Posts made by barliman2001

@kehaulani You're welcome to join!

The European Folklore Festival in Bitburg, Germany, is an annual event of some considerable size with a remarkable 50+-year tradition. Groups from all over the world meet and show off their skills - great stuff.
Traditionally, some of the music is always provided by Welsh brass band Coronation Brass, a scratch formation meeting once a year in Bitburg and playing up to eight gigs over a four-day period. No rehearsal - just plain sight-reading one minor test piece and lots of marches (no marching!) and old favourites, with a tasty selection from the cheeseboard.
For the last years, Coronation Brass have been welcoming guest players from all over the world... me, for one (I've already managed to worm myself into the inner circle), and there were players from Germany, Italy, Russia and the US...
It's always great fun - great music, great people, free meals and floods of free drinks (main sponsor is Bitburger, one of the largest breweries in Germany!). ssmith1226 attended one festival, and a year later he wrote, "my liver still remembers!"

This year's event will be smaller than usual, more like a local affair, but Coronation Brass have been confirmed as participants and are inviting brass band players to join them for a long weekend of music and mayhem.

The Dates:
Arrival in Bitburg Friday, 8 July, 2022, lunchtime
Concerts - most of them open-air, in the centre of town - from Friday evening until Monday morning
Departure after breakfast Tuesday, 12 July

Bitburg is fairly easily reached by car, and is within reach of both Frankfurt and Frankfurt-Hahn airports. Airport pick-ups can be arranged, and for those travelling from the UK, there will be free seats in cars.

Accommodation traditionally is in a 3-star hotel in the centre of town, just 50 metres from the main concert venue... cost is likely to be at most € 250 for the whole period including large breakfasts (that's the upper figure - Coronation Brass usually get special rates and sponsoring. At the last pre-lockdown festival, cost per nose was € 180.)

Contact me for details, or apply directly to Nick Jones (organizing genius, and trombone wizard) at coronationbrass@hotmail.com

See a few pics from previous festivals...

Yep, that's me as flag-bearer.

The umbrellas in the background belong to the band hotel...

Fellow participants from Slovakia, with a tromboline

Bitburg's Mayor conducting Coronation Brass (he's a Euph player of note and has been known to join the band for a few pieces)

Music and drinks!

Street food

Folk dance group from a Swedish Seniors' Residence - the youngest member is 87, the oldest 101 years old

@georgeb It's one chapter of Ivan's book.

@administrator Thanks.
I've already conducted my first lesson in hospital - one of the nurses inherited a trumpet from an uncle (a rather decrepit but still functional Cerveny) and now wants to learn. Thanks to the good advice in Ivan Hunter's booklet Trumpeting 4 Fun (which, by the way, I am translating into German just now for publication sometime after Easter) she played her first note after only three minutes...

Update: Our local hospital released me on 15 March, saying that I would only need to finish the course of antibiotics they would give me - but they only gave me one additional day. Since then, the pneumonia slowly came back, until yesterday, when I had to call the ambulance again and they delivered me not to the same hospital (full of Covid), but another one some 20 miles away. They put me into a single room due to my sleep apnea which means that in between IV antibiotics, I can practice to my heart's content...

@kehaulani Schmuck Allee in Salzburg... yes, I've seen a pic of ssmith1226 standing there, looking appropriately, with his wife looking smug... I don't think I'm telling any very personal secrets when I divulge that he just had bought a few minor goodies at the Schagerl factory shop (just a new gold plated Killer Queen flugel) and was now in honour bound to spend a reasonable sum on placating his wife...

@dr-go Thank you very much, Doc.

About two weeks ago, I started to notice that my general energy level was going down. Dog walks were getting shorter and slower, walking up staircases was getting harder, and after a few days, I was experiencing shortness of breath after quite normal everyday pursuits. I'm not talking extreme weightlifting there - things like getting up from bed, doing the laundry and so forth. I began suspecting I was in for pneumonia like I had had it one week before my wedding... finally, I found myself short of breath while sitting in an armchair. At that point, I decided that things need not get worse, and called an ambulance. The medics agreed with me that my left lung sounded weird and brought me into our local hospital, at three a.m. There, they immediately activated the additional emergency team, did a lung x-ray and ultrasound, took my blood and after an hour, told me that the x-ray showed a large shadow, the ultrasound was not healthy and that the inflammation indicators in my blood were above normal levels. The diagnosis was pneumonia with concurrent pleural effusion. They put me on IV antibiotics and diuretics for a week and only yesterday released me home, more because of needing the space for COVID-19 cases than because I was fit to go home... I've been carefully taking all my medication and doing the exercises ("try taking a big breath through the nose and then blow the air though your lips. It's quite hard work - oh, you don't seem to see that as hard work, are you doing it correctly? You must feel your belly muscles slightly stiffened." - "Feel for yourself." - "OK... wow, that's hard as a rock, how come you are looking such a soft fat teddybear and have such abs?" - "It's because I f#ck ninety-one physiotherapists per day." - "You are such a poser... why, then?" - I get out my mouthpiece from my trousers pocket and buzz Amazing Grace - "Oh, you're a trumpet player?" - "Yes." - "In that case, you'll know all the exercises I can offer you better than myself. I'll take myself off."
Now's the big question: I'm still somewhat short of breath... has anybody any idea when my condition might return to normal, and whether I should start practising gently or desist for a time?

Unfortunately, there have been no responses in Spanish for almost three years; I guess that most Spanish-speaking players either have their own sites (don't know and can't check because my Spanish is entirely non-existent except Bonjour and Adieu - and these words aren't even Spanish!) or are happy enough posting in English.
Therefore, this thread will be locked now.

@blackwatch1 Not only in Germany. It was recognized as a "workers' instrument and favoured in the USSR.
By the way, the swastika was not uniquely a German symbol. It was used as national badge on military vehicles and aircraft of Finland during the Winter War and Continuation War in the late 1930s

@kehaulani Of course. That is why it is still here.

@rowuk Trumpet players have done a lot in Ukraine already... a friend of mine (professional flutist in Lviv opera, by choice second trumpet in the local fire brigade orchestra, lingerie model due to her exceptional... assets...) volunteered for the National Guard and on her first day of duty, destroyed a Russian APC... she unbuttoned her uniform to the belt, played Kalinka on her trumpet and minced her way to that APC... the crew opened all hatches to applaud her... and at that moment, she chucked in what in WWII would have been called a "geballte Ladung" - five hand grenades wired together...
After the explosion, she played the Ukrainian Anthem...

She plays drums as well:

@rowuk We're deeply involved in the rescue operations as well - well, apart from myself because I managed to catch pneumonia and am incapacited in hospital... just strong enough to slowly walk from my room to the café, only to find that it is closed on Saturdays...
But until I was brought here, we organised three truck-loads of aid for Lviv, and tomorrow my wife and her son are driving to the Polish-Ukrainian border to pick up several musician friends from Lviv with their families and deliver about 500 kilos of medical supplies. Our first "convoy" brought 500 kilos of army rations and collected nine orphaned children for foster families in Austria. And next week we are clearing out of our Vienna home to live just in Germany for six months to make space for two Ukrainian families. Have to find storage for 49 trumpets first... yes, I know, I can always send them to you in unmarked cases!

@dr-go Well, we prohibited all Brexit discussion; but Ukraine is somewhat different.

@georgeb And that is exactly why JJericho flagged that video... thank you for making my mind up.

@branson Nice idea; but under normal circumstances, we don't allow political posts here.

@lake-serperior It certainly is a good trumpet, and Getzen has an incredible record of superior valve quality. If you can test-play it, do so; if not, bear in mind that most Yamahas have a similar playability that is sometimes rather far removed from other brands. Whichever trumpet you buy, don't count on being as familiar with the new horn from Day 1.

As this matter is resolved, I am locking this thread.

Old entries in the Classifieds will be locked after twelve months silence.

After two years, I'm locking this thread.