I am so very pleased with it, and am looking forward to using it in performance. “I have played it (n.a.Thunder mute) all weekend and it is glorious! It is very beautiful and the sound is superb. Jeremy Buss, French Horn Faculty, Messiah College. I get a lot of compliments on the mute before I even get on stage.” “The Ion Balu mute has everything you could want in a mute: A beautiful, clear sound, excellent pitch in all registers, and ease of playing in any range and at any dynamic. This is a must buy for all serious horn players” The sound is glorious in all registers and the muted tone is rich and beautiful. I have already recommended it to all my students and colleagues. “Your mute is by far the best mute I have ever played. The veneer on my mute matches the decor of the Metropolitan Opera House, too!!”ĭolores Beck, Privat horn studio, White Plains, NY. “The Balu mute has excellent response and intonation, and a nice blending sound, with a real “muted” quality. Michelle Baker, 2nd Horn, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York I love the sound, which is subtly different from other fine mutes, and the quality of construction is exceptional, perhaps unprecedented!” Personally, I find it a fantastic addition to my small collection of choice “horn tools”. If you heard any of our Ring broadcasts, you heard the clear, bright, smooth sound of the Balu mute. “The Met horn section received a set of these mutes around the time we started rehearsing the “Ring Cycle”, and I’m happy to say that the Balu mute quickly become the “Voice of the Tarnhelm”. Joseph Anderer, Principal Horn and “Siegfried Call” soloist for the New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra 2004 Ring Cycle Louis Symphony, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Orchestra, etc…and about 4500 horn players around the world are using Balu mutes. If you are looking for a new sound, this is one other place to look.Ĭongratulations Ion Balu on a great product!Īnd, to put in a brief plug, I have a book on the Wagner tuba, recently (2018) updated in a new edition, available in affordable print and Kindle versions.New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera New York, National Symphony Washington D.C., Cleveland Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, St. It is in tune and the tone is somewhere between that of a practice mute and a straight mute. One other usage of this mute, not intended by the maker but quite interesting, is it may be used on horn without the corks. They are beautiful, and they are in tune and sound good.” One of the first purchasers was the Cleveland Orchestra, and according to Michael Mayhew, Associate Principal Horn, “Everyone likes the mutes. The corks are removable, they attach to the body of the mute with Velcro, and it is shipped with two sizes of cork so that you can adjust the mute to fit a tenor or a bass of any manufacture. So he tested right there the first prototype of this mute, a revised version of which was sent to me and is seen in these photos.īesides looking cool and being available easily in the United States, this new mute has one interesting innovation. His mutes are among the best out there and in our brief conversation somehow it came up that he was developing a Wagner tuba mute and I had two Wagner tubas in the van. Ion Balu of Balu mutes was also packing up. Last year packing up from the IHS Denver symposium I had an interesting encounter in the parking garage. If you need one in a pinch what will you do? Traditionally they have been very nearly custom made for a particular set of instruments. A horn mute will not work and really mutes for any other brass instrument won’t work, although some types of Baritone mute will almost work. Several works call for muted Wagner tuba, particularly by Strauss and Schoenberg.