Posts made by Trumpetb

You need to beware of swapping parts such as valve top caps.

Older instruments were built by hand and each part of the structure of the valve was hand fitted to each other and were unique to the original valve they were fitted to.

Buttons, top caps, stems, valve guides, springs, and the valve body itself, could each vary in size and while they work flawlessly when in their original hand fitted position swapping for example the stem from valve one to valve two could result in one or both the valves binding with the cause not being apparent.

All parts might measure as being identical but these are often close tolerance parts and can easily bind with each other requiring the hand fitting of each part.

Swapping the top cap from valve one to valve two or valve three could also result in the valves binding.

Only the original position at manufacture of each part of each valve will be the correct position.

I have experienced this issue where an old instrument had binding valves there was no fix for this until I swapped valve stems and valve top caps around and found the original manufactured assembly positions.

We dont know if a player many years ago when cleaning the instrument, disassembled all the parts and did not pay attention to which part belonged to which valve.

Why would we believe this is important in a modern age where all small parts are made by machine to be identical and do not have to be hand fitted to each other for them to work correctly together.

Once I had found the correct original assembly positions of valve caps and valve stems on this problematic instrument the valves worked perfectly and flawlessly.

This is the major improvement that has been given to us by modern precision manufacturing techniques.

Any instrument older than 1970 or thereabouts might suffer this problem.

Any instrument earlier than 1950 almost certainly would have each individual part hand machined hand lapped and hand assembled.

Scavenging parts from other instruments probably will be fine but this cannot be guaranteed.

My own feeling is this

If you wait until working the valves tells you they need oil, that means the valves are scraping.

The damage has already been done.

I oil too much.

Some people talk of how much oil they use per day. Like one drop per day.

So if you play for 30 minutes you use 1 drop, if you play for 12 hours do you still only use 1 drop.

This makes no sense.

I oil before I play then after an hour I oil again I might oil again if I play a third hour.

Oil stops valves scraping the valve block and wearing the block out.

I do not wish to turn my instrument into junk so I use a lot of oil. My valves never wear out.

I have a Besson that is 100 years old, it has the original copper valves which were fitted to the instrument in 1924, they should have worn out decades ago, but the valves are great and they are as tight as any I have played including a Yamaha.

The lesson is clear, over oil if you want your valves to last 100 years, under oil if you want them to only last 5 minutes.

I would not write it off

I have found the worst instrument can play wonderfully and sound professional with the right mouthpiece and the right player who plays in the right way.

Our tones are malleable if we are capable of it.

Even the cheapest Chinese knockoff wall hanger can sound beautiful and play well in the hands of the right player with the right mouthpiece.

Even the very best professional instrument can be condemned as worthless in the hands of the wrong player.

Our job is to adapt and conform to the instrument we use. It is not to spend our time seeking the one and only instrument that we can play well.

We are in control of our embouchure we are in control of our air support we are in control of our chops we are in control of our mouthpiece choice.

There is not one embouchure there is not one mouthpiece there is not one instrument there is not one approach to playing.

I would take this instrument and play it professionally in a heartbeat without even having held one. I hold Conn in such high regard

I once handed a cheap Chinese instrument to an older gigging professional, this instrument had been condemned as incapable of playing in tune or even playing well. I found no problem with it.

He handed it back after wowing an audience and receiving standing ovations with this supposed piece of chinese sh1t saying to do not ever sell this instrument.

It had the right mouthpiece and it was played by the right player, and it sounded fabulous.

Often it is the valves that let an instrument down, the valves are the heart of the instrument.

In my experience conn valves are among the finest valves.

Valves are let down by poor maintenance.

All of my instruments have great valves and they are all between 65 and 100 years old.

Maintain the valves well clean the instrument use the right mouthpiece adapt to the instrument, and it will repay you a thousand fold for your efforts.

When a player points a finger at an instrument and says that is crap, he or she is pointing three fingers back at themselves.

We have no connection and we have every connection.

We are distracted by our differences and attracted by our similarities

I see one similarity common to all

We strive for excellence in what we do and we strive to be the best we can be

I am here because my friends and we here are all friends, tolerate me and offer me guidance and a community spirit second to none.

Yes we might disagree but that is driven by the desire to help each other.

Welcome to a wonderful place full of wonderful people

Long may it prosper

To answer this you need to see a good teacher.

Analysis over the internet can lead in only one direction uncertainty and confusion.

Your tone is better with your mouthpiece pointing down, but what does that mean.

Is your embouchure solid, do you have good air support, do you have good range, do you have good flexibility.

Be led by your tone, All we have is our tone. but bad habits are easy to pick up and difficult to overcome. consult a good teacher.

Also what is your aspiration and goal.

To be the best orchestral or commercial player in which case working on technique is paramount.

To simply play well for your own enjoyment does not require perfect technique. It requires good solid beautiful tone.

The great Uan Rasey said when you play your tones make them as beautiful as humanly possible.

It sounds like you are following his advice already.

In case I have not said it before, consult a good teacher and he or she will review your playing and settle this question.

Word to the wise

On a conn of this quality and this age I would pay attention to protecting the lead pipe from red rot.

I dont think this instrument is suffering from this ailment at the moment but conns are susceptible to it.

Regularly running oil down the leadpipe and regular cleaning and maintenance of this part of the instrument should keep this instrument in tip top condition and playing wonderfully for many decades to come.

These adjustable rings came into favour on instruments that students would use.

They were generally missing on professional standard horns.

The reason for their existence was that as the student grows into adulthood the smaller child sized hands grow in size and the fingers reach further. A fixed ring can then be awkward for the student.

Students need the ring position to be conveniently adjustable and the adjustable ring allows this.

The adjustment to the ring position can be made easily so that the ring is always a comfortable distance from the valve block for the player no matter how large their hands and how long their fingers.

When they finish growing a fixed ring becomes convenient.

The Lyre holder is a different thing altogether.

Typically I see Lyre holders fitted as standard on cornets and not fitted at all on trumpets. The marching instrument was typically a cornet in Europe.

Trumpet players of course also marched with trumpets and to facilitate fitting a Lyre to a trumpet a Lyre with a clamp was developed. The Lyre then could be fitted onto any convenient tube.

I have always found that the clamp on the adjustable finger ring would loosen at inconvenient times so the fixed ring makes a lot of sense for a serious player.

On the other hand many players dont like or use the ring to adjust intonation.

Looking at images of players like Miles Davis I see that on some images he reversed the position of the ring so that the ring was positioned way beyond reach of his fingers. This got rid of it entirely during that session.

Some players inverted the third slide when the legs on the third slide were the of equal length so that the ring hung beneath the slide. An example of an instrument that allows this is the Olds Ambassador which has legs of equal length and an adjustable ring. This instrument allows three options for getting rid of the ring entirely.
1 is to keep the adjustable ring but reverse it so the ring is extended completely beyond the slide
2 is to remove it and leave it in the case.
3 is to invert the third slide so the ring is under the slide.

Some instruments of course were narrow wrap instruments which were built with ring hanging down.

The narrow wrap Selmer with underslung ring that Sachmo played which I believe was one of the Selmer Paris Grand Prix models was an example of this as is the Conn 58B.

This is what I have seen.

@barliman2001 Love it

Dreams are often in a different place to where we think they are.

Columbus had a dream and it was not where he thought it would be. The result of his folly was the discovery of the New World and the Mayflower.

We are chained to our aspirations we are fenced in by our expectations we are restricted by our desires.

I have never limited myself to whatever I am expected to achieve and because of this I have exceeded my own limited expectations.

I was condemned at school for being a dreamer. I believe it was the best part of me. I have excelled and exceeded in all things because of my dreams.

The founding fathers dreamed of a place where they could be whatever they wanted to be.

President Lincoln dreamed of freeing the Nation of the scourge of Slavery.

Dr Martin Luther King dreamed of a nation who would collectively judge a man not by the colour of his skin but the content of his soul.

President Kennedy gave the Nation a dream and the moon landings were the result.

The result of Dr Kings dream was the election of President Obama.

The world is not perfect and we are not perfect beings but all we need is our dreams and the courage to act upon them and we can make the world a better place.

The very best things we have are our dreams. They take us if we have the courage to follow them, beyond our feeble existence into a world of beauty and new capabilities beyond our wildest imagining.

Long may they continue.

No high temps here

This was a difference of opinion between two members who respect each other, and both stand by their opinions

@ROWUK

I am surprised at what has transpired here.

It makes good sense to change the mouthpiece when you hit a difficulty, just to see if that change helps to reduce the issue.

If it does not help, then where is the harm. A few seconds lost is all.

A mouthpiece can undoubtedly affect articulation and tone across the registers.

Trying a different mouthpiece is a healthy exploration for any player who experiences difficulties in their playing and it should not be denied them.

The high G# is known to be elusive. That is partly due to the design of the trumpet and the principles of acoustics.

Some mouthpieces may make that pitch more elusive to hit. Other mouthpieces might make it easier to hit that pitch.

I will for once state my position technically.

We must play each pitch correctly, and hit every pitch correctly centred, or we might miss the pitch on elusive notes. Not centering each and every pitch correctly leads to reliance upon the instrument to centre the pitch for you.

And that reliance leads to the exact problem the OP is experiencing.

This is in my opinion why so many players find the committee difficult to play. They do not centre their pitches correctly and robustly and they find the instrument to be slippery and difficult to control. This also leads to missing the high G#.

You have to play each pitch correctly and nail each pitch absolutely centred.

A mouthpiece change might assist in nailing the pitches by helping you pull them all to centre.

But the right way to play is to nail all your pitches strongly centred.

I call that Making the note. Make each note centred.

That is not the same as sliding into pitches in a jazzy manner.

I have experienced mouthpieces that assist in strongly centering pitches and I have experienced mouthpieces that do not assist in strongly centering pitches.

If your instrument centres strongly you can easily fall into the habit of letting it do the centering for you, and the high G# then becomes elusive because you are not playing the note centred.

The instrument is then playing you not the other way round. You should be playing the instrument not the other way round.

In my view this is critically important.

And why would a mouthpiece that works against the player centering notes, not make the high G# even more difficult to nail than it should.

Do not tell me that the experiences I have had and the successes I have had, are worthless.

I expect now to be nailed to the wall for telling people how to play the instrument even though I do already know how to play it and I know how to play the high G# without any issues.

I have said this many times over the last 15 years. Either you are in control of your instrument or your instrument is in control of you.

That is the top and bottom of the problem, and the core of the issue here.

The mouthpiece is important, the instrument is important, the chops are important, the mind of the player is important.

They are ALL important.

@ROWUK

I do have a large amount of experience and I have seen the profound difference that changing a mouthpiece can have.

I do not dispute at all that a player with monster chops can play anything from low register to the highest register with ease.

Unfortunately I am not one of these players. I therefore rely upon the mouthpiece to assist me in playing the notes I can reach in my range.

I fully accept the criticism that my chops are of low to medium strength.

On the other hand the meaning I seem to be gathering from your posts is that everyone has monster chops and mouthpiece changes wont help them at all. I would disagree with that if that is what you are saying.

You say that many in here could be hurt by my encouraging them to check out their mouthpiece choice.

It seems to me that they would be hurt more by forcing them to persevere with a bad mouthpiece and waste many years of their lives coping with bad equipment.

Do you know what trumpet the OP was playing on, do you know what mouthpiece the OP was using. Isnt it important to know that their equipment is good and functioning correctly before blaming the player.

Lets talk turkey. I have seen players using equipment so damaged that it was very difficult for them to play well.

It might take 20 years hard work to overcome equipment faults that are very severe. Or it might take just 2 minutes if they just swap the equipment for good equipment that works correctly.

I also seem to be seeing in your posts an assertion that all mouthpieces are fabulous, and no mouthpiece can affect a player badly.

If this is the case why do you not play on a cheap 3 dollar mouthpiece from India or from China.

Could it be that your monette mouthpiece plays more evenly through the ranges than the 3 dollar trashy item from AliExpress.

And if the monette plays more evenly through the ranges that must mean that other mouthpieces do not play evenly through the ranges.

And one last thing. Why are you so opposed to a player simply trying a different mouthpiece.

It costs nothing will give an instant answer. Then you know.

Or let us argue for weeks on whether or not we should pop a different mouthpiece in, and all we would lose is 15 seconds doing that.

You can lose weeks or months arguing about whether to try it, or you can lose 15 seconds trying it out.

If a player says a different mouthpiece cannot possibly improve their playing, my reaction is have you tried it or are you just talking.

And if they say oh no I would never under any circumstances try a different mouthpiece I would say ok no problem you do you.

Is it really blasphemy to say your mouthpiece might be holding you back.

I am willing to say that, and be condemned as an evil man for suggesting that some mouthpieces might be better than others.

When I recently passed an Olds Special to a friend who played on a 7c, I offered two 7c mouthpieces with it. An Olds 7c and a 7c by another manufacturer.

He tried both and found the Olds 7c played better. Are you saying it could not possibly have played better.

He was not a fabulous player with cast iron chops, and he found one of the mouthpieces to perform better than the other. Both were 7c and one suited him and his instrument better.

Is there something wrong with this.

I believe it is folly to claim that a mouthpiece change cannot affect playing. The entire mouthpiece industry is based upon the fact that a mouthpiece change can affect playing.

So what are we arguing about.

I say, find the best mouthpiece for your instrument, and your reaction is to say NO!

Can you make this make sense. I am all ears.

If it were me I would spend 15 seconds slamming a different mouthpiece in that I thought might improve things, and find out the truth there and then, and then move on. Job done.

But then I am a pragmatic guy and I just do stuff.

There is an approach to not getting things done called Paralysis through analysis.

Too many people spend months or years analysing things by research and it wastes their time.

They might spend months analysing everything to decide if they should try a different mouthpiece when all it takes is 15 seconds to try it.

No discussions or research or reports or investigation or polling the opinions of specialists or experts are needed. Just try it.

This is the core of the issue.

If a student cannot play as well as they would like, and the problem is the mouthpiece is wrong or bad. One approach would be to spend a couple of years on lessons in the belief that the equipment must be fine.

At the end of that couple of years they might play better or they might not.

Or

They change the equipment and if the equipment now functions better they have saved themselves 2 years.

That is 2 years they can now spend on improvement and not on coping with bad equipment.

Do we want to waste students time or solve their problems.

Over to you

@ROWUK I feel you misunderstand me.

I have 24 mouthpieces, that is correct, but I dont recall suggesting that constantly switching is a good habit.

My approach to playing is to understand how mouthpieces affect instruments, then zero in on the best mouthpiece fit for the instrument and the embouchure and then stick with it.

If something goes wrong when you change your instrument, then dont stay with the mouthpiece that used to work on that other instrument. That was a different instrument. Begin with that mouthpiece by all means, but be open to trying others.

If you change your style of play for example, then a mouthpiece change might assist with playing that new style.

You said yourself that you have changed mouthpiece several times.

I dont see how a player can use just one mouthpiece for 30 years unless they were playing the same style of music that requires one set of timbres.

A large bowl delivers dark and rich tones
A small shallow bowl delivers bright tones.

That is physics you cant fight physics.

If you want to play brightly then you are fighting the setup if you use a huge mouthpiece.

If you want to play richly and darkly then you are fighting the setup if you use a tiny mouthpiece.

If you are fighting your instrument constantly then you wont get the best from it or yourself.

Of course the very best players in the world like Arturo Sandoval can play anything on anything, but I am not Arturo.

We are trying to help players like ourselves play as well as they can and hopefully we can offer real world solutions to real world problems.

My advice is this.

If you experience a problem you cannot fix, then be willing to try a different mouthpiece.

@ROWUK I totally agree.

However when something hits us in the face and opposes the usual and published knowledge we are forced to question its validity.

Let me give an example pertinent to our discussion.

I have several instruments and around 24 mouthpieces consequently I have not tried every mouthpiece in every instrument.

One particular day I was using an Olds trumpet, and I swapped my usual mouthpiece for one I had not tried on this instrument before. A yamaha.

Prior to the swap the instruments articulation was precise and predictable. I found it easy to centre each note and therefore playing was a pleasure.

After the change to the yamaha mouthpiece the instrument was immediately very slippery in articulation, notes were not centering and it drove me mad.

I blamed myself. With a lot of effort I was able to control the instrument but it was still an effort to centre the notes.

I then considered the issue. The only change had been the mouthpiece.

So I changed it back. Immediately all problems went away notes centred easily playing was a joy.

I swapped the yamaha mouthpiece back in. Instant disaster slippery articulation and notes not centering.

I put the yamaha mouthpiece away and never had the problem again.

Convention says a mouthpiece change does not affect articulation much at all and certainly not to that degree. A mouthpiece change typically does not make an instrument a nightmare to play.

Experience shows that simply to be untrue. IN SOME VERY RARE CASES.

I have used that same yamaha mouthpiece on several instruments without any difficulties at all.

Simply put that mouthpiece on that instrument just does not follow convention.

Slippery articulation can be very desirable of course, but it can cause issues.

I have used that instrument with many other mouthpieces without any difficulties at all.

But

Put those two together and you get nightmare articulation.

This is a very unusual circumstance that I have only seen this once and I repeat my earlier statement that a mouthpiece change can affect articulation.

I do agree with you that we stand on the knowledge of far smarter people than we are who have worked out what happens.

But my position is that while this common wisdom applies to 99.9999999% of cases. It does not apply to 100% of cases.

If it did apply to 100% of cases I would not have experienced catastrophic issues when I changed that mouthpiece.

Some equipment simply and inexplicably behaves contrary to common wisdom.

We as professionals must accept this. We cannot say everything will always work in exactly the same way.

Some things just dont work and unpopular as that appears to be it is a truth we must accept.

The fact is some instruments do not follow convention and some instrument/mouthpiece combinations simply do not work well together.

And if you are unlucky enough to have a combination that does not work well together then you should find that out instead of blaming yourself and going on a crusade to play better that might last 10 years and be ultimately pointless because the equipment carries a major issue.

If you have to fight your equipment maybe just maybe the equipment is at fault.

And what does it cost to change a mouthpiece 15 seconds of effort.

Or borrow one.

It takes no effort to change a mouthpiece.

Find out if the mouthpiece is contributing to the issue, so change it.

I want to add something ROWUK our discussion in no way alters my respect for you as a teacher and authority on everything trumpet.

No man or woman can know everything. If you havent seen the devastating affect a bad mouthpiece/trumpet combination can have you would not know such a problem can exist.

And perhaps a poor mouthpiece/trumpet combination can affect the articulation subtly and badly and maybe this issue is more widespread than it appears to be and maybe it has gone unnoticed for a very long time.

Playing the trumpet is an art not a science.

Like Vincent Van Gogh or Monet or Michaelangelo or Turner, we have to find a way of doing what we want to do, we have to find a way of creating the thing we want to create.

It is like a painter using his brushes canvas and paint in whatever way allows the artist to create what they want to represent.

Our Tools are trumpet and mouthpiece, and that thing that lies behind our eyes and between our ears.

We have to be creative and find a way of achieving what we want to and need to achieve.

All we have is our sound and whatever we can do to create that sound.

Bix Beiderbecke worked out his own way of playing what he wanted to play using alternate fingerings and alternate ways of playing.

It does not matter what we do to achieve what we create, all that matters is what we have created in the doing of it.

Why should it be valves 1 and 2, why can it not be valve 3 alone.

why is it considered G sharp and not A flat

Our task is to find a way to achieve our goal.

This is the key to advanced playing, to abandon the conventions that are so often imposed upon students.

Students need these conventions of course but Students can be strangled by rigid methods and this can lead to preventing progress.

Embrace the freedom to explore and find a better way to achieve our goals.

A problem is both something to overcome but it is also an opportunity to do something new.

And in the finding of and doing of that new thing to solve a problem we have, now lies the opportunity to open a new chapter in our playing.

All that matters is our sound.

Find a way.

I respect you ROWUK however my experience tells me something different.

There are many very similar mouthpieces that look to be exactly the same and have the same numbering in the numbering convention.

The difference often comes down to one mouthpiece allowing easier access to notes in the range and another supposedly exactly the same size makes it hard work to achieve good tone. And the harder we have to work the more prone we are experiencing difficulties.

I have played several 7c mouthpieces and each one had a different effect on my playing.

The main difference between them being the backbore the bowl shape and the throat size.

Are you honestly suggesting that a 7c with a shallower cup and a small throat plays identically to a 7c with a deeper cup and larger throat,

I am saying that different mouthpieces have a different effect on the player and the players ability to play well throughout his or her range.

And changing a mouthpiece from a c cup to a vee cup can change the response of the instrument.

If the player is having difficulty reaching a note in the range changing to a mouthpiece that suits them better can alleviate some of their problems.

Are you suggesting that Jens Lindemann doesnt know what he is talking about when he says that players often are using the wrong mouthpiece.

If players can play on the wrong mouthpiece then that means they can play on the right mouthpiece.

I personally agree with Jens and I believe that a mouthpiece makes a huge difference to playing and if a player is having problems then they should pay at least some attention to the mouthpiece they play on.

If the mouthpiece doesnt matter then lets all play on a 1c. If the mouthpiece does matter lets find out which suits us best.

When you say "our range does not change much with mouthpiece" doesnt that mean our range does change with mouthpiece.

And if the mouthpiece you play on doesnt matter why do you play on a monette.

And it appears monette agrees with me when they say "By using Monette mouthpieces with a more open, aligned, and neutral physical approach, your instrument can be played more consistently on its 'sweet spot,' resulting in a more resonant sound and improved response, range, and endurance".

So according to monette the monette mouthpiece gives a player more consistency more resonant sound and improved response improved range and improved endurance.

Or does Dave Monette not know what he is talking about.

We cannot have it all ways up either the mouthpiece is important or it is not, and both Jens Lindemann and Dave Monette say the mouthpiece is important for good playing. So I say look at the mouthpiece and address any issues there.

Im going to add something.

No mention has been made of the mouthpiece.

Thats a bit like saying I cant perform well in a race in my car and then everyone mentions the improving the engine and the transmission but nobody mentions the steering and the suspension.

The contribution Bugatti made to racing and the reason his cars won almost everything even though they were underpowered was because he treated a car as a wholistic system and addressed all elements of suspension steering brakes and power. He got the balance of everything right and his products kicked A$$

My belief is the embouchure, the mouthpiece and the instrument all form a system that delivers results when all are working correctly together.

I find that many issues are created for the player simply by choosing the wrong mouthpiece and many issues evaporate with nothing more than a simple mouthpiece change.

I am not saying this is where the issue lies but it sure is an area I would look at as well as the instrument and the embouchure.

When I have a problem the first thing I do is make sure the instrument is clean and operating correctly, if that doesnt fix it I look to myself and make sure the basics are right and I am performing well, if that doesnt work I look to the mouthpiece and see if a minor change there helps and it usually does, and can make a profound difference.

Only then do I look to blaming the instrument.

In ending I will say that I have issues everywhere but I can tell you now I have solved many issues by matching the mouthpiece and the instrument and the embouchure better.

Bach it is said encouraged his customers to drill the throats of his mouthpieces and even shipped a reamer with each mouthpiece to do this. His expectation was that his instruments would not perform optimally without tuning the mouthpiece to the player and the instrument. If this is true he understood the importance of getting the mouthpiece right.

In short these are the areas that cause problems and the order they strike.

1 Dirt and gunge in a clogged instrument
2 Poor playing
3 poor embouchure
4 poor technique
5 damaged mouthpiece
6 poor mouthpiece choice
7 damaged instrument
8 poor instrument design

As you can see the player is right at the top and the instrument is right at the bottom.

I wouldnt monkey around with the instrument at this stage. Give it a really good clean check it is operating correctly, or better still have that checked for you.

Then look to yourself

Then look to the mouthpiece

Finally look to the instrument.

There speaks a humble man

Great advice from ROWUK again but I want to add this.

Speaking of the population as a whole, we value something by the investment we make in it.

If someone struggles for years and achieves something, they value it more than those other things that come more easily.

If we have to travel to another continent to sit at the feet of a teacher and learn from him we value that immensely

If we have to travel to a school or conservatory and spend years there we value that highly

If we travel to our local town and study under a teacher we value that less highly

If we are given tuition over the internet without even leaving home for it we value that very little.

If the quality of teaching is the same, we nonetheless value it less when it cost us less.

Students throw away the things that cost them little. And this is one reason why internet tuition is worth less than other forms.

If a teacher in person lays down the law, the student obeys

If a teacher on the internet lays down the law the student is likely to go elsewhere to find a "nicer" teacher.

With a hundred teachers on the internet to choose from the nicest teachers end up with the students and the strictest teachers end up in a different profession.

That does not mean a teacher can insult shame or bully that is not teaching that is abuse.

Make ROWUKs words your bible. This last post by him is gospel if ever there was a trumpet gospel.

Yes to "What is appropriate is whatever works"

Yes to " My goal is not a six-pack in our face and an industrial level compressor with the lungs"

These are the golden nuggets that we should use as a foundation to our beliefs.

Add to that others great advice such as "All we have is our sound" always always always work on your tone make it the most beautiful humanly possible by using ROWUKS words "What is appropriate is whatever works"

Read every other post of ROWUK the man knows what he is talking about.

I have reached many of the same conclusions as he states in here but it has taken me a very long time to reach that position.

Read absorb digest his words and become all the better as a performer for the doing of that.

@Richard-III I am totally on board with your post sir