insatiable desire to impress other people. I'm like this because I truly understand the personal and shared rewards of putting all of my mental, physical, emotional, creative, and team effort into creating something better.
With this in mind, I have contemplated discontinuing "custom" orders for many years now. In fact, I nearly stopped taking custom orders in 2013, 2017, and again in 2019. You see, by removing my clients' custom wishes from my schedule, I could be putting more energy into creating custom designs that are far beyond what is possible today. Essentially increasing the quality, creativity, and value of custom instruments by no longer allowing customers to order custom trumpets. Beginning September 1st, I will officially stop taking custom trumpet orders for the foreseeable future, possibly forever. This will allow me to explore my creative side exponentially more than I am currently. By removing countless hours of re-drawing complicated art from napkin sketches, blurry clip art, and vague descriptions, I can create truly amazing art instruments that play better than they appear. Don't take my word for it, check out my early galleries of artistic trumpets that flowed from my vision through my hands in less time than it takes an indecisive trumpet player to ramble nonsense about waiting too long for custom art from Harrelson trumpets on a Facebook trumpet group. It's been fun building your custom trumpets, but I cannot wait to move on to the future of Harrelson! |
 Jason Harrelson
Inventor, Musician, Educator and Founder of Harrelson Trumpets, Trumpet Momentum and Harrelson Momentum. Archives
May 2023
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