Best posts made by ROWUK

Great link! Thanks!

I am certainly NOT for Botox. If a proper doctor has looked at you and there have been ultrasound/CRT/MRT whatever pictures taken to insure that the muscle tissue is properly attached at both sides, I would recommend calling Dave Monette. No, not for a new mouthpiece or trumpet, rather for his advice as a CST/Feldenkrais/yoga practitioner. We screw our bodies up in thousands of small steps and I believe the path back (barring serious physical damage) is also with small steps. I do not believe that "brute force" massages are the solution, although they can sometimes result in temporary relief.
I have helped people back to playing and speaking after strokes, and after an accident that has now resulted in full dentures for me, have also found my way back.
The small steps approach may sound esoteric, but I assure you, it is not.

My take on the piccolo trumpet? It is simply another trumpet. Any instrument needs time to figure out what it can do. That means IF we are interested, we start slowly and build basic skills - then move to more difficult things.

Samurai, you documented a VERY serious weakness in your playing. "I recently borrowed a piccolo trumpet from a friend and tried playing "Bolero" and "Exhibition"."
What did you expect? You claim to have played it well on the C trumpet - do you think that your definition of "well" is the same as mine (serious question). Would the truth be more like "I barely get through with the C but crash with the picc"? I have played first trumpet often enough on Pictures - it is serious work even for professional players.

I use a G trumpet with a big bell for Schmüyle (everything else on the Bb or C depending on the orchestra. He was a skinny, lying, cheating, nervous runt and probably owed Samuel Goldenberg money. That nervousness is not what I associate with the picc. I play the high Bolero part on the D trumpet.

The picc is/was an incredible opportunity for me to earn money on church gigs - supporting even until today, my trumpet collecting.

When I get a new trumpet, I stay in the comfort zone for as long as it takes to get acclimated. With the Bb picc that was high C above the staff. I played easy oboe and recorder chamber music at the beginning. Then came "glorious C and D major baroque trumpet literature". I always warmed up with the big trumpet and finished the practice session with the same. The picc was "embedded" in between. Clarke, Arban - all of the same routines - just up an octave. I do not post about my adventures until I have figured out how things work. I certainly do not assume that anyone is impressed by the "hard music" that I claim to have tried.

So, back to the serious weakness: when we approach something, we need to start slowly. We are creatures of habit and if we jump into the deep end, we usually develop bad habits that are much more difficult to cure later. Thoughtful practice means that we know our strengths and weaknesses and practice to perfect. With THIS attitude, the picc is a project for a month or two before we can start to make music. After that, we simply practice it along with our other instruments and keep balance. It is just another trumpet.

I think that everyone that makes "improvisation" a requirement to be a great trumpeter does not understand what "greatness" truly is!

There are many "strengths" that qualify for greatness. I do not think that Bud Herseth was a lesser trumpeter just because he did not perform combo gigs. I do not think that Miles is greater just because he improvises.

Greatness in my world comes from exceptional performance, preferably over a long time. Exceptional performance very much can be "only" being the solo trumpet in a symphony orchestra - a leader musically and dynamically (Bud Herseth, Bill Vacchiano as two examples). Exceptional performance can also be what Maynard did - keeping a live band afloat in the most difficult of times and inspiring generations of musicians that played in his band. Exceptional performance can be Pops - creating the base for many musical things taken for granted today. Exceptional performance can be Bachs own Gottfried Reiche - who inspired Bach to create some of the most awesome trumpet parts ever written.

I very much do agree that there are many fine but mediocre performances due to the lack of understanding the genre. The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra recently released a Gabrieli recording that is an example of such playing. Great players missing the point - and proving that there are modern groups of musicians that offer the same or less than the Philadelphia/Cleveland/Chicago recording from the 1960s.

I can very much appreciate what "non improvisors" have to make them great. I can also appreciate those dedicated to period style and performance practices (in Jazz, Commercial or classical genres). I do not understand the need to limit the term "great" to artificial requirements submitted by those not anywhere near greatness.

My first action when reviewing a new piece is to determine phrasing and breathing. I enter breath marks, dynamics, slurs and other info (pencil). I ALWAYS prepare this way and practice with everything that I have decided. Only this way does it become habit for me and it relieves my mind during performance of some unnecessary decision making.
There are occasions when I enter notes to take a "small breath". I need this when I have little time further down to exhale before I fill up. The Bach Christmas Oratorio bass aria #8 "Grosser Herr" is an example of this situation. One could also try to muscle through, I just have had better luck through optimization.

A tuner is often the worst thing that we can do to our playing. Drones, Stamp and simple duets (not recording one voice and then the next however - then only one voice "gives" - the second one!) are about the best.
The tuner is almost always wrong except for establishing a one note reference.

There are a couple of internal mechanisms for tuning, none are accessible from the intellectual level.
Drones teach us to relate with sum and difference beats
Stamp teaches to find the resonant center
Duets teach us give and take in the context of ensemble playing.

The consummate trumpeter needs it all. We need thousands of repetitions to claim "habit".

@dr-go The floor as a stand creates the greatest distance and strain for the back. Only recommended in combination with Yoga.

I do not consider scales to be evil or out of place. They are simply part of the low impact repetition toolbox that can give a student patterns for recall in many different contexts. They are an essential part of holistic development in my world. I use them for teaching just about every technical discipline that a trumpeter must develop: time, transposition, intonation, articulation, range. Naturally they are not the "only" things taught. We had a discussion about proportions during practice/ lessons at TrumpetMaster. I remember agreeing with several about approximately 1/3rd body use, 1/3rd technical studies and 1/3rd tunes/repertoire. We discussed the issues surrounding a "too rigid" structure and having the student in clear focus. During periods of high dedication, we the teachers can raise the bar at many levels - if we have a method to even define the bar..

My personal view is that we must feed our internal reward system. Measurable success changes the way that our central nervous system processes stimuli. Mosche Feldenkrais and several Yogis deal with this at an even higher level.

Proper use of scales makes the Haydn, Hummel, Neruda, Tartini, Verdi Requiem, Tschaikowsky 5 certainly "easier".

@Dr-GO No, I have never needed circular breathing to get me through any particular phrase.
Most of my gigs are not sight reading, so I do have time to „feed my dependence“ on organisation and preparation.

When I do sightread (happens with commercial shows that I play), I still use the pencil when looking at the parts before the rehearsal. Potential missed accidentals get marked as well as „special breathing“ or time change situations. During the usual rehearsal, I fill in the rest of the dots.

This is what I do and teach. It is not a recipe for everyone or other situations. It helps to keep those that book me loyal.

@barliman2001 I certainly agree with keeping politics out. The line quickly becomes fuzzy and the opinions are affected by global warming. There is a lot that the "average westerner" or "easterner" does not know and the online"pick your subject matter" experts now have swung over to "eastern Europe" politics - where they have equal brainlessness.
I can only recommend NOT using asocial media as a primary source to build an opinion. Try some real research in history first.

Offering an arrangement for free that applies to a current world "event"/"situation" is admirable in my eyes. Musicians have always supported peace and understanding - unless you were the lead trumpet in the Buddy Rich Big Band...

That all being said, we will be welcoming a refugee family in our home shortly. Civilians deserve the right of pursuit of happiness and bullets make that tough. I hope that they like trumpet instead...

Don't worry about me or my behavior. There are those members that I just will no longer engage. They were difficult at TrumpetMaster and certainly have not improved here. Sometimes I wish that there was a member or theme block feature like on Facebook.

I am not sure that moderating or policing produces different results. The truly technical blogs define moderating as submitting text and after approval of the moderation team, the text is published for others to see. This requires a team to make judgements about everything. Not really suitable for us here.

Moderation can also be moderators interacting with members - publicly or behind the scenes through PM.

Policing is after the fact. The damage is done, but what damage is that (other than members leaving)? Locking threads leaves the content for everyone in the future to read and draw opinions upon. I only wish that there was a solution to make stuff more easily searchable.

I firmly believe that the problem is the sense of "protection" behind a keyboard. Much of what is posted would NEVER be said face to face.

I am in full support of Elmar.

Congratulations!

I have found that range becomes useful when we can integrate it into our "style". We need to know when the leading edge of "higher notes" must be round and fluffy or razor sharp. In the non rehearsal times, play along with any recordings that you have. An acid test would be to use headphones to hear the band and record JUST your playing. Afterwards the warts become very obvious when the band sound does not mask.

Have fun, stay healthy!

Annie,
we are creatures of habit. With your "repaired lip", you have to retrain what your brain expects. That takes a couple of THOUSAND repetitions.

My experience is to use what has worked for you before but under no circumstance stress out. Our brain works on a reward/punishment system and constantly trying to "hit" high notes sends a frustration message - blocking development and increasing doubt.

Without having you in my studio for a lesson, I would recommend only safe stuff:

1. Practice as softly as you can. This promotes fine motor reaction from the lip muscles instead of forcing a six pack build.
2. Overdose on "easy" interval slurs - like from the Adam 27 Lip flexibilities book.
3. avoid all frustrating things - if your upper octave is deficient, work on articulation and stuff in the lower register. Make your playing time positive and productive. Excel at other things!

I am sort of an expert on this because I lost all of my teeth 3 years ago in an accident. I was lucky because there were very few gigs during Covid. I had time to work things out. The road back was full of "back to the basics" and keeping my attitude in the right direction. My upper octave is not complete yet but it is enough for the symphonic work that I do.

@administrator your suspicion is correct. A real slide trombone. The slide is of no big concern. Habits are built through repetitions and I already have enough alto clef material to get started. I have already committed to a concert in April, so I know what is coming.

I am suspicious, because this cleaning only covers half of the valve “system”. The casings need at least an equal amount of TLC. The Dirt/Damage/Distortion that Ivan mentions applies to the whole instrument. Without a deep clean on the valve casings (and the rest of the horn), we have NOT improved the overall situation. Yes, the valves themselves are cleaner with ultrasound.
These small, cheap ultrasound devices are safe for metals - even for extended periods. I have had issues with plastics and eyeglasses.
There is also a necessity to make sure that the valve and casing are bone dry before oiling after cleaning. Oil floats on water and this prevents a proper bond between oil and the metal surfaces

Pedal tones are the fundamental tones based on the length of the trumpet. They correspond to 1 wavelength. The next tone (2 wavelengths) in the partial series is an octave higher - on an open trumpet, low C. 3 wavelengths corresponds to a second line "g". 4 wavelengths is third space C., 5 is E, 6 is g on top of the staff, 7 is Bb above the staff and 8 wavelengths are C above the staff. Notice that every doubling of the wavelength is an octave higher for C 1, 2, 4 and 8. For G 3 and 6.

Most of the time, the pimps simply demonstrate that the owner had no process for picking the right horn in the first place. If they did, generally they can find one that does what its supposed to without any pimp. For instance, they buy a Bach 180 model, but do not like that much "core", so they unbalance the design with a pimp, normally making something worse for every thing that is viewed as "positive".

I can't count how many Bach owners drilled out the throat of their mouthpiece to "fix" something that was not broken - or to compensate for something that was not right instead of fixing it.

There is no time restriction for talent. Any quality can crop up from any country at any time. No one really can plan birth, experience and opportunity. Irrelevant question.

I certainly have no interest in beating this issue up, but those in denial about valve casings are missing the point. When we send a trumpet in for a valve job, what is done? The casing is honed to make each one round again THEN the valve is plated oversized and lapped in. This means that the significant wear was on the casing - not the valve.
For those of us fortunate to play a lot for many years, we realise that even with proper care, valves (even stainless steel)were not necessarily built “for a lifetime of use”. Even although we have no mechanical trouble, the playing qualities deteriorate as the valves become more “leaky”.
I maintain (and do not need 1000 words to defend my stance): the casing, leadpipe and tubes need as much attention as the valve - every clean. The inside of a trumpet is a living organism, regardless if we brush our teeth regularly or not. The aerosols in our breath collect and wander down the instrument. This is what turns the valve oil into sludge that collects eventually on the valve and casing surface. That compromised lubrication allows metal to metal contact (wear) at the high spots and gunk at the low spots. We DO need a professional service at regular intervals IF we are truly interested in the long term playability of our instrument.
The idea of a low power personal ultrasonic device to clean the valves is good and certainly more thorough than just “wiping the valves down”. That does not remove the need for getting the rest of the problem solved however. Not “noticing” something - even over years is not evidence that a strategy is good. It is more a sign of “tolerance” of ever worsening “tolerances”.

I have been watching this thread for a while and was not sure that I even wanted to get involved...

There is a strong tendency to "want to be right" which is OK, but I would ask if the original question was even the correct one. More on this later.

If we talk about cleaning instruments, surely alcohol - in whatever form is just a small piece of the picture. So, I think that this thread has identified the organic contaminants, but is that all that we are after? If Alcohol does not "remove" the contaminants, could it possibly decrease our chances of getting sick with a quick disinfect?

And here is my bitch with this thread - we have all the expert opinions but have ignored the fact that alcohol is NOT a cleaning agent of choice for the home. Water, a surfactant and some brushes are the primary choice to CLEAN the instruments - get the organic material that gunks up the valves, spit valves, promotes corrosion and would need disinfecting in the first place. Once the instruments are clean, they play best. Alcohol can be used as a disinfecting agent AFTER cleaning. Just like corona, or any surgical activity, we ALWAYS scrub first, THEN disinfect.

Now, we could argue that excessive disinfecting actually is a bigger problem than cure in many ways. Our immune system is capable of developing when exposed to small amounts of "contaminants". Kids that play in the mud seem to be healthier than the ones "protected" by overzealous parents. Could we not have a similar situation with the trumpet?

So, now we have enough information to replace "theory" with practical recommendations:

Many of us use excessive oil to "flush" aerosols and contaminants out of the valve block - instead of cleaning. I generally oil once a week. Mouthpiece and leadpipe/tuning slide get CLEANING with water, dishwashing liquid and a brush at least once a week - perhaps more often if we gig A LOT. The whole horn gets a bath/scrub once a month/quarter/year depending on how much it gets played. That is probably enough maintenance for any healthy trumpeter.

I only use alcohol when someone is trying my mouthpieces or I am in a store trying new mouthpieces out. I have NEVER disinfected my trumpet. If I wipe down the outside on my gold plated instruments, glass cleaner seems to be a really good thing.

So, I think that we have to pick our words carefully, otherwise we are just arguing about NOTHING.