Posts made by Dr GO

@Rapier232 said in Professional musicians on this board question:

...a professional musician, I’d think that was their job. The only source of income.

If you have a job, but get paid for musical performances that, to me, doesn’t make you a professional musician...

Let me give you an example of a performer that is near and dear to my heart: Eddie Henderson. He is a well know and respected professional jazz musician (Roy Hargrove references him as a mentor and refers to him as "Doc").

Eddie Henderson is also a psychiatrist and as I recently have read is still practicing psychiatry, which is recognized as a medical profession.

That makes him a dual professional, musician and physician. I consider myself the same, as some of us (As Old School Euph) has noted have "other lives" as well to our musical lives. As I noted above, some years I made more as a musician, some years as a clinician. In so doing you do not turn one profession off then turn the other on. Both flow at the same time just as hot and cold water from separate handles can be turned on at the same time to run through a common spicket to produce the same, but warmer result that is still called water.

@Rapier232 said in Professional musicians on this board question:

...I’m definitely no professional. I’m not even a good amateur.

Don't let that get you down in the pits!

@FranklinD said in Eugene Blee's Flexibility Exercises:

...do you really need written notes for this? Or do you have problems with the very unusual and adventurous harmonic progression?

Only the first time you use them. Then they are fairly rote and committed to memory as they are maintained fingered patterns. No fancy change in harmonic progressions. They are what they are intended, just to get the blood flowing and muscular dexterity initiated to the lips.

@J-Jericho said in The One:

@Dr-GO said in The One:
I solved that problem. I don't use it. Removed it from the horn..... Must be so for Miles and Chris Botti, as if you look at many of the pics of them playing, there is no third valve slide on their Martins.

Oops. Thought it was a 3rd valve ring. Yep you kinda need that slide.

@Shepherds_Crook said in Eugene Blee's Flexibility Exercises:

Wow ... those look familiar. I never took lessons with EB, but did for 6 years with CSO section mate Michael Denovchek.
I particularly like the measures of rest ....

Eugene taught a lot of musicians with the CSO including Marie Speziale. Perhaps he too was a Eugene Blee student and used his warm ups as well. They work amazingly well with little time and effort at preparing a trumpeter for the performance that lies ahead.

@tjveloce said in The One:

@Dr-GO

I do have a bit of a hard time with the third valve slide as I have to use a band on it to keep it from falling out when doing plunger stuff, and I'm just not great at moving it like I am my other horns. It slides very freely, just something about the way my left hand fits in it.
-tj

I solved that problem. I don't use it. Removed it from the horn. I'ts not needed from my experience as the 1,2,3; 1,3 combinations are in perfect tune on my horn. Must be so for Miles and Chris Botti, as if you look at many of the pics of them playing, there is no third valve slide on their Martins.

I told my psychiatrist that I had been hearing voices. He told me that I don't have a psychiatrist.

After I finished the surgery, she laughed so hard, that I left her in stitches!

@tmd said in Professional musicians on this board question:

Quack vs hack ... your words, not mine. (Just kidding) I've been called worse.

Let me know the next time you'll be in DC. Let's get together.

Mike

So this Wise Quacking Hack will be in the DC area on December 8, 9 and 10 (Sunday through Tuesday). I will be in meetings all day the 9th and 10th, but arrive in late morning at National on the 8th. Perhaps meeting somewhere on the 8th for lunch or dinner would work, as long as it is near the Metro line.

By the way, this will be the last time I am in DC for awhile as I will be rotating off the Center Committed for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation after working with the organization in this capacity over the past 8 years. So not sure when I will have another chance to get into the DC area again.

Looking forward to meeting with you though to discuss trumpet and late in life career changes with you! -Gary

@Trumpetsplus said in Professional musicians on this board question:

Let's throw the cat in!

The conventional opposite of "professional musician" is "amateur musician".

"Amateur" is from the latin root: amare - to love (Fr. amour, It. amore, Eng. amorous) which would suggest that an amateur musician is someone who loves being a musician?

As love is at the other end of the scale from hate, is it not then the implication that the professional musician is someone who hates being a musician?

I would say the professional is an individual that pro-fesses the art, which is a hard thing to do with hate in the heart.

And finally, this is no joke, there was a residency in one of the hospitals in New York City, where working conditions were so poor for the surgical residents, that they were looking for a union to represent them so they could legally go on strike against the hospital. One union came forward to represent the surgeons...

you all ready for this... again... no joke

The Meat Cutters Union!

@Dr-GO said in Professional musicians on this board question:

Another position. I am a union member for the American Federation of Musicians. I am also a chemist. There is no chemistry union, but there is the American Chemical Society of which I am also a member. Now here is the real interesting part:

As an American Federation of Musicians member, I interpret unionized as UNION-ized.

As an American Chemical Society member, I interpret unionized as UN-ionized.

So maybe there is a difference? (at least for chemists)

From my training in medical school, we discussed in our ethics class what it means to be a professional, and individuals brought up physicians, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, but at the time, musicians (another healing art) were not discussed. Perhaps the committee that came together to publish Merriam Webster's definition speaks best to this:

Let me put this another way, I am licensed by the State of Ohio to practice medicine. I do not know of any state that licences musicians. Does not being licensed as a musician make me less of a professional?

Another position. I am a union member for the American Federation of Musicians. I am a member of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Physicians. So do either of these memberships acknowledge that I am a Professional Musician or a Professional Physician.

@tmd said in Professional musicians on this board question:

My definition is different ... You're a professional trumpet player, if playing the trumpet is how you make a living. Of course, it's okay to have different definitions. And I think GeorgeB's definition is very reasonable, too. And I think many would agree with him.

Mike

Interesting concept, but let me put this real time scenario to you. There has been a several of years where my income as a musician surpassed my clinical income as a physician. So in the years I earned more as a musician, I was a professional musician and as a physician I was a quack. And the years I made more as a physician, I was a doctor and as a musician I was a hack?

Shepherds_Crook.... Will truly miss seeing that Carol Brass Dizzy Trumpet at the next Cincinnati Trumpet Hang!

@Shepherds_Crook said in WTS: Carol Brass Dizzy Trumpet:

SOLD! Lock thread, please.

QUICK! DO THIS before Shepherds_Crook gets me to buy another horn from him!

niner and Tobylou should relabel the posts as: Pre and Post

@djeffers78 said in Brick & Mortar Music Stores:

@Dr-GO

Yes!
Buddy Rogers is a house hold name around here. Rented my first trumpet from there.
I play in band with some of there employees. And I’m pretty sure they’re a sponsor of not only ours but many local bands.

Got my college tuition paid for from a post I answered on Buddy Rodgers Community notice board to audition as the organist in a rock band to compete for a "Battle of the Bands" in Cheviot. We only had 7 days to rehearse before the competition. We played Blood Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Procol Harum, and Billy Preston tunes and won the night. That band stayed together albeit I switched out to playing trumpet and that band continued to gig 4 nights a week and paid my room and board, and college tuition. Would never have happened without Buddy Rodgers!