Renold Schilke

Renold Otto Schilke (1910–1982) 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.

Renold Schilke was born June 30, 1910 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He began playing cornet at age 8. Before his teens, he was initiated into the life of a professional musician playing for the Frank Holton Company and also learning basics of instrument manufacture, as had cornet virtuoso and instrument manufacturer Ernst Couturier before him.

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.

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