Posts made by SSmith1226

@barliman2001
@Bob-Pixley
@Kehaulani
@Newell-Post

Thanks for the additional input and suggestions.

@GeorgeB
@Dr-GO
@ROWUK

I appreciate everyone’s input and opinion. Before he played his first note we practiced breath control and breathing using the principles of Rowuk’s circle of breath and I correct him as much as possible. Since I see him only intermittently, he is only in the second grade, and his mother ( my daughter ) is not as enthusiastic as I am to see him learn the instrument, there would be next to no practice until such time that I move to his area on a consistent basis, which I believe will be in less than one year. At that time I will find him a qualified teacher and encourage practice together as much as possible as well as on his own. In the meanwhile we both will continue on the 7c.

@Dr-GO
I agree that the 7c is the most common mouthpiece sold, and across the playing population works for many players. For the last six months the 7c has worked best for me.
Size wise my grandson is not in the middle of the bell shaped curve, but is way to the left of center in size, probably a couple of standard deviations below the mean. In comparison my 8 year old grandson is quite a bit smaller than me. Height wise the top of his head hits my elbow. Head and facial size are considerably smaller than mine. Below is a photo showing the difference with me sitting and him standing. He can play a 7c, but I would wonder whether a 10.5c or a 12 might give him better results, making it easier for him to make music like sounds, thus giving him more incentive to maintain his interest. On the other hand, a 7c may be best for his facial and dental structure. It would be interesting to see whether there are elementary school band directors or private teachers on the site that have extensive experience with this age group and see what their opinion is as well.

@Tobylou8
This seems like some type of Russian Collusion!
If you are not careful, this could possibly lead to Trumpet Board impeachment!!!
Seriously, all participants are great musicians and they are both great bands. Leonid and Friends would be great even if Arturo Sandoval wasn’t the Guest Trumpet Soloist. I think I understood the lyrics best on Leonid’s version. Sort of ironic, isn’t it?
Musically, both are excellent, and I can’t say one was better than the other. If I had to vote, I would vote for Chicago on the basis of originality.
Here is a link to an interesting article about Leonid and Friends including reactions from original Chicago Band Members.

http://www.dailynews.com/how-a-group-of-guys-from-moscow-became-an-internationally-renowned-chicago-tribute-band

I have an 8 year old grandson, average in size, and in the second grade. He has shown an interest in learning to play the trumpet. Thus far he has used a 7c mouthpiece, which is the smallest I have. In the sessions we have done together his comfortable range centers around low C and goes as high on a few occasions as middle G. Is there an ideal average size mouthpiece for a child of this age to start on?

@ButchA said in SEASON'S GREETINGS:

Here's a hilarious You Tube video I made once I plugged into the amp and started reading the owners manual. It's a BOSS KATANA ARTIST 1x12 massive 100 watt amp!

Warning: The last few amp settings are not for the faint of heart. You'll hear some vicious heavy metal guitar tones!

Now, that’s a “saving grace” type of mouthpiece!!! Does it come in 7c, and where can you get one?

A man was walking down the street when he was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless man who asked him for a couple of dollars for dinner.
The man took out his wallet, extracted ten dollars and asked: “If I give you this money, will you buy some beer with it instead of dinner?”
“No, I had to stop drinking years ago,” the homeless man replied.

“Will you use it to go fishing instead of buying food?” the man asked.
“No, I don’t waste time fishing,” the homeless man said. “I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive.”
“Will you spend this on greens fees at a golf course instead of food?” the man asked.
“Are you nuts!” replied the homeless man. “I haven’t played golf in 20 years!”

“Will you spend the money on a woman in the red light district instead of food?” the man asked.
“What disease would I get for ten lousy bucks?” exclaimed the homeless man.
“Well,” said the man, “I’m not going to give you the money. Instead, I’m going to take you home for a terrific dinner cooked by my wife.”
The homeless man was astounded. “Won’t your wife be furious with you for doing that? I know I’m dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting.”

The man replied: “That’s okay. It’s important for her to see what a man looks like after he has given up beer, fishing, golf and sex.”

@barliman2001

The background of this song is very interesting. The Artist, Los Angeles born jazz pianist, ”Scatman John“ ( John Paul Larkin), became very popular in the UK, Europe and Japan. This recording was a number one hit in Germany, where he lived in the 1990s. I have to admit that before your post, I never heard of him, or this song. John Larkin had one problem that makes this performance incredible. He had a terrible stuttering issue.
“For the rest of the Story”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scatman_John

Another old Christmas Joke, but worth repeating:

One Christmas Eve, a frenzied young man ran into a pet shop looking for an unusual Christmas gift for his wife. The shop owner suggested a parrot, named Chet, which could sing Christmas carols. This seemed like the perfect gift.
“How do I get him to sing?” the young man asked excitedly.
“Simply hold a lighted match directly under his feet,” was the shop owner’s reply.
The young man was so impressed that he paid the shop-keeper and ran home as quickly as he could with Chet under his arm. When the wife saw her gift she was overwhelmed.
“How beautiful!” she exclaimed. “Can he talk?”

“No,” the young man replied, “but he can sing. Let me show you.”
So the young man whipped out his lighter and placed it under Chet’s left foot, as the shop-keeper had shown him, and Chet crooned: “Jingle Bells! Jingle bells!”
The man then moved the lighter to Chet’s right foot, and out came: “Silent Night, Holy night.”

The wife, her face filled with curiosity, then asked: “What if we hold the lighter between his legs?”
The man did not know. “Let’s try it,” he answered, eager to please his wife. So they held the lighter between Chet’s legs.
Chet twisted his face, cleared his throat, and the little parrot sang out loudly like it was the performance of his life: “Chet’s nuts roasting on an open fire…”

Another one from Longineu Parsons II:

A man and an ostrich walk into a restaurant. The waitress asks: “What will it be?”
The man replies: “A burger and a coke.”
“And you?”
“I’ll have the same,” the ostrich replies. They finish their meal and pay.
“That will be $4.50,” the waitress says. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out the exact amount. They continue this every day for a week. On the last day the two come in once more.
“The usual?” the waitress asks.
“No, today is Friday. I’ll have steak and a coke.”

“Me too,” says the ostrich. They finish and pay.
“That will be $10.95.”
The man reaches in and pulls out the exact amount again just like all week.
The waitress is dumb-founded. “How is it that you always have the exact amount?”

“Well,” says the man. “I was cleaning my attic and I found a dusty lamp. I rubbed it and a genie appeared. I asked that when I needed to pay for something, the exact amount would appear in my pocket.”
“Amazing! Most people would ask for a million dollars. But what’s with the ostrich?”
“Well,” said the man. “I also asked for a chick with long legs.”

I am always amazed at the amount of talent that is out there that I haven’t heard of before. I saw this article on line from the “Tallahassee Democrat” about Longineu Parsons II. He is a 69 year old trumpet player and professor from Florida A&M. Below are two examples of his playing. Another great talent flying below my radar!

Longineu Parsons keeps body in tune to deliver trumpet's message
AMANDA SIERADZKI | COUNCIL ON CULTURE & ARTS
6:35 p.m. EST Dec. 21, 2019
With every breath, internationally celebrated musician, Longineu Parsons II is practicing. He plays alongside his students as a music professor at Florida A&M University to stay sharp and merges art forms together with his “Kung Fu Trumpet” method to create ease in the body.

Parsons describes the air from the lower abdomen, referred to as the “sea of life” in Korean practices, moving up the esophagus and through the mouth to facilitate a clear airstream. The body remains as straight as possible and breath must be controlled. Parsons also works with his students on activating the correct facial muscles and keeping the throat open so that a punchy note is “relaxed until you get to the point of contact.”
“It is about being precise and only using the muscles you need to use,” says Parsons. “If you are not relaxed your opponent can seize on your tension and defeat you. If you are tense in your trumpet playing, it chokes off the sound.”
Sometimes the subtleties of trumpet playing can be lost in larger venues. Parsons is excited to showcase the instrument’s range in an intimate performance at Blue Tavern on Friday, Dec. 27.

He will play alongside his son and drummer, Longineu Parsons III. The duo played their first gig together when his son was just 5 years old. Parsons said his son earned a spot in his band at age 15 before launching his own career with the rock band, Yellowcard. Now, they are making new music together.
Parsons is also looking forward to having his youngest son, a videographer and graphic artist, film the performance for an upcoming documentary on his life and teaching methods. Parsons explains how his martial arts approach to music has sustained his own practice for so long, in addition to swimming and integrating yoga, which has him physically training until midnight many nights.

“I make sure I am in tune and connected to the instrument so that it is truly my body making the music and my instrument is more or less an amplifier,” says Parsons.
Parsons never contemplated why he chose the trumpet. It was simply his automatic response when his junior high band director asked what he would like to play. Only in retrospect and after much reflection on the trumpet’s sound and history has he realized the instrument’s parallels to his life and personality.

Parsons explains how the trumpet was the instrument of kings and generals. It gave orders on the battlefield before the existence of the two-way radio. It announced ranks in the royal court and alerted walled cities of visitors.
In 1966, Parsons made similar waves by integrating a high school in Jacksonville. He continued to break sonic and social barriers in his career, performing for dignitaries, celebrities and audiences in more than 30 countries and standing alongside a number of jazz music figureheads. The trumpet has accompanied his every experience, no matter the adversity he has faced or chances he has been given in life.
Though he has played for royalty, he says by his most memorable performance was for a fifth grade class at the Goodwood Museum & Gardens. It moved him to tears to see them come together and dance to his idol Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World.”
“I realized that this whole struggle that I had been a part of in my life…well here’s a victory,” recalls Parsons. “My life is about showing the universality of being human by playing music from different cultures and times. These differences we have as people are opportunities for learning not reasons to fight, and the trumpet is good to shout that out.”

Parsons was mentored by notable jazz trumpeter Nat Adderley and spent his life as a “perpetual student.” He holds a BS degree in music from Florida A&M University, a master of music in classical trumpet from the University of Florida, and recently was awarded his doctorate in classical composition from the University of Florida. When his students ask what he learned from playing with jazz greats like Cab Calloway, Parsons always says it was what he observed these musicians accomplish every night.
“We would have to wheel [Cab] up to the stage and he would get out of the chair, stand straight up and put on a show for 40 minutes, go back off to the side and sit back in the wheelchair,” remembers Parsons. “But for those 40 minutes, it was no excuses. Every night he was on top of his game as an 80 year old man. When it is time for the show to go on, it is time for the show to go on.”
The music Parsons composes and plays crosses the genres of classical, jazz and world music. His jazz thematic material is composed in the vein of his classical heroes like Bartok and Shostakovich, bringing string quartets and trumpets together. Out of all the new music Parsons will release this year, he feels vindicated to also be earning recognition from critics for a re-release of his first album, “Work Song.”
Parsons says listeners at Blue Tavern will be treated to music from many decades, including his self-reflective newer work which he hopes will answer the question, “Who am I?” as it brings about his life’s various influences.
“We always have to be in these little boxes, but I don’t fit in the box of academic or performer, classical player or jazz player,” says Parsons. “Why should I restrict myself to one certain thing? As a human being I am not restricted like that, so why should my music be?”

A woman in Birmingham calls her daughter in New York a day before Christmas Eve and says: “I hate to ruin your day but I have to tell you that your father and I are divorcing. Forty-five years of misery is enough.”
“Mom, what are you talking about?” the daughter screams.
“We can’t stand the sight of each other any longer,” the mother says. “We’re sick of each other and I’m sick of talking about this, so can you call your brother in Los Angeles and tell him.”
Frantically, the sister calls her brother who explodes on the phone. “Like hell they’re getting divorced!” he shouts. “I’ll take care of this!”

He calls Birmingham immediately and says to his mother: “You are NOT getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there.”
“I’m calling my sister back, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?” and hangs up.
The woman hangs up his phone and turns to her husband.
“Problem Solved! They’re coming for Christmas – and they’re paying their own way.”

@Comeback
Your post brings back warm memories of my youth where my Mitchel 300 was my favorite go to reel whether it was for fresh water Blue Gills or salt water Bluefish. I have owned fishing equipment of every imaginable configuration in my time. I even had a charter fishing boat in the Florida Keys for 12 years. In spite of this, if to this day if I had to own one reel, it would be the Mitchel 300.
I also have a respectable Trumpet / Cornet / Flugelhorn etc. collection. Today, if it came down to limiting it to one instrument, it would be my High School Mt. Vernon Bach. For me, overall, it plays far better than most of my other horns.

@Kehaulani
I understand how you feel about fishing. For many decades I have tried to limit myself to “catch snd release” fishing with the exception of when appropriate, keeping enough fish for one meal. Any non plant based foods that we eat with the exception of dairy, unfortunately suffer a similarly unpleasant demise. I have never been a hunter, and I would have similar emotions that you had with fishing, if I hunted. In my case, I guess I bury my head in the sand, although for short periods of my life I tried plant based living. It wasn’t bad. It just was not practical.

An old one but good:

Two old guys, Abe and Sol, are sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons and talking about baseball, like they do every day. Abe turns to Sol and says: “Do you think there’s baseball in heaven?”
Sol thinks about it for a minute and replies: “I don’t know. But let’s make a deal – if I die first, I’ll come back and tell you if there’s baseball in heaven, and if you die first, you do the same.”
They shake on it and sadly, a few months later, poor Abe passes on.
One day soon afterward, Sol is sitting there feeding the pigeons by himself when he hears a voice whisper: “Sol… Sol…”

Sol responds: “Abe! Is that you?”
“Yes it is, Sol,” whispers Abe’s ghost.
Sol, still amazed, asks: “So, is there baseball in heaven?”
“Well,” says Abe, “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Give me the good news first,” says Sol.
Abe says: “Well, there is baseball in heaven.”
Sol says: “That’s great! What news could be bad enough to ruin that!?”
Abe replies: “You’re pitching on Friday.”

A man was walking down the beach when he noticed a cave. He walked in and looked around only to discover a magic lamp buried in the sand.

He rubbed it and a genie came out and said: ” You may have three wishes but you must know that whatever you wish for, your boss will get double.”
The man agreed and said: “I want a million dollars.”
Bang! He got it and immediately his boss received two million.
Next he said: “I want a Ferrari.”

And so just like that, he got one and his boss got two. Next, being his last wish, he took a minute and thought about it carefully.
Finally he said: “Well I’ve always wanted to give a kidney.”

@barliman2001
I figured that they made it custom for him since it was not an option on their web site and he was one of their “Artists”.