Best posts made by trickg

I realize that this is a trumpet board, but Hal Blaine, legendary session drummer and member of the LA Studio group know as "The Wrecking Crew" passed away yesterday at age 90. News reports said it was due to "natural causes." I hope Hal passed peacefully in his sleep.

Hal Blaine tracked drums on the soundtracks of our lives. If you think you've never heard Hal Blaine, think again - he tracked drums on 40 number 1 hits, tracked drums for 150 top 10 hits, and tracked drums for 8 Grammy songs of the year, six years consecutively. At times he was paid 3 and 4 times union scale because he was so in demand as a session player, and he joked that he made his ex-wives rich!

Many people know that Karen Carpenter was also a drummer as well as a singer, but in the studio, it was all Hal.

Check out the link below for a montage of some of the better known tunes were Hal was the session drummer - can't do them all because he played on something like 6,000 sessions. What a life he lived - he was right there, creating the soundtracks of our lives and was instrumental in the evolution of music for 30 or more years.

@Curlydoc said in TrumpetMaster Format:

@administrator How does one “like” a post?

To my knowledge, you click on the little ^ next to where it says "Quote" - that's an upvote of the post.

Another way to think about it is like a vocal tune - sing through the lines and find where you would breathe normally if you were singing lyrics.

Where to breathe, and how long to play on one big breath of air is almost always dictated by the context of what you are playing - not only with tempo, but with phrasing.

In a somewhat related side note, I always find my first couple of rehearsals back in a concert band challenging because as a guy who normally plays rock horn lines, those can be thought of in terms of hits - almost percussive at times - and they are often much shorter phrases than what you typically see in concert band literature. I find myself running out of air a lot on my first couple of concert band rehearsals until I get used to the difference in phrasing and breathing again.

I've been digging this new board lately - some really good stuff on here, and it's cool to see the same screen names and avatars. I don't know who created this board in light of TM's demise, but I see this as sort of the new and improved TM. Let's hope that it becomes a place that newcomers to the world of the online trumpet forum can find and easily learn to navigate.

I don't know why this is, but I have always really enjoyed wristwatches. I think part of it is because of timing - inexpensive digital watches had become very popular about the time I was in middle school, and I saved my money (all of $25) and bought a Lorus 4-button digital watch when I was in 8th grade, mainly because everyone else was getting one, and it was a fun class distraction when someone's watch would chime, and the teacher would take it for the day. (Kind of a no harm, no foul kind of thing.) From that point on, I've always worn a watch, and I feel naked without it.

A couple of years after that I asked my mom for a specific Lorus quartz analog watch, and analog watches have been my thing ever since. I'm currently "accumulating" some new watches and have a couple of lesser cost options on the wish list - I suppose I could save up for something nicer, such as a Tag Heuer, Omega, or something like that,but for now I'm more concerned about wearing something I enjoy looking at rather than the name emblazoned on it.

This is some of what I do have.

This is the Seiko world timer my wife gave me for our 1st anniversary in 1993.

Invicta Pro Diver with Swiss Sellita SW200 movement. (ETA 2824 clone) Basically, it looks a lot like a Rolex Submariner.

Here's the Citizen Eco Drive Perpetual Atomic Chrongraph I got a few years ago - I'm actually wearing it right now. It has a fairly classic look of 3 sub-dials on the dial/face.

I have another chronograph too - another Citizen Eco Drive Brcyen Model with a black dial.

Last, but certainly not least, my Tissot Luxury that I got for Christmas. This one is also self-wind/automatic, and features a laser regulated ETA 2824 movement with an 80 hour power reserve. When I first got this, it was very accurate for a mechanical watch, keeping right around +/- 1-3 seconds/day.

Maynard in his prime was unbelievable - even Bud Herseth once said that Maynard was "the greatest trumpet player." ("...in this part of the century." Not sure when Bud made that quote.) But the point is, Maynard did things with the trumpet that were unparalleled during his prime. The first cut from the "Message from Newport" record is proof of that.

Good stuff! Keep em coming!

Here are a couple I'd like to get eventually - discovered a Japanese watch company called Orient that makes some well made yet cost efficient automatic wrist watches. There was a time when I swore off on automatic watches - my thought was that they can't even come close to keeping as good of time as a quartz watch, but there's something I like about the smooth sweeping second hand and the idea that there's a spring wound mechanical machine in there making it all work. When you consider that for a watch that "beats" 28,800 times per hour, only being 40-80 micro ticks off out of 691,200 per day is pretty amazing when you think about it.

Anyway, here are some of the offerings from Orient that I like:

1.) The Orient Bambino, V2 - cream dial, blue hands.

The Orient Mako USA II

Orient Flight, with blue dial.

Miles Davis at his best.

Another awesome performance by Clapton. (These are classic - I laugh so hard I literally have tears rolling down my face.)

Trumpet or bugle - it doesn't have to be a "bugle" - by default, if you aren't pushing valves on a trumpet it functions as a bugle, so it's not inherently "better" for it to be a real bugle. However, as long as the person doing the bugling doesn't suck, it's ALWAYS better for it to be a real person rather than the digital bugle. Even if the bugler chips a note along the way, at least you've got a real person there performing rather than someone just holding a button on a device that has been known to malfunction.

Where's Louis Armstrong? Bix Beiderbecke? Doc Severinsen? Heck, even Maynard Ferguson?

I've never understood why some people have to try to dump on people who enjoy this show by making sure everyone knows that they've never seen a single episode. Ok, whatever. But with that in mind, rather than try to wear that like a badge of honor, why not at least give it a try? It would be like me proudly proclaiming that I've never heard Bud Herseth play Mahler 5 - not even once, or that I haven't listened to even a single recording of Maynard Ferguson. (Not true - just trying to draw a comparison.)

I can tell you that it's some of the best screen entertainment I've ever seen, and I'm a movie guy - that's kind of my thing. The story-line and plot are wonderful, and the production value is stellar. it's like watching a really well made movie, only they don't have to try to shove all character and plot development into a 2-hour block - they have had 10 episodes per season (for the first six seasons - seasons 7 and 8 were/are shorter) to tell a great story full of twists, triumphs, heartbreaks, frights, action, etc.

The plot-lines and story arcs for the characters are superbly done - the good guys don't always win, and the bad guys don't always lose. Sometimes characters you love will get killed off the show by other characters you wish would die - that's just the way the cookie crumbles. There are others characters who were despicable in season 1, but their story arcs have taken them through redemption and they actually become likable as the seasons progress.

I got into the show because I read the books - those were great by themselves, but IMO HBO has done a great job of bringing those books to the screen.

Definition - Trombone: Human wind powered pitch approximator.

You don't need to have perfect pitch - you only need to be able to hear whether or not a pitch is sharp or flat relative to another pitch.

So here's my lineup:

• Hail Thee, Festival Day - arr Joseph Wilcox Jenkins based on Salve Festa Dies by Ralph Vaughn Williams)
• Festival Alleluia - James Chepponis
• Christ is Our Cornerstone - Philp W. J. Stopford
• Mass For the City (only parts of it) - Richard Proulx
• The Earth Is Risen - Gwyneth Walker
• Jesus Christ is Risen Today - arr Jeremy J. Bankson
• Hallelujah Chorus - Handel

Wow - I'm just now realizing how much music this is. Oh well - I seem to be able to get through it ok.

On a side note, this is for 4-piece brass and tympani with organ (a real, well-maintained pipe organ!) and choir that is mostly made up of students from the Johns Hopkins Peabody Conservatory of Music. I've been paid more to play less, but I always come away from this feeling richer for having been there with these fine people.

I'm playing lead on all of it, so there is that middle section from the Hallelujah Chorus where I'm always wondering if I'm going to make it, but I haven't had an issue with it, so here's hoping that it goes ok on Sunday too.

@Newell-Post said in Notre-Dame de Paris:

The stone vaults have collapsed at the crossing and at various places in the nave and transept. Re-building that is a completely different level of effort than replacing the wood rafters and lead roofing.

But it CAN (and will) be rebuilt - that's the important thing to take away from this, that this world landmark will survive this. Such a horrible, horrible thing, but I was worried yesterday that the fire was going to cause damage that would cause it to collapse entirely.

@Tobylou8 said in need perfect pitch to play trombone ?:
Perfect pitch and $5 will get me a Venti Americano at Starbucks!

Yay - 20 oz of terrible coffee.

It's definitely going to take some getting used to - the format is significantly different than most forums I have been a part of - but that's ok. It's intuitive enough that we should be able to make the transition easily enough.

@Dr-GO said in List of Undergraduate Schools with Well-known Trumpet Programs:

Indiana University. I know Bill Adam (teacher to Chris Botti and Randy Brecker) are no longer there, but their music program still has an amazing reputation.

Joey Tartell is there - among other places, Joey was at one time the lead trumpet player for the US Army Jazz Ambassadors, and he spent some time with Maynard Ferguson's Big Bop Neoveau band. (I think he did his undergrad at UNT)

Johns Hopkins Peabody Conservatory of Music would be another good place if you were looking at playing classical trumpet. I know that some of the private instructors are in the Baltimore Symphony.

I also know a couple of fine players in the premier military bands who went to Oberlin Conservatory.

I think that long tones done correctly can make a big difference, but it takes some real discipline to do them correctly. It's probably the key thing that keeps me from regaining the consistency I had during my technical best on the horn in my early 20s. Back then I took the time to do them and to do them correctly.

Hmmm....might have to try giving it a go the next time I hit the practice room.

Tobylou, unless someone else had the same idea as me, it's quite possible that I created your Batslap avatar.

(EDIT: mine is a touch different than the one you've got.)