page_title: Renold Schilke
section_title: Studies and research
hierarchical_section_title: Renold Schilke / Studies and research
caption_attribution_description: English: Schilke trumpet modell X3 in silver. Deutsch: Schilke Trompete Modell X3 in silber.
context_page_description: Renold Otto Schilke was a professional orchestral trumpet player, instrument designer and manufacturer. He founded and ran Schilke Music Products Incorporated, a manufacturer of brass instruments and mouthpieces.
context_section_description: Schilke studied for a year at the Brussels Conservatory in Belgium and then moved to Chicago at age 18. Schilke continued his studies at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University while playing professionally. As a result of his childhood activities in the Holton plant as well as additional trade school studies, he was a skilled tool and die craftsman and dabbled in both firearms and brass instrument making. During this time, he was a student of the principal trumpet in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Edward Llewellyn.
  While in Belgium, Schilke became acquainted with the acoustical ideas of eighteenth century instrument designer and acoustical scientist Victor Mahillon. His theories described nodal points in a resonating tube that would dramatically affect the final pitch produced. Schilke used mathematics and measurements taken with a contact microphone and oscilloscope to identify these key nodes for each pitch in his horns. By making adjustments to the diameter of the tubing, or by eliminating intrusions into the geometric progression at these points, he improved the overall intonation.
  Schilke also studied metallurgy and the physics of sound production. He experimented with different alloys, formulating and then testing theories as to the effects of utilizing different alloys in different parts of the horn on intonation and timbre. Schilke took the scientific approach to answering the question of plating versus lacquering or bare brass - finding that the inelastic lacquer masked the ductility of most alloys resulting in the resonation of the metal itself being increased relative to the resonation of the air column whereas plating was indistinguishable from bare brass as it was merely a thin layer of equally ductile material.
  Like his neighbor and fellow Chicago Symphony trumpeter Elden Benge, as well as Vincent Bach, and Ernst Couturier, Schilke used his knowledge of machining and the science of sound to address his dissatisfaction with the instruments available to him by building his own.
caption: A Schilke model X3 trumpet
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