Six years ago, energized with a desire to learn and full of wonderment for European Classical music, I packed up my life in Australia and came to the Netherlands to study at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag.

In Australia were friends, family and my blossoming portfolio music career. Working as a freelance bass trombonist I performed with the state orchestra in Queensland, was the bass trombonist of the Allan Brown Big Band and the Brisbane Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, taught trombone at two of the states prestigious colleges, toured the country with the Best of Brass quintet and much, much more.

But after my second orchestra tour to Europe in as many years I felt something missing from my musical life. Six months later with a driving determination I took the plunge, jumped a plane and left to start my search.

“Europe here I am”

And what a way to start, after being in the country for a month I had started a two year orchestra academy contract with the Residentie Orkest, played for Queen Maxima and was having weekly lessons with one of the world’s most inspiring bass trombonists, Brandt Attema.

Overwhelming doesn’t come close to describing the quantity of what I learnt over the next 6 months and yet, though I was working hard, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else missing.

Luckily I didn’t need to wait much longer to find out what.

Just before the New Year in 2014 I was approached by a colleague at the Koninklijk Conservatorium who asked if I had ever performed on the bass sackbut. “No, never” I said, but he persisted, asking if I was interested to play in a production of the Mozart Requiem on period instruments.

Interested to try something new I said yes and took my first steps into the early music performance department.

Coming from Australia I had never considered the possibility of performing these masterpieces of the early classical era on period instruments, for some things were just out of reach in Brisbane at that time.

What I discovered to my surprise was though I have always been a highly versatile musician, performing professionally in Jazz, Classical, Rock Pop and Electronic music; I had been missing out on an entire world of music.

Performing the requiem on the bass sackbut, something finally fell into place. I felt immediately at home and it quickly became apparent that this was the missing piece.

Motivated to learn, I asked the conservatorium if I could take bass sackbut as a secondary study. Fortunate they said yes and not only did they have a beautiful instrument I could borrow but one of Europe’s leading sackbut pedagogues, Charles Toet, could be my teacher.

And so, I joined the class

To say that a bass sackbut differs from modern bass trombones would be an understatement. Smaller in internal diameter, in a completely different key and with no valves, the bass sackbut is to a modern bass trombonist as a Badminton racquet is to a tennis player; its slide is so long you even need a stick reach the furthest positions. But I loved playing it just as much as my modern bass.

From then I spent the next two years alongside my main orchestral masters’ degree learning and performing in all of the schools period music projects from medieval loud-band music through to Mozart operas.

I performed Hayden’s Creation with the Orchestra of the 18th century and recorded Schubert’s 9th symphony and the symphony in E minor by Johannes Verhulst with the Residentie Orkest on Dutch radio.

Sadly though, all good things must come to an end and after graduating from the conservatorium with one of the highest marks in the school, my study was complete, which meant leaving behind the wonderful instrument I had been borrowing.

Since then I have been playing on borrowed instruments, hopefully asking friends and colleagues if an instrument was available for lend. On more than one occasion, not receiving the instrument until the morning, the day of the concert and having to quickly get accustomed to it during the sound check.

As with each new project, each instrument has been as different as the last. Some were handmade by skilled artisans, others, produced in factories by modern machines; but all very different and requiring time, not always available, to get to know.

I have been fortunate that recently I have been allowed to use the bass sackbut of the Residentie Orkest but playing on a borrowed instrument makes life very difficult for a musician.

You lose the certainty that only comes with working on an instrument that is truly yours, spending the months and years getting to know all its qualities and possibilities.

“An instrument should match its musician, playing to their strengths and helping them overcome their weaknesses.”

That is why after several years of borrowing instruments enough is enough, time to find an instrument of my own. Though there are many nice instruments out on the market not just any bass sackbut will do.

My affection and capacity for performing all genres of music is my strength. Mastery and versatility is the motto that encompasses my artistic identity and there is only one instrument that I believe that can match me in this. 

That is the 1631 Bass Sackbut of Hans Hainlein.