Mute Stories I - The Classic Straight Mute |
The first mute in our mute family
was what we now call the Classic
straight mute. It came into being as a
result of my search for a piccolo
trumpet mute. I was playing in the Lyric
Opera orchestra and in 1967 the Lyric
scheduled Le Chant du Rossignol by Igor
Stravinsky. My part was a D trumpet
part, more easily played on a piccolo
trumpet. There were many muted passages
and not having a piccolo trumpet mute, I
asked Adolph Herseth if he had one. He
did and I borrowed and used his mute on
all the performances. It worked very
well. I also started playing piccolo
trumpet on radio and TV commercials and
felt the need of having a piccolo
trumpet mute at hand. It was
embarrassing borrowing Bud’s mute so
often so I asked him if I could have his
mute duplicated. He said yes I could. I
found a metal spinner and had it, what I
thought, copied. The copy, however, was
not exact. It was larger and really not
suited to the piccolo trumpet. Then one
night, trying different corks on the
mute, I tried it with the C trumpet and
higher corks. Wow. It was like the
discovery of sex. What a mute. I had a
dozen made for friends in the CSO and
the Lyric Opera. I sold four to the
trumpet section of the Philadelphia
Orchestra. I then asked the original
metal spinner if he could make 100
copies of the mute. He balked. He wasn’t
used to dealing with such quantities. I
found another metal spinner who was
happy to do orders of 100 and then 1,000
mutes per order. Later, at the
suggestion of a friend, I had mutes made
using aluminum, brass and copper in
different combinations. This also worked
well. One trumpeter swore by the copper
end mute another the all brass etc. This
was the start of the Tom Crown Mute
Company. We have sold more than 200,000
classic trumpet straight mutes to date. Since starting the Tom Crown Mute Co. in 1968, my wife Donna has played a major role. For many years she did, among other things, payroll, bookkeeping, deliveries, and correspondence. William Camp, who is now president of the company, has worked with us for more than 40 years. Chitaka Nishikiori and Gene Arnold, our other two employees, have each worked for us for more than 30 years. More to follow, |