Posts made by GeorgeB

No church services, but the band will be playing back to back concerts twice a week for the next three weeks at local nursing homes. This, along with playing on a float at a Christmas parade are annual events for this band. Busy. Busy.

@Kehaulani
You are dead on. That's why I spent a lot of my time on familiar songs during my comeback. Especially the ones I had played 50 years ago before I quit. I still balance my practice with technical stuff in the morning and songs in the afternoon...though the songs now are not always familiar and that helps my sight reading skill as well.

@Niner said in Professional musicians on this board question:

Since I started this discussion I'd like to add my take on "professional" while being totally outside the realm of any definition of the term.

I'd think if you make your living with music as an art form you are a professional. Mike Ansberry, as a school band teacher is a professional in my book even if he never did anything other than that. What I was thinking about when I started this string was successful trumpet players that have participated noticeably in the commercial world of music. Anybody who has played with well known orchestras or bands or sat in as studio musicians for recording artists would also count. That's the sort of thing I was thinking about...although it looks like I expressed myself badly.

No, you expressed yourself perfectly. The subject matter just happened to be extremely interesting so the discussion just went off in all directions the way any interest subject would. I like this kind of discussion, so thank you, Niner.

I do know that members of other small bands like mine referred to themselves as freelance, or semi-professional musicians. Perhaps that's how the union categorized us. I never gave things like that much thought back then because I just loved playing for an audience.

@ACB
I second what Trent said about the RLGB Bb Trumpet. I use mine for all my band work, and it's sounds pretty darn good for solo work, too. I feel this baby matches the quality of horns in the $2000 and up range, and since it is on sale now you should look into it if you are looking for an excellent professional horn at a more than reasonable price.

@Tobylou8

They were a great help to me. Thanks.

Yeah, between 1954 and 1965 I had a little 5 piece combo, and during this period, as a union member, there was rarely a week without some kind of paying gig or gigs. This was while holding down a full time job so I was not a pro either, and never prentended to be. Like Mike, we called ourselves weekend warriors. But in those times there were many opportunities for small bands in Nova Scotia. Not so these days.

@Mike-Ansberry

Al Hirt left us far too soon. I loved his style and, boy, when he cut loose with all that double and triple tonguing I would get goose bumps. Thanks for posting that video. The pictures were great, too and seeing the sign to Al Hirts Place brought back some wonderful memories of when I had met him. I have the LP album and have listened to that song many, many times.

I was in my twenties and had my own teeth when I stopped playing in 1965. When I started playing again in 2016 I was 80 and had a full upper denture. I was using too much pressure the first few days of learning to play again and that was causing my dentures to unseat. Once I eliminated a lot of the pressure everything went fine. Now and then when forcing things during a long band concert, I sometimes feel the dentures come loose, but that is rare. I know you won't have any problems in the pressure department, Rowuk and with your experience I know you'd learn to make any needed adjustments quickly.

@Bob-Pixley said in Why do scales go up?:

Higher, faster, louder... lol

Y E P !!!

In the very early 1950's when I started playing there were several music stores around Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, the city where I was born. I was 16 and working after school delivering prescriptions by bike for a drugstore for $15 a week when I bought my first horn, a piece of junk, at a pawn shop. When I finished my time at the conservatory and started taking lessons from a local pro, he introduced me to a pro Sax player who owned a small music shop and sold instruments to many local musicians. I bought my first really decent horn, A Conn Constellation 28B, from this little store. The owner was a saint, always helping out players when they were having tough times. He let me pay for the 28B for $5 a week and kept score in a little book. I forgot the actual price of the horn ( perhaps $500 or more ) but it seemed like a fortune at the time. He didn't charge interest and if you missed a payment he didn't mind as long as you had a reason. I don't live in Halifax anymore but to my knowledge there are only 3 music stores, and they all belong to one national chain. Pretty sad.

@Vulgano-Brother

I guess she didn't like the soundtrack to Clockwork Orange...

@Comeback
I can understand that because I find that each of my trumpets and two cornets play differently, though the Selmer and Conn Vintage One are quite close in that they are highly responsive...much more than the Manchester Brass trumpet, that has a larger bell and seems to fit best with the band, while the Selmer and Conn trumpets are really great for solo work and with smaller groups. As for mouthpieces, I pretty much stick to my Wedges, even though I do play a 5C and 3C every once in awhile just for the heck of it.

Sorry to see you go, Dr. Mark, but I want you to know that you have taught an old dog a few new tricks and he will be eternally grateful to you for that.
Ciao , my friend.

@Comeback
I actually have two: a 1952 Selmer and a 1999 Conn Vintage 1. I love playing both of them so I play them on a rotation basis.

Anyhow, I got what Ivan was saying...

@Trumpetsplus said in Having to play in too many sharps?:

@GeorgeB QED

Sorry, Ivan, my ignorance is probably going to show here: What Is QED?

Sharps : baaaad ! Flats: gooood !

Seriously , though, I don't mind things up to the key of A, but once I have to remember four or more sharps the going gets tough and I make errors. Yet give me a piece of music in Db and no problem at all.

@Kehaulani
Flow studies by Cichowicz form a large part of a particular 20 Minute Routine I do every day, as well as a host of other things to round out the morning hour. But I always start with the 20 minute routine because the flow studies are the first thing I play for the day and they just seem to get everything working correctly for me from the get-go.