@adc The Studio trumpets are amazing, too... I scored one two years back, a total closet queen that probably had never been played before... original case, original #3 mouthpiece, original wrapping, original paperwork... $150 on ebay... my #1 horn for anything but big band.
OK - I'm back from Bitburg, and have come back to life sufficiently to tell you about how it was this time.
Friday, 4 am: Get up, quick clean, load up the rather tiny car with three brass players, four cases and five instruments. Eight hour drive to Bitburg. Short lunch. Get music, change into informal band gear and play a two-hour gig sight reading. six hours of revelry and drinking afterwards.
Saturday: Play a 15-minute gig at the Opening of the Festival (new repertoire - all sight-reading). Help out the local band on baritone horn for their 15-min gig. Have free lunch and drinks. Play two-hour open air gig (again, not a single repeated piece). Have dinner and more drinks. Play from 8 pm until lights out at 10 (again, not a single repeated piece. Soprano player is asked whether he ever did the Penny Lane solo. Replies, no, but will try. Nails the solo perfectly, says, "I was too drunk to miss anything". More drinks until 2 pm.
Sunday, 10 am, the beer fountain opens up. Free beer for everyone for half an hour. Asked to help out local band on baritone, play a 90-minute gig with them, again sight-reading. After gig, asked to continue helping out at 2 pm. I'm a helpfu guy, so, yes. Coffee and superb rhubarb cake at local bakery. At 5 pm, play 90-minute gig with Coronation Brass (repiano cornet). 30 minutes for a quick shower and dress up in dinner jacket for Flag Ceremony. Assistant Principal already too drunk to attend. After Flag Ceremony, race back to open air stage to play from 8-10 pm. Several pieces played before!! Sop player asked to do Penny Lane again.
Drinks and revelry until 3 am.
Monday, 10-12 assistance to the local band on baritone. 2-4 pm Coronation Brass open air concert. Sop player asked to do Penny Lane again. Another round of drinks. Assistant Principal spills full bottle of red wine on white shirt and dinner jacket. Solo Horn player throws up and has hurriedly to leave the stage. First trombone changes to Eb Alto bone and plays Alto horn solo from "Malaguena". Colour Party of US Marines comes along (Bitburg has a US garrison), Bb bass player borrows officer's sword to behead a champagne bottle. Bottle crashes into thousands of splinters, champagne spilled all over Colour Party, sword has a clear dent and won't return to sheath. Rush over to Town Hall to play a one-hour gala concert there. Penny Lane as encore. Rush back to open air stage to play from 8 pm until "light too bad". Town has installed new lighting so that one COULD play all night. No pre-set programme, but pieces asked for by band members and audience. Penny Lane requested by two thirds of the band. Play until 11.30 pm, then Penny Lane as encore. Sop player celebrated as a hero, has twenty free beers shoved at him. Does not succumb (he's a Russian!). Clear up stage, dress in civvies, CELEBRATE. Beer fountain specially opened up just for Coronation Brass. Celebrate until breakfast.
Tuesday: After a late breakfast, pack up things, bundle into cars and return home (wherever that may be). For me, a twelve-hour drive home (many rests in between...)
See you next year, Bitburg!!
@FranklinD Phil McCann came from the British Brass Band tradition... and plaed cornet.
What do I feel about vibrato? Slightly shaken.
@Kehaulani Don't try Hildegard Bingham, who was a 19th century politician, but Hildegard von BINGEN.
@J-Jericho I have his e-mail address.
@Newell-Post sethoflagos is under immense pressure at the moment. He will return as soon as he's ready. But he's alive and well.
Speaking of salesmen...
A guy enters the local fashion outlet and asks the manager for a job. The manager does not really need another assistant, but does not want to refuse outright, so he says to the guy, "OK, there is this monstrosity of a suit in store - has been here a long time. Loud yellow checks, bell flare trousers, a frilled shirt... all the 1970s glories. Sell that by midday, and you're hired."
An hour later, the guy comes to the office with the copy of the cash receipt for that suit. "Oh, really?" says the manager. "What did the guy say about that suit?" - "Nothing, really. Only his guide dog barked a bit."
This one is a bit lengthy, but good...
A professional tuba player goes to his doctor, complaining about constant headaches. After a series of tests, the doc puts on his "Its serious" face and explains: "See here, you are a tuba player. Most of your professional life you have been sitting down, in a cramped position, with your instrument between your legs. Thus, your, em, balls have been squeezed, and this has caused your headaches. Try sitting differently, and come back in a week."
The tuba player tries to sit differently in orchestra and gets horrible back pains added to the headaches. So he goes back to the doc and tells him about it. The doc puts on his "it's even more serious than I thought" face and says, "Ok, so your headaches have become chronic. There is no other way out of it - we will have to remove your balls entirely."
"No other way, doc?" -
"No other way, or you'll eventually go mad from your headaches." -
"Well, then..."
After the operation, the tuba player really has no headaches any more. It feels like a new life. And so he celebrates this new life by transforming himself. No mor grubby sweaters and jeans for him - he has to have a smart suit and all the trimmings. So he goes into the best men's fashion outlet in town and asks for a suit. The salesman tells him, "I've got just the thing for you," and returns with a light blue suit which fits perfectly. "How did you know light blue is my favourite colour?" - "Oh, I can estimate people's tastes pretty accurately, not only sizes... it fits, doesn't it?" - "Fits perfectly. I think I'l have a shirt to go with the suit as well." - "Certainly, sir. This one?" - "Wonderful, that dark blue shirt... and again, fits perfectly. Now for some new underwear as well." - "Of course. Here's the fitting vest for you. For the underpants I'll have to go back - I've only got size 5 here, and you need size 7." - "But I've always worn size 5..." - "Too small for you. You're a size 7. Otherwise, your balls will get squeezed, and you'll have constant headaches."
@SSmith1226 Oh, the sethoflagos method... he can buy any trumpet he wants, as long as he pays the value of the trumpet into his wife's jewellery account...
@SSmith1226 So you did get that Stomvi corno... does Barbara know?
@Vulgano-Brother When I was still playing in a brass quintet - can't seem to get one together these days - we had an external musical director who not only supervised our rehearsing, but wrote original music for us as well. Worked perfectly and brought a bunch of rank amateurs (as we then were) into all the big local concert halls... even though some of the original music was distinctly weird: "Variations on Greensleeves", with every variation representing a different period of music history: va. 1 a Bach fugue, var. 2 a Mozart minuet, var. 3 Beethovenesque, var. 4 Bruckner, var. 5 a military march, var. 6 Wagnerian, var. 7 being dodecaphonic...
Hi,
I've just snared a Gaudet C trumpet on fleabay which from the pictures could only have been a Courtois... typical pinkie hook (but without the hole to make AC), typical Courtois valves, typical Courtois water keys... but the engraving on the bell says "Gaudet, France". It was a mere € 250 so not much lost in any event (no other bidder!), but I'd like to know more. Anyone out there willing to part with essential knowledge? Nothing on horn-u-copia.
@Niner No, that's just Chinese brassiness at bringing Germany in...
@Kehaulani But that is what is happening with Coronation Brass - every single year! And somehow, it works!
@Bob-Pixley Yes, indeed... but put together a band and play for the public without a single rehearsal, with the players only getting the music and the set list an hour before performance?
@BigDub I'm in again for playing at the European Folklore Festival in Bitburg, Germany, with Welsh brass band Coronation Brass. ssmith1226 knows the routine, and has gone through that; but for every one else, I'll tell of the procedure.
Every year, a scratch band is formed for this event - mostly by word of mouth and b e-mail. Then, from the four corners of the earth, around 25 people gather in Bitburg on a Friday afternoon, have a drink or two together and get handed a folder of sheet music from the Great British Brass Band Repertoire, usually containing two or three big Championship Section test pieces of the past, a couple of marches and a selection from the musical cheeseboard. And then everyone is told to don their black tie outfits and be ready to play (i.e. perform in front of an eexpectant public) within the hour, for two to three hours, and then have a go at drinking the brewery cellars empty. Next morning, after breakfast, play three minor half-hour gigs, then a big two-hour event, then another all-night open air concert... and repeat until Monday evening. In all, from Friday to Monday, Coronation Brass manages to squeeze in more or less fifteen hours performance time.
No rehearsal, just sight reading.
And the crowds love it.
Quite a number of player manage to help out in other bands while Coronation Brass is officially resting...
@SSmith1226 Steve, you're too modest and underrating your own ability. I've sat beside you for many hours of rehearsing and performing, and you were the most reliable second trumpet I've ever had when playing in an orchestra with only two trumpet players in a sea of - let's be neutral and say, Others.