Update for everyone: I'll probably be out of hospital some time next week.

This question is one that hits me very directly as it is connected to my permanent condition as an Autistic... We in the Autistic Spectrum tend very much to overemphasize our shortcomings and belittle our capabilities - it's just one of the expressions of how our brain is functioning. I don't say that only we experience this; but most of us are more prone to thinking we are not good enough than Neurotypicals. I'm looking at my own example: I finished my Leaving certificate with best marks, being third in a class of 129; I completed undergraduate university in record time with an MA in history as third of a class of 355. I then completed my PhD in record time - less than a year - coming second in a class of 88. And yet I always sought after becoming better still because being second was already a cause for depression - I was simply unable to put my achievements in relation to what others managed to do. Even when I reached the absolute pinnacle of my chosen profession and was awarded a Professorship in Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, I was not content. I could not strive for more, but there was that nagging thought I was not good enough... it ended with a divorce and deep depression; several years of therapy which did not help me at all because the therapists did not recognize the root of the problem, i.e. my Autism (and please forget everything about Rain Man and similar movies: There are such people about, but they are at most one % of the Spectrum). Only when one clever psychiatrist, at the goading of my wife, took the trouble of testing me for Autism did I suddenly receive the master key to everything that had ever happened in my life, and to my own mind. Since then, I have found the key to compromise and happiness; and now, I am not driven any more to try and reach unattainable goals, but am content to be what I am, and - in music - to be a good player within my own comfort zone. I still try to do as well as I can; but I now accept my own limitations while still trying to improve. And I am happy that way.

Hope you could make some sense out of this.

Well, after mourning TM and my hard-earned status as fortissimo user, I'm here.

Whether you are celebrating Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Diwali, or the 12th Week of Halloween, or Birthday or Wedding Anniversary or Happy 9th Divorce, my Season's Greetings to you. May all of you enjoy the best of health, the best of food, the best of company, and the best of trumpets!

At this point, I think I just have to chip in with the story of how I got hooked into big bands... 1993... I was a fairly competent amateur player with lots of experience in brass bands and wind bands, some orchestral stuff and already a vast repertoire of church stuff. No jazz experience whatsoever. Then, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call... a very Bavarian, very bearded voice at the other end...
"I've heard you're a trumpet player." -
"Yes?" -
"We are a big band." -
"Yes?" -
" You have a red shirt?" -
"Yeees??" -
"Free this afternoon?" -
"Yyeees?" -
"Be at the Saint Florian Restaurant at three." CLICK.

Spoof or truth? Well, the place was not too far away, so I collected everything I thought I might need... rotary Bb, rotary C and picc, black jacket and bow tie... (my usual church gig outfit) and went there.

In my innocence, I thought it might be just a short gig, with probably a third or fourth trumpet awol, possibly an hour's sight-reading of easy stuff, cash in and get out... "otherwise you don't hire a guy you don't know anything about four hours before a gig"...

What I found...

an Austrian wedding, and the band scheduled to play for the afternoon coffee break, then provide dinner music and continue to play for the dancing until dawn... the guy who had gone awol was the 1st trumpet, and they expected me to fully replace him for a whopping 16 hours or so... with a repertoire I had never seen or played before... I had to come clean about my big band experience so far, so trumpet #3 stepped up and I filled his place and managed to muddle through somehow... interestingly enough, they did not throw me out afterwards with catcalls and rotten eggs, but invited me in as full replacement for the now promoted #3. I stayed with that outfit for a full eleven years, playing another 196 weddings with them, 40-50 balls, and smaller gigs, numerous... have never been without a big band ever since.

@BigDub In a local paper: "The inventor of Autocorrect just pissed away. He was an anthole. Restaurant in pieces."

@bigdub Sir Thomas Beecham is best remembered for this incident... He loved to mingle with the audience in Covent Garden during the interval. One day a guy rushed into him and without apology, asked him where the loo was. Sir Thomas told him to follow a certain passage, adding, "The first door is labelled "Ladies". Don't go in there. The second door is labelled "Gentlemen". Go in there nevertheless."

Two trumpet players in Rome, in the only caffè possible!
barliman2001, left, and ssmith1226, right.

A friend of mine, former musical show trumpet player Alexander Gerzenberg, now has decided to throw his vast expertise in all things trumpet in with the Breslmaier company, being part responsible for mouthpiece development. A few days back, he gave me one of his first efforts at hands-on creating screw rim mouthpieces for my birthday. It's quite a story, so I am sharing it with you.
One of the chief products of Breslmaier is creating screw-on rims for existing mouthpieces, and vice versa. Usually, the leftover bits are thrown away for recycling... now Alexander has made it his pastime to root through the throwaways looking for something nice. What he found was a Bach Mt. Vernon 1 1/2 stem and cup, and a Bach Mt. Vernon 1 1/4 rim, both discarded. He cut a thread on both, inserted a slightly tapered distance ring and thus created what might easily be described as a Bach Mt. Vernon 1 1/4 A mouthpiece...
I played it for a full day yesterday, on both my Courtois Balanced and Olds Recording, and it was fabulous... nice control, warm silky smooth sound with optional paint-stripping... definitely a keeper! Thank you, Alexander!

P.S.: Tried it on my Courtois Roger Delmotte D today, a very mouthpiece-sensitive horn, and it was grand on that as well...

Suddenly, after a longish wait, I found "Global Moderator" beside my name... well, quite a few people here know about me from TM, but for all those who don't or who did not really care at the time, here's all about me. I don't have a fancy website - more or less because I'm busy updating my wife's website. But here's everything of interest about me:
I'm a 53-year-old Bavarian (well, German national, but I prefer my local tribe) living in Austria, near Vienna. Married to an opera singer (www.reginaschoerg.com). By trade, I am a historian.
My musical past consisted of children's choir, then the local church choir and finally, after studying voice with several renowned teachers, soloist with the Passau Cathedral Choir and the Dublin Guinness Choir. From age four, I played piano - did not really like it, but was good at it.
Until I accidentally put my hand through a glass door and cut a nerve. Fortunately, the same year I had won my first trumpet in a raffle... went on to Kinneil Band in Scotland (current British National Champions!), then back to Germany. Seven years in Ireland, playing with a number of brass bands and the Greystones Symphony, eventually conducting this orchestra. Since then, Principal Trumpet of the one and only Vienna Klezmer Orchestra (www.klezmerorchester.at) and webmaster for Munich-based Markus Fluhr Big Band (www.bbmf.de).
So far, I have performed on trumpet in twelve different countries and a total of 97 orchestras or bands (usually as a sub). I have been known to pack the car at a moment's notice and drive several days just for one interesting gig...
My finest moment in history? When I walked into a Vienna coffee house and they had a clarinet converted into a table lamp!

Feel free to contact me - I'm sure to answer.

@mediocreplayer I had a similar problem with the Stomvi Elite Piccolo... with the first valve sticking during slow play. All kinds of work on the valve did not help even though the instrument was returned for repair several times. Finally, the late Uli Pfreimbtner found that the valve block was ok, I just tended to grip the valve block in slower passages and thus pressed the valve casings too hard...

And Nikolay also provides a very good traditionally-styled student flugelhorn, the DUNONIA model. Here is a demo video:

Just wanted everyone here to know that there is a new, very novel and very versatile flugelhorn out there... the BONONIA by Iliev Brass Music in Bulgaria.

Nikolay Iliev is a well-versed trumpet professional currently doing great work in getting disadvantaged kids off the streets and into his wind band project at the school he is working at as Head of Music... his work in repairing the instruments donated to this school for his kids to continue playing has made him into a respectable instruments craftsman, and combining his life-long experience as a professional with ideas he picked up from all over the place led him to develop a new flugelhorn which is intended to be the answer to a multitude of questions in the flugelhorn world...

The BONONIA flugelhorn is a high-riding, "wrong-way-round" flugelhorn (somewhat like some ideas of Ray Farr) which allows the bell to swing freely except for a couple of stays for stability. The right hand is supported by an extra bit of tubing carrying a pinkie ring that can be swapped for an attached hook, and the distance from valve block to hook/ring can be easily adjusted. The leadpipe can currently take two different mouthpiece receivers - one for a normal small shank flugelhorn mouthpiece, and one that accepts both trumpet and alto horn mouthpieces. There will be additional mouthpiece receivers for French Horn mouthpieces and for small shank trombone mouthpieces.

I have test-driven the prototype, and came to the following conclusion:
The BONONIA flugelhorn is of outstanding consistency. With a flugelhorn mouthpiece, all registers up to double C are within easy reach and really consistent, with slotting being very precise while still allowing for some leeway. It is veerycomfortable to hold as you can easily rest your left elbow on your hip while playing... a very good fixture for those long gigs.
With a flugel mouthpiece, sound is as it should be - warm and cuddly, while always ready to strip paint if required. With a trumpet mouthpiece, the upper register becomes even easier to reach and the sound goes in the direction of a slightly brash rotary flugelhorn. And with an alto horn mouthpiece, you get the feeling of a really plushy comfort blanket or cuddly toy while barely compromising on the high register. A well-balanced sound.

Here is a video of the BONONIA flugelhorn, in all of its currently possible configurations:

Why saxophones are almost universally hated...

@BigDub The mouthpiece receiver is under the bell bow.

@ljeanmtz The main danger is retinal ablation which can lead to blindness. Apart from busting a blood vessel - which is a dangerous sign in itself! - retinal ablation is a condition where the seeing part of the eye - the retina - loses contact with the eye background, often rupturing inn the process. First warning signs are blurry vision in that eye and swarms of black dots. When the damage is already done, the eyeball usually slowly fills with blood, creating a sensation that your vision is through a red filter - until it goes black. It is a condition that needs immediate surgical help, or the eye will go black permanently.
I had "bloody vision" happen to me during an orchestra holiday in Sicily; I was diagnosed almost immediately in the local hospital and sent to Palermo for treatment - which I politely declined when I saw the nurses chasing a few street cats out of the operating theatre... I was medevacced to Munich and was operated upon within two days; but the damage was already done. Since then, I have only had the use of one eye.
So, don't hesitate to see a specialist NOW!

@J-Jericho Fairly common at the time... I've got three cornets with that water key design. Prone to getting untight.

Vintage Besson London cornet with Bb/A rotary switch...

Dear Sir,

while I do understand that you are under pressure to sell, perhaps this is not the proper place for such a transaction... we are a trumpets-only community, and instruments like the Bb tuba offered are outside our range of experience and not sought after here. But perhaps - if you agree - I can find a better channel for you.
Slava Ukrainy!

@administrator I seem to remember details about that kid of scam elsewhere here...

Here it is, under the title of Matt Brockman: SCAM:

"
administrator
administrator Global Moderator
Mar 3, 2024, 6:59 PM

It has come to my attention that an unscrupulous sleaze ball is ripping off unsuspecting individuals who are looking to improve their trumpet skills.

This is a PSA: Matt Brockman is a hustler & scammer. His program is not worth 1/10 of what he offers. Please do not purchase anything he is selling.

Please see the following threads:

https://www.reddit.com/r/trumpet/comments/1812yta/matt_brockman_sales_pitch/

https://www.trumpetherald.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=161676&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=549c6012863e691194d4a650fefd2662