Best posts made by tjcombo

@Dr-GO I read your account of dealing with Covid-19 patients with horror. Please stay safe while you do this mighty work.

@ROWUK NZ has the advantage of being one of the most geographically isolated countries in the world. Nonetheless, along with Australia where I live, and I guess most places in the world was faced with an initial steep curve of newly discovered cases of this disease. I visit (using present tense hopefully) NZ a few times a year for work and the Kiwi population seems to have a great team spirit. Support for the incumbent government is evenly divided, but as a nation they pulled together and went hard early with social distancing rules.

In Australia, where we are down to a few new cases a day, our federal government and state premiers (=US Governers) formed a national cabinet and decisions on shutting down were largely carried out on a consensus basis. There is a bit of politicking around reopening particularly where a couple of states closed borders, but by and large we're moving forward. I guess the takeaway from this is that litereally, "disunity is death".

As for the music business, and arts/entertainment in general, the situation is dire. Job support schemes have not applied to people in the transient gig economy, so musicians have been left high and dry. This sector represents about 6% of our GDP, yet as in the rest of the world, has made a massive contribution to keeping the rest of the population from going stir crazy whilst shut in at home. SNAFU?

@Kehaulani, Hope this uploads cleanly. This was found somewhere on the web a while back.

I've since heard several interviews with some great players taught by Bill Adams and from what I remember, students' routines varied according to individual needs, but FWIW, here is one...

@Dr-GO thanks for posting Doc. I remember Leloil posting on TM too - in particular this video of an interesting performance in an amazing outdoor location

Have purchased a dozen or so horns via ebay from the US, shipped to Australia with (touch wood) no problems. USPS has been very reliable.

Direct transactions both single sample only with Hornucopia on a visit to the US and an online purchase from The Horn Trader indicates that they are both good to deal with.

Anyone sick of hosting online meetings/presentations/lessons yet?

Here are a couple of pix of my hammered bell Olds. From what I've read this is not the Military model. Serial number is 27xx which I believe makes it around 1936 vintage.

From the picture, you will see the hammering goes up to about 1/2" from the bell rim. The last bit has a pattern engraved. AFAICT the hammered bell was standard on the military model and available as an option on others - but I'm happy to hear further advice.

Very sad. A remarkable, inspiring person

I've been using The Progressive Warmup by Eric Bolvin (a sometimes inhabitant of TM) for quite a while now. It's supposed to be a 37 week program, but the mix of flow studies, tonguing and slurred exercises is a really great way to start a practice session - you can always try to play them better or sound nicer. $12.95 for a downloaded soft copy is good value.
https://bolvinmusic.com/product/progressive-warm-up/?v=6cc98ba2045f

@ssmith1226 I can't remember the last time a cartoon made me spontaneously laugh out loud like this.
So good when a professional in joke can be shared with we general public

@Niner said
snip >

What do you think about the sound? Think the hammering does anything positive?

I like the sound, but have no idea whether the hammering makes any difference.

On pulling the horn out of its case for a photo-shoot, I oiled the valves and had a play. First thoughts were that it played nicely above the staff (first blow for the day). I then took out my daily player - Olds '47 Super - and it played nicely above the staff too. The Super sounded/felt a little more mellow, but it hasn't had a bath for a few weeks, and a tub and snake brush can make more difference than swapping horns.

This is the only horn that I bought for its beauty and novelty and it fits the bill.

@administrator, same. The flute had to go.

@ButchA thanks for posting Butch. I saw them play at Concord Pavilion last year and they still sound great!

@Doodlin said in My journey starts here . . . .:

. . . although I never was an accomplished player, more like a "Book 2" Essential Elements kinda guy. Did not see a "Beginner" section here. ....

You're expecting trumpet players to self-identify as beginners??

@stumac I noticed that you avoided the question about "any cool horns"

Let's get controversial. Here's my nomination...

I love so much of Sinatra's work and almost by definition he was a "cover artist". OTOH, Jim Croce wrote some great songs and was taken way before his time. Sinatra butchers this great tune. His performance is all style without substance or integrity.

@ROWUK Great to hear that you're back playing and getting decent results. FWIW, my dad who had stopped playing cornet after getting a full top denture was talked into playing euphonium when he starting transporting me to band practice way back when. He used a denture adhesive called Fast Teeth which seemed to work for him. He did use a lot of it. I remember him saying that if he didn't remove and clean the denture straight after rehearsal or a gig, it was a couple of days before he could remove it :-).

@jolter I blame the parents.
Seriously however, it feels uncomfortable watching someone who was may have been playing 3rd trumpet in her high school band. It feels like "kicking down" on a fellow player.

Quite "real looking" at first scan, but there isn't much that reads like the author's analysis/insights on the topics. The pieces look like a last-minute essay done on the basis of Google searches.
I'm curious about the length of the responses - @administrator you asked for 5000 word essays? I only did a WC on the Miles piece and it came in below 500. Maybe you need the paid-for service for more substantial works?