Yamaha YCR-4330 GSII Cornet

I am an amateur trumpet player for 18 years at the moment. I attended conservatory classes for 10 years and participated in all kinds of ensembles, bands and orchestras. I wanted to get a decent cornet to further enrich my musical experience.

At the moment I owned the cornet for around a year and I can say it totally fulfilled my expectations. The instrument is remarkably easy to play when I compare it to my Bach trumpet. Well intonated, free blowing and responsive in every dynamic. The sound is rich and gentle in all the register. Although the valves were a little sticky the first weeks they work now perfectly (after a year and around 150 hours of playing. See manufacturer guidelines on maintenance).

I play it with a mouthpiece 1 1/4 C. I can say that I expected the instrument to behave more "conical", closer to what a flugelhorn sounds like. With this mouthpiece it would fall in the middle of trumpet/flugelhorn spectrum to me.

The only complain I have, and I don't think this is a particularity of this instrument is: after playing for a long time I get sometimes some water noise that I can not remove using the water keys. The only solution I found is to remove the mouthpiece and blow violently through the leadpipe pressing the valves so the "stuck" water goes away by the bell.

If you are an intermediate student or an amateur I think this cornet is a very interesting option with a fair price (898€ for me in 2022).