My trumpet playing tenure is lesser in both duration and accomplishment to many of the players on this forum, but I do enjoy it, and there have been so many times that playing the trumpet has just made my life better. I picked a memory or two from that time that stands out, and invite you to do the same.

Several years ago, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer, and the downhill slope was a quick and slippery one. Within a few months he was under 24/7 care in home and the family was just kind of sitting around watching him slip away before their eyes.

We dropped by one afternoon to check in on him and the family. At that point he was mostly unconscious, and even when conscious, his responses were limited to a hand squeeze or to briefly flutter his eyes. We tried to talk and interact with him for a while, but he was completely unresponsive, and my aunt said he'd been that way for 48 hours with only a few signs of consciousness.

We'd been there for over an hour, and my aunt asked if I'd brought my trumpet. I happened to have it in the car, and she suggested playing a few of his favorite hymns to see if it garnered a response.

I played 3 or 4 of his favorite hymns, and my aunt had tears of joy as he fluttered his eyes, squeezed her hand, and kept trying to smile. He was hearing the music, it made him happy, and he was giving all available effort to let us know. Pretty well got all of us choked up. It was an amazing and humbling experience, and I was grateful that my trumpet could bring joy to my uncle and the family in his waning hours. He died later that week.

In re-reading that, it seems sad, but it really wasn't. The tears shed were happy ones.

Regardless, here's another and happier memory that happened a few years prior to that when my second son was about 2 or so. He was quite ambulatory, but wasn't really talking much. I was practicing the ole horn one morning before work, when I heard a small voice crooning monotonously, "woooo-wooooo." I looked down to see my son with a plastic toy trumpet someone had given him, trying to emulate my long tones. It was pretty cute, hilarious and awesome all at once. My wife got a quick photo of it, and it's one of my favorites. Maybe I'll hand that photo to him one day when he's playing trumpet in college or something.

I'm no musical savant, but I'm not a complete hack, either, and I can say that playing trumpet has made my life better a million times over. There's a bit of my trumpet story, what's yours?

Howdy, boys (and girls). I somehow just discovered this today. I see lots of friendly avatars from 7+ years of TM-ing, including Vulgano Brother, who is neither Vulgano, nor my brother, but we can still love him for who he is and the work he does. I see TobyLou notified pretty much everyone else but me 6 months ago. No hard feelings though, Toby. You should see Guido sometime after 11:00 this evening.

Dang, this feels like coming home.

A few quick questions: How can I improve my range in 3 easy steps, but only practicing 5 minutes a day? Is double high C the one below the staff? Miles Davis or Freddie Hubbard? Is there balm in Gilead? Where does Rowuk hide his secret collection of P.E.T.E.s? Here's a video of me playing a song I've never practiced before, can you please critique? Is Kenny G still considered the best jazz artist of all time? Oh, and where's the Argument Clinic?

Controversial opinion of the day: Game of Thrones is dumb - change my mind.

Put away your pitchforks; that was a joke.

Alright, I'm here. Let the loud screaming sword fight begin!

When the American West was being settled, a group of people headed out west in a wagon train from the east coast. The trail boss was very inexperienced, and after a while the people realized that they were hopelessly lost. After wandering for weeks, their food supply was dwindling rapidly and winter was settling in.
As they came over the brow of a hill, they laid their eyes on the first person they had seen for days: a little old Jewish man, a Litvak, no less, sitting beneath a tree enjoying a glass of hot tea.
Hopeful, the trail boss approached the man.
"Howdy, old man, can you help us? We're headin' west but we're lost! Our food is gone, and we're starving!"
The old man replied, "Vell, I can see da future. Vait a minute." He held one hand to his brow, lifted the other into the air, and closed his eyes.
"Vait! I'm getting ah vision! Yah! I see! I know vat you gotta do! Go up dis hill und down da udder side. Go through da forest und cross da stream. Den go up da next hill und down to da valley. Dere you vill find ah bacon tree."
"A bacon tree?!!" exclaimed the trail boss.
"Yah! Ah bacon tree. Trust me. For nutting vud I lie to you."
The trail boss shrugged and led the train off in that direction. What did they have to lose?
They followed the old man's directions to the T. They drove their oxen up the hill, down the other side, through the forest, across the stream, up the next hill and down into the valley below.
Nothing. Not a thing - and definitely not a bacon tree!
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, they were attacked by an enormous band Indians. All in the train were massacred except for one survivor, and even he was seriously wounded. When he was able, he agonizingly retraced the train's meanderings until he came to the very tree where they had met the old man. Sure enough, right there under that same tree sat the little old man enjoying a hot glass of tea.
The injured man crawled up to him, panting, and shouted furiously. "What were you thinking! You sent us to our deaths! We followed your instructions to the letter - and NO BACON TREE! Just Indians! Thousands of them! And the rest of the party? THEY'RE ALL DEAD!"
Quite concerned, the old man held his hand to his brow as before, lifted the other into the air, and closed his eyes. "Vait! Ay-yay-yay! Oy gevalt! I made a terrible mistake! It vuzn't a bacon tree! It vuz a ham bush!"

A neighbor knocked on my front door at 3 AM. At 3 AM, mind you!

Luckily for me, I was already up playing the bag pipes.

Sadly, we sold this house 3 days ago, but this is part of what me and the wife built in the 14 years we were there. We put together every piece of it by hand, including both pergolas, the fence, fire pit, and outdoor bar. It was a haven for a million bird year in and year out. Broke our hearts to leave it, but we both knew it was time to move on to whatever's next. Photos taken on a very rainy day, unfortunately.

It was really gorgeous in the evening with all the lights on, but I don't have any of those photos on my computer right now.

@ROWUK agreed, sir. The Texas shutdown was fairly minimal, and we found it mostly relaxing. Got to know all our neighbors a lot better, played a lot of backyard baseball, and I found time to do some writing I'd been putting off for years. I actually worked through the whole thing, and it was really peaceful to have the roads to myself on the morning drive.

Discovered that professional sports don't really add that much value to my life, (I do miss baseball a bit), discovered that you save a lot of money by never eating out, and it was a lot easier to get together with many of our friends, because we didn't have a lot of the time constraints we'd normally have.

Schooling the kids from home was actually enjoyable for us, and we're seriously considering whether to even send them back to public school. Having them home all the time gets me and my wife more directly involved in their education, and the kids are a lot more involved in the daily chores and projects than they would normally be. All of that is of tremendous value to the family unit.

One of my all time favorite soundtracks - the wife and I were just listening to that this weekend.

I believe Ennio Morricone was a trumpet player himself, and he wrote some great trumpet parts in the score. The trumpet in this piece, "The Trio" is my favorite from that whole soundtrack.

Trumpet is at 1:44 and 3:50 on the OST.

And here is the entire glorious scene, which remains one of the all time great pieces of cinema. Trumpet at 4:28 and 6:34.

Friends of mine just got back from a cruise. Said they bought a slice of pie for $3.00 in Jamaica, but paid over $7.00 for the same pie in the Bahamas.

Anyway, those are the pie rates of the Caribbean.

So I've played my horn about twice in the last 14 months, maybe three times. Last February my company got sold, our 4th child arrived in March, I suffered a significant pay cut in April, concurrent with family medical issues, I started a new business in June, my mom was diagnosed with cancer in the fall, we just finished selling our house and moving temporarily into an apartment while we figure out where to build our next home.

The dang trumpet just fell off the priority list for a while, and I still don't even have a time frame for when it will get back on the list, but I'm feeling it, and missing it.

We were in the middle of our move this weekend, and I pulled an ancient spare trumpet out of my closet and fired off an old etude from memory along with a few hymns, and it felt amazing. I've had layoffs of up to a month or two previously, but this is easily the new record since I came back in 2012.

What was your longest layoff, what caused it, and what was it like coming back?

@flugelgirl said in Trombone Help:

@neal085 true enough. Entry level Yamaha AD line is made in China. Conn-Selmer Prelude line are also made in China. King seem to fare a bit better, though, and are made in the Eastlake factory. Jupiter are made in Taiwan, but intermediate and pro models are very nicely made and leagues above the entry level.

That's great info - thank you! Think we're going to go with the King this time around.

@bigdub said in A little humour:

@dr-go
They have rabbits on the African plains?

I believe rabbit species are found on at least five continents, including central/southern Africa. FWIW.

@flugelgirl So I was talking to the local band rental shop today, and he said they recommend King over Yamaha for student horns. Said most of the Yamaha student stuff is made in China, while King's are still made in the US.

Anything to that?

@jolter said in Blasphemous takes on classic tunes:

I bet the mic was never supposed to be hot...

Oh dear. That could make me resign from trumpet playing, and possibly life.

I've had to resort to this ploy a few times.

@flugelgirl Is the 200 AD from the Advantage line? I just spoke with someone at a local music shop, and they indicated the 354 and 200AD were the same horn, but for different markets. Is that accurate?

Thank you for all the info, BTW.

My 8th grader is starting on trombone this year, and I need to grab him a student horn. I've always had success with Yamaha student trumpets, so am leaning that way on 'bone as well. Just perusing eBay, I seem to find both the YSL-354 and YSL200AD in the $200-300 range.

Does anyone have any experience with them, is there much difference? Any reason to choose one over the other one?

Thanks in advance.

@j-jericho Man, I love Harry James. Great sound and such smooth chops.

@_mark_ I remember having the same thought when I was early in my trumpet playing, so two things to keep in mind.

1. That's a question that will answer itself for you as you develop proficiency and some of those same things become easier for you.

2. It's like anything else. Go watch video of Mike Trout hitting big league home runs, Tyreek Hill running through the secondary, Steph Curry shooting half-court 3-pointers. They make it look easy. Pros are really, really good.

Don't let that discourage you. You don't need to develop elite world-class abilities for the trumpet playing to become a lot easier for you. Good instruction and practice will do that.

For our edification, can you identify each of them?