Best posts made by barliman2001

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.'

@SSmith1226 said in The One:

@J-Jericho said in The One:
Now, I haven't explored high-dollar trumpets, but the way my Studio plays for me, I have no inclination to do so.

You are a stronger man than I am, J. Jericho!!!

Steve, just be honest. You're following the sethoflagos routine - equal sums for trumpets and your wife's jewellery. And you love your wife so much that you just have to keep on buying trumpets...

In 1991, I acquired my Courtois 154 R flugel by rather devious means... a large brass xhop in Munich had invited a number of makers for an in-house trade fair of brass instruments. All the obvious people were there, and a few weirdos. Courtois had come with two truckloads of instruments and were hoping to return with only one truck, so they had hired only one for the return trip. Things did not go quite as planned, and when they were packing up after four days, they could not quite get the unsold instruments into the one truck, and as there was a big trade fair going on in Munich at the time, there were no hire trucks to be had for love or money. Imagine a young guy loitering about their truck while they were discussing what to do... a young guy who had loitered about their stand on every day of the fair, ahd tested the instruments and had stressed that did not have any money for a new instrument at all... Imagine that guy asking whether he could help. And they said, "Oui" rather shortly and pressed an instrument case in my hands - the one case that they could not by any means fit into the truck any more. Content? One 154 R flugelhorn. I've never found one better suited to me, so after a few years of comparing, I just quit and am totally happy with that flugel...

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

@_mark_ James Morrison and his multiphonics come to mind.

@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!"

@tjveloce NOW we know why some manufacturers of TSOs put white gloves in the cases...!

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.

@BigDub In the same spirit:

How do you get a giraffe into a freezer?

Open door, giraffe goes in, close door.

Definitely of Russian origin. The water key is normal size, so that is an indicator of how tiny it is. Rotary cornet for the discant voice of Russian military music (which still, to this day, distinguishes between cornet and trumpet parts, the cornet parts being the top parts sometimes reaching far above the staff).
Harbin, by the way, was at one time the administrative centre for the Chinese Eastern Railway, a Russian-built and -owned extension of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Harbin in fact was a Russian city transplanted into what is now China, had a large Russian naval base complete with naval orchestra and several ship's bands as well as a navy-owned musical instruments factory that stamped their instruments with the name of the town and a serial number. Very few of these instruments survive nowadays.
After the 1917 revolution, Harbin was cut off from the evolving Soviet Union and became a long-lasting Russian Imperial enclave, only fading away in the late 1930s.
Congratulations for having such an instrument in at least optically good condition!

Welcome to TB! I admire your indomitable spirit, and your unquenchable thirst for music. Feel free to ask any question you might want answered, even if the question sounds stupid to your ears - there is a saying in Vienna, "You can only get cleverer by asking stupid questions."
As to holding the instrument: ErgoBrass have a very nice contraption that might suit your needs.

How do you get a rhino into a freezer?

Open door, yes-

NO.

Giraffe out, rhino in, close door.

@Dr-GO Get into contact with allegro optical in Meltham, UK. They specialize in musicians' glasses and are able to provide you with variable varifocals to your needs. All employees there are musicians themselves and know exactly what to do. I just got my first set from them - fabulous. Previously, I had the problem that after a cataract operation, my eye accommodation was gone. So I had to use reading glasses for the music, but then the conductor was way out of focus and sometimes, even hard to see. Now, that problem is gone (no, I haven't switched to viola). I can read the music clearly and comfortably, and the conductor stays in focus as well.