When I had finally taken the step to buy a natural trumpet, I turned to Mark for lessons. It turned out he does a lot more than teach (and play). He customized a mouthpiece for me, made an extra venthole yard and tweaked the ones I had (bought elsewhere) for better tuning and intonation. He also serviced my modern trumpets, inside and out, making them look and run like new. And of course he teaches – makes you feel comfortable with the instrument, helps you work around its idiosyncrasies, explains how to translate what’s on paper into something that sounds good. This is a guy you can turn to for pretty much anything and everything to do with your trumpets and playing.

When buying a Resno ring at Mark’s place he let me try a just finished Twister trumpet. I knew immediately that this was what I had been looking for. Open feel with a lot of sound and at the same time one has to back off, I believe they call that “hot air”. Fortunately it’s not a lightweight horn (it’s 1055 gramme, just a little bit more than my standard weight Yamaha 6345) so it gives some solid feel, but still is very responsive.

It’s certainly a very efficient horn. I already did find out that I liked the rotary valves and their way of separating the tones, (some time ago I bought a German Miraphone drehventil flügelhorn). But an important reason to order this horn was my trust in the craftmanship of Mark and the appearance of his workshop. And one only has to pay for the product, not for an expensive retailer!

Yes, I had to wait eight months to receive this beautiful piece of art and craftmanship. It plays very easy with great resonance and intonation and it has that nice full bodied (some will call it dark) but still very resonating sound.

Mine has a gold brass M bell, a changeable-leadpipe system and hooks and spitting valves of my choice. If you like to see more pictures of it: most of the pictures of the Twister trumpet on this website are pictures of my horn. 

Thanks Mark.