Best posts made by barliman2001

"Your cough sounds much better today." -
"No wonder, I've been practising day and night."

A famous psychiatrist unexpectedly passes away and is met at the pearly gates by an agitated St. Peter: "Doctor, sorry, we had to hasten your way here a bit - but we've got a very bad case of megalomania up here and need your help..." - "Megalomania? In Heaven?" - "Yes, Doctor... the Good Lord has started waving His arms about and is convinced he is a conductor...!"

A Mom goes into a toy shop to pick a doll for her daughter. Sees two identical looking Barbies, one at $ 15 and one at $ 299. She asks the salesperson, "Why?" - "well, Ma'am, the cheap one is "single Barbie" and the other is "divorced Barbie"." - "Ah-hem?" - ""Divorced Barbie" comes with Ken's house, Ken's automobile and Ken's boat."

I can only laud Dutch hospitals... they have discarded the Central Kitchen idea and have installed a working kitchen, manned 24/7, for every ward... when I was down in a small-town hospital last year with severe septicaemia, the nurses on my ward found out that it was my birthday that day, so they persuaded the ward chef to prepare a special dinner for me... roast chicken fillets with a nice rich gravy, roast potatoes and vegetable skewers, with a crisp salad... and as a dessert, all the staff - eight people! - escorted an enormous ice cream creation with fresh fruit, and sang Happy Birthday for me... they really made me feel at home there. Thank you.
By comparison, the English hospital I fled from the week before served cold porridge for every breakfast, followed fifteen minutes later by cold tea and, another fifteen minutes later, some cold burnt toast...

Home office frustration...

Already in TM, and here as well, I've from time to time talked about the trumpet case that I've been lugging around to every trumpet concert of note that I attended - usually with some kind of rare, original or weird instrument inside. I've had it backstage quite often, and usually was able to induce the star of the evening to sign that case. Quite a few people were clamoring for pics.
Now, the wait is over. Here it is.

So far, ten renowned brass musicians have signed. Whoever gets them all right will be entitled to a pot of coffee with cake in a Vienna coffee house.

...and about 30 years earlier, in my first band uniform ever... with a Weltklang cornet with Ab slides in it...

As a few people here already know, Vienna now has a proper British brass band, under the name of Pfadfinderfanfare Wien (Scouts' Band Vienna), and I've been honoured with the flugelhorn position. So far, I've been using my own Courtois 154R flugel, but last rehearsal, the conductor approached me and told me that the band had several world-class flugels lying around and he would like me to use one of theirs... I agreed - no problem with playing a good flugel and thus aving playing time on my own.
Yesterday was The Day. He brought along what he described as "the best flugel the band has, and one of the best flugels ever made."
I was expecting something really, really special... what be brought out was an old and slightly decrepit Bach Strad 135... serial number 423 xxx, dating it into 1994.
Following orders, I played the first two pieces on this, ... until the conductor exclaimed, "Your own flugel is obviously much better than this, and you certainly know how to get the best out of it... I'll take back the Bach."
Inviting comments.

@j-jericho Nothing can beat this.

An old, blind Marine wanders into an all-girl biker bar by mistake.
He finds his way to a bar stool and orders a shot of Jack Daniels.
After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender, 'Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?'
The bar immediately falls absolutely silent.
In a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says,
'Before you tell that joke I think it is only fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things:

1. The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat.
2. The bouncer is a blonde girl.
3. I'm a 6-foot tall, 175-pound blonde woman with a black belt in karate.
4. The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weight lifter.
5. The lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.
   Now, think about it seriously, do you still wanna tell that blonde joke?'
   The blind Marine thinks for a second, shakes his head and mutters, 'No...not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times.'

Playing a New Year's Eve Ball with Big Band Markus Fluhr www.bbmf.de, and then several weeks of assisting my wife with "Countess Mariza", done by the touring operetta company she has just wormed herself into to such an extent that the present owner wants to retire and hand over the company to her... then a concert with the Vienna Lakeside Music Academy Symphony Orchestra - music from animation movies - and then a few Carnival gigs.

Ok, as a background, you should know that I have had cataract operations on both eyes in 2014 and since then, my eyes can't change focus any more. Since then, I've had to work with four different pairs of glasses - one for reading closely, one for music reading, one for mid-range seeing (normal distances within the house) and one for outdoors and driving. Bit of a hassle carrying all that stuff around; and when playing music, I could only focus on the sheet music; the conductor was a dim figure somewhere in the distance.
A friend of mine is both a cornet and double bass player and an optician. She has now developed special musicians's glasses that are in effect six-strength varifocals... just got mine, and I am amazed. I can sit at my computer and write this, seeing a clear image of the screen, and I can look up and see the horrible amount of washing-up I still have to do, sharp as anything, in seven feet distance, and I can look out of the window and see clearly what the builders are doing in the yard, at 35 feet distance. And I have a sharp image of the house at the end of the street...
It's a fairly cheap process, considering a consultation will take one full day to adjust the focals to your special needs, and it can't be done but in Yorkshire. But it really is worth it.

The Magic Woman who does this?

Sheryl Doe
Allegro Opticals
1-3 Station Street
Meltham, West Yorkshire HD9 5NX

www.allegrooptical.co.k

Before this post, I had never heard of Elmer Churampi; but now, I consider him the legitimate heir of Maurice André. Don't misunderstand me - there are many excellent players out there, each and every one with their own personal style and area of excellence. I admire every single one of them, be it Tine Thing Helseth, Alison Balsom, Hakan Hardenberger, Guy Touvron, or Sergey Nakariakov, or... whoever. But no one after the sad demise of MA quite got that mixture of silky smoothness with technical brilliance and - from what I gather - a likeable personality. Elmer Churampi nails that. His performance of the Hummel is remarkabl near MA's style, yet is no mere copy. I raise my hat and a few celebratory glasses to the young guy!

@administrator I don't put up an ad on THE OTHER SITE!!

For many years, I had a similar problem - fast fingerings were a nightmare. Then, I bought a cheap euphonium and started playing that in a local band. And hey presto! suddenly I was able to play much faster... seems the fear of fast fingerings on trumpet hindered my practising, and with the euph, that was gone. And now is gone for trumpet as well.

@SSmith1226 There is a similar story about a Sultan's wish to see into the future. They brought an astrologer and clairvoyant who consulted the stars and his crystal ball and with a very sad face, came to the Sultan, saying, "Oh plentiful ruler, a sad future awaits you... All your family will die before you and you will yourself die a lonely man." - "Miserable worm! Get him the bastinado! And another soothsayer!"
The new man saw his predecessor howling in pain and approached the Sultan with his findings: "Oh happiest of mortals! I can predict a very long life for you. In fact, you will survive all of your greedy and mischievous relations!" - "A true wise man. Give him a life-long pension!"

OK, first interim report. Played a Midnight Christmas service last night, as additional trumpet for a group consisting of a Lutheran parson and his seven daughters. The church we played in is rarely used - Christmas, Easter, and the occasional wedding - so the heating in the church had only been switched on an hour previous. No snow yet, but bloody cold. No rehearsal - just a list of numbers from the Lutheran Hymn book and its official Trombone Choir Arrangement book. The group - the parson, on a vintage Yamaha rotary. Daughter One on a rather decrepit Amati French horn. Daughter Two on a Cerveny rotary tenor horn, Daughter Three on a ramshackle Jupiter student bone, Daughter Four on an ancient Conn bellfront euphonium. Daughters Five and Six on no-name rotary baritone horns, and Daughter Seven, the youngest and smallest (age 13 and a half) on an enormous 1890s vintage Bb tuba. And, of course, the parson's wife on a pair of timps with half the tuning screws broken off.
We tuned up about 15 minutes before service. Then, there was a long wait because quite a few dignitaries had turned up (vice mayor, fire chief, police chief, President of the Lions Club, President of the Lutheran Women's League, the Catholic Priest with the President of the Parish Council) and were saying a few words as Christmas greetings. First tune was played an exact 40 minutes after tune-up, in a freezing church... we sounded like a fire truck with asthma. The cooling of the instruments had worked havoc with the tuning, and a few of the daughters just were unable to provide enough air for their instruments... In total, we played nine tunes and decided not to continue carolling after the service (as had been planned), as the tuba and one of the baritones had seized up due to cold...

Any list of "top trumpet players of all time" that does not include Maurice André, Guy Touvron, Carole Dawn Reinhart or Alison Balsom and Tine Thing Helseth is just a list of randomly selected jazz trumpet players.
If you include players most successful outside the US - Dusko Goykovich, Derek Smith-Watkins and Sergey Nakariakov.
If you include those who were perhaps not in the 1A* class of players, but even more influential as motivators or teachers - Adolf Scherbaum, Pierre Thibaud, Timofey Dokshizer and Adolf "Bud" Herseth come to mind.
And if you include those historical figure who made trumpet playing what it is today - Anton Weidinger (inventor of the keyed trumpet), Jean Baptiste Arban and of course Herbert Clarke come up.
That's another fifteen names for you.

Most of those responsible for TV shows and motion pictures just don't care about these things, or don't have a clue, or both. I was once in a casting for a DHL ad where the casting agency deliberately wanted a homely-looking trumpet player to perform "Ain't no mountain high enough" as a finish to a clip showing all the way a trumpet takes from a factory in backwoods China to the trumpet player in Vienna.
I won the casting - but did not get to make the ad, because DHL had by then found "the perfect looking guy" amongst their own workforce, and wanted me to show the guy how to simulate playing to a playback recording.
I walked out on them.