Posts made by Trumpetb

I have great concerns about the past and the records of my past.

The internet is littered with records of me and I wince when I see them, I was so inept as a player in those days.

This site has comments I have made in the past some were worth making but some have not stood the test of time, and I apologise for them.

Before the internet people only saw us when we presented ourselves and as we grew and matured and improved people and audiences only saw us at our most developed and matured on the day they saw us. Unless we released a track a single or appeared in a movie where we had the opportunity to make it the best we could at the time.

In the studio we rarely simply play and publish and be damned whatever we play warts and all.

In movies we might make one take 5 takes 10 takes or a hundred. Only the best makes it onto the screen. That is the way it should be.

And when we released a track we could make sure that we showed ourselves well. If you come in late you do it again if you hit a wrong note or sound like a strangled cat you do it again and make it right. Then you cut a disk or a cd or a whatever.

Now instead the public publish whatever they record and then we have a record in perpetuity that will live forever of whatever they recorded and they dont care if we sound or look good.

I and many others appear on the internet having had no opportunity to reject poor sound poor playing poor cinematography.

I have worked in the studio and we spent time polishing and refining until we sounded the way we wanted, until we sounded professional.

A short clip of us taken without our knowledge or consent then published on a facebook page and then published widely or a home movie made with poor sound quality suffering from neglect or incompetence of the movie maker lives on now forever.

Am I to refuse to appear in public until I have fully developed and matured my playing and always sound great, waiting 20 years before venturing out in public in fear of being condemned forever.

We get better until we die and each performance is a snapshot of where we are, how inconsistent we are, and if we ate gorgonzola unwisely before playing and suffered with limp lips because of it.

I am far better now than I ever was as a student player, but must I be judged for once being a fool with a horn who mostly sounded like a braying goat.

The internet is a great teacher, a good school and assistance in so many ways, and yet it is also a great leveller and a bloodthirsty destroyer of careers for there is no controlling it or avoiding it.

I love the internet and I hate it, I wish there was a time machine where my present day self can travel back to my earliest days and show the world what I would eventually become.

We musicians start out as the worst example of what we can be and become over several decades the best we can be. Must we live forever with our worst and always be judged for it.

All we can really say is Que sera sera whatever will be will be and suck it up. Be the best we can be on the day and let the chips fall where they will.

I note that the most fundamental question remains yet unanswered

Do we blow or do we suck when we play

The Oxford dictionary defines the sucked trumpet as

"Trumpet-like instrument played by sucking rather than blowing air through the player’s lips to cause them to vibrate."

We are encouraged to blow when starting out to make the fundamental sound into the mouthpiece, but I have issues now with knowing if I should be blowing or sucking.

I have to confess that right now I blow big time, but I am confused if instead I should be trying to suck if I want to improve.

Can any member help me out on this.

Should I suck or should I blow, or does it even matter

Any help and advice from other members who suck and other members who blow, would be greatly appreciated.

@CaptainRat

I have had problems sourcing springs myself for a different instrument than yours but I managed to find some decent new ones pretty easy.

These are the options you have

1 Shop around for a supplier of the correct spring

2 Measure the diameter and the length of the existing spring when it is removed from the instrument.

Then check out all the springs from an online music store for any brass instrument that is close to the measurements of your spring. They usually quote diameter and length at ordering time.

I found a tenor horn spring that matched the diameter and length of my trumpet spring and it worked just fine.

Downside is you wont know if it is suitable until you try on the other hand you only stand to lose a couple of quid and sometimes they are sold singly so you can buy one and see if it works then buy the other two.

3 The third option is to have a tech wind you a set, they can do this with bronze wire and they usually work fine.

On annealing
Spring steel is capable of hardening and this affects the strength of the spring.

A softer temper gives a gentle spring a hard temper gives a strong spring.

Heating a spring to cherry red then quenching fixes a very hard temper then heating the spring and then cooling it fixes a softer temper.

When making springs it is usual to make the spring fully hard and then temper it in a separate process, tempering really means softening by a known and predictable amount

The temperature you heat it to after hardening it can control the strength of the temper.

If you clean the spring so it is shiny and bright then heat the spring and observe the oxide that forms on the surface then quench the spring when the oxide colour is what you want following this table

Dark yellow 240 degrees (hardest)
Yellow Brown 250 degrees
red brown 260 degees
purple 270 degrees (softest)

If you keep heating beyond the purple oxide the steel begins to glow. These are the temperatures when you see glowing steel

very dark red 1100 degrees
dark red 1300
cherry red 1400

Much beyond that the steel glows yellow and then melts that happens around 1400 to 1500

As you can see the temperatures of correctly tempering steel are way below the melting point of steel, and we cannot use the colour of hot steel as that is way too high so we use the colour of oxides that form on the surface.

I would imagine the target oxide colour would be yellow brown as that would remove some of the hardness in the spring but would not soften it fully.

Remember this if you get it wrong it does not matter as you can reharden the spring many times without any problem, simply heat to cherry then quench in water to bring up the hardness to maximum and then go through the heat to dark yellow and quench or heat to yellow brown and quench or heat to red brown and quench.

You are in full control

All the heating and quenching does is excite the atoms and then fix them in a new arrangement that relates to hardness.

I have to say that this applies to steel springs which are the most common springs in use as far as I am aware.

This procedure cannot be applied to bronze springs. bronze melts at much lower temperatures around 900 degrees

Annealing of brasses and bronzes is nonetheless similar to steel.

Strictly speaking hardening and tempering applies to steel and annealing applies to softer metals that work harden, heating the softer metal relieves the stresses that lead to fracturing during and after work hardening, but the two terms are often used interchangeably these days.

I have owned many instruments and one was a peashooter.

The peashooter was often used in dance bands for 3 possible reasons in my opinion.

1 Because they typically had a very tight wrap and were slim and racy looking and audiences loved that.

2 They typically had art deco engravings that looked very progressive and up to date in the 1920s

and 3 They often had a very small bell diameter and this kept the bell flare tight.

The tight bell flare made for a very piercing tone that projected very strongly and powerfully and was said to be able to strip paint from the far wall when played.

I believe this strong projection was helpful in a large dance hall with large band with audiences dancing around and making a lot of noise.

The brighter tone was acceptable as it helped the player rise above all the other instruments much as the lead players do today playing higher brighter and louder.

The drive towards smoother richer and more lyrical instruments through the 40s 50s and 60s I believe led to the abandonment of the pea shooter as dance bands did not need such bright and strident instruments and players found they could achieve much the same effect by a sensible choice of mouthpiece for lead playing.

Peashooter says it all for me, - a thin tube with not much flare resulting in strong projection.

I think there are two issues and the two issues are being conflated.

One is the unsociability of Miles and his unwillingness to deal respectfully with others.

The other is the unsociability of musicians who butt into performances and disrupt the performance.

There is no excuse for a musician to unexpectedly go on stage mid performance and spoil a performance.

I have had to deal with this many times. Mid phrase a musician suddenly starts playing his instrument and the performance is ruined.

I have dealt with it like Miles did, end the music and tell him to sod off.

In some cases the audience cat called the intruder and told him they loved me and he had spoiled their enjoyment.

Would Thelonious Monk have allowed another pianist to climb on stage and sit at his piano uninvited mid performance. No he would not.

Would the Boston Philharmonic allow a hic with a violin to get on stage and play with them during a performance of Mahlers Fifth. No they would not.

Just 2 days ago during a performance a hip hop musician decided to jump in and disrupt my performance which was going great, he disrupted it made it sound pathetic and then demanded that I play the piece faster.

This is ridiculous.

Wynton was being ridiculous.

If Miles had invited Wynton to play on stage with him there would be no issue, but mid performance to hog the stage when Miles had a performance, had a planned set and the audience had paid to hear Miles and not Wynton, is quire wrong and bordering on abusive.

Are you really telling me that any performer anywhere is fair game to have you mount the stage and start playing with them unrehearsed when they never asked you up.

I have been invited up many times and performed with the band when I did, that was cool and it always went great. But I have also been told by audience members to mount the stage during someone elses act who had not asked me up.

I was not part of the act so I had no business being on stage.

I would never do such a thing.

Or am I reading this right, you guys would have seen nothing wrong with walking up to Doc Severinsen during the Tonight show and trying to play uninvited and unexpected. The floor manager would have you thrown out of the studio. I would have you banned for it.

I respect you guys but be honest, how many performances have you guys really barged in on.

You dont know what they will play next, you have not rehearsed with them, you were not expected to perform, the audience dont want or expect you. A performance can go south real fast.

Wynton was being nasty and objectionable and Miles was having none of it.

I am not surprised at all at Miles reaction to Wynton appearing at his elbow uninvited.

In my opinion Wyntons head was way up his ass to do such a thing.

Is there no such thing as respect between musicians.

Trumpet players when they reach a good level are without exception fighters.

It is the way we are.

We constantly fight with ourselves to progress and we mold ourselves to become the best we can be.

It is evident to me that you are a fighter Vulgano Brother and this tells me you will recover.

And you will be an inspiration to others.

There is not a day goes by that I am not told how much I inspire others and I see that in you.

Few musicians recognise quite how good they are and how much they are respected in society for the joy they bring to others.

It is a privilege to know you, make a speedy recovery.

It would be wrong of me to suggest that the prospects are anything but very poor,

barliman is quite correct it depends where you are.

I see musicians on the gigging circuit making nothing. I see some making a little. we are talking about local bands and bands on european tours.

I see busking musicians making nothing but a few dollars a week only, I see busking musicians not even covering their travel expenses.

A few months ago I got some work as a session musician for a local band who were cutting a track in the studio for an upcoming album and made almost nothing.

I have done some film work and that was disappointing and not worth my time, but we do this for networking and career opportunities, it aint just for money.

The scuttlebutt is that there is money to be made, but when I challenge the people who claim there is work they usually come up empty handed.

I have appeared on stage several times and never been paid anything for it.

I have sat in with several brass bands and that has always been disappointing.

I think you need to do some research, cultivate connections with bands, do some networking.

Lockdown killed everything and it still has not recovered.

My saddest moment was seeing a major star with an entourage with no gigs and looking lost. How the mighty have fallen during lockdown.

There are no real audiences around most of the time the audiences have dwindled away to almost nothing.

You need to be in an established band to get work whether that be brass, jazz, blues, ska, big band, or orchestra.

Small ensembles do get work for weddings and some promotions but I wouldnt hold out much hope there.

I would point you in the direction of jazz pop funk ska and motown bands. But often they have to travel widely to get work.

Get yourself to jazz/blues clubs and venues and make some contacts there. They often advertise the acts and genres in advance so you can plan which days to turn up. They often also do jam nights so you can sit in and be recognised.

Walk in holding your instrument that will be your calling card.

I am thinking that my comments so far will sound very familiar to you in your home town. Music is everywhere so the problems will be the same everywhere.

I was invited a few times to sit in with a couple of jazz bands based solely upon their seeing me carrying my instrument under my arm, but that is very rare.

Research the cities you will visit on the internet before you go and check out the websites of local music venues and bars, many have closed down, I recently visited a night spot for a jam night and they had closed down without pulling the adverts. Dont make that mistake.

Make some contacts and some arrangements.

We make our own success in this world but this will take a lot of effort. I wish you well with it.

As for travelling, I have travelled across europe and managed to take trumpets and cornets in the under seat storage in the aircraft cabin. Cornets fit in the smallest bags allowed in the cheapest airline cabins. And a good cornet will help you sound great when you get there.

If you are going to put yourself in the position of gigging you might as well sound great and a have a ball doing it.

I concur with Richard III

I would add that brass practice in general and trumpet/cornet practice in particular is closely bound to the manner in which we form our tones.

To give an example, a piano if we press the middle c key and keep pressing it until we tire the piano will sound the tone consistently and will not tire of sounding that c.

However the tone of a brass instrument is entirely and totally a result of the sophistication with which we generate the tone.

As we brass players tire and the tone begins to fail due to developing poor technique or fatigue or other similar reasons, we end up playing and practicing poorer and poorer tones.

Practice replicates and reinforces the thing we practice.

If we keep producing wonderful tones as we practice we are fixing and reinforcing beautiful tones into our muscle memory.

If we continually practice blatty and rough sounding tones due to fatigue or poor technique we end up reinforcing poor tones into our muscle memory.

The much repeated advice of rest as much as you practice is built upon this wise knowledge. Rest is critically important to good development.

@barliman2001 and @Dr-GO

It is easy to believe we are simply tolerated and downtrodden when we face persecution in society but never forget we are the artists we are the brilliant stars that audiences love and worship.

We inspire others to greatness we influence we captivate and we dazzle.

These rules and restrictions that we must endure are nothing but a trivial bother like the buzzing of insects around us.

I believe the stature of a person is measured by the things that upset them.

Let us simply laugh at such trivial nonsense from Disney and from others, we are above such mundane rubbish and deal with it with the scorn it deserves.

Either we are in charge of our life or our life is in charge of us. So let them make their rules and we will conform not because we have to but we will conform because we choose to.

@barliman2001 Wise words

It is I am convinced a power thing mixed in with being seen to be sensitive to everyone and respectful of all customers regardless of good sense.

These people as you say think they are in a dictatorship and they have to protect everyone for their own good, or they have to feel they are in control.

I have been banned from performing by security staff while everyone there who heard me perform formed a mob begging and demanding that I be allowed to entertain them and the security didnt care what their customers said.

I have even had the experience of security staff demanding that I pay a venue that I happened to be near, 1000 dollars (uk equivalent) for me to be given permission to play in the street outside that venue.

These people are either thieves bullies or mentally ill or all three, but we have to suffer them.

The only way forward is to approach the people in charge and get an agreement allowing us to perform.

In the case of a cruise the steward of the cabins would probably allow quiet practice if they could hear just how quiet we can be.

I am put in mind of a trumpet player who travelled to an islamic country where music was banned and the immigration staff wanted to confiscate his trumpet on entry, but when the player played for them to demonstrate just how quiet he played they quickly realised they were quite wrong and then allowed the player in with his instrument without any issues, they just asked him to be respectful.

People think instruments are always loud offensive and nasty sounding and can wake the dead and of course that just is not true.

Amateurs who have no control or skill and recent offensive playing of the Vuvuzella for example has made people fear us and that instrument from hell and they now fear all musicians because of it.

A local agreement with the people in charge locally can go a long way to resolving these kinds of issues.

I think we need to work with people and change attitudes where we can.

The one thing we must not do I believe is to hide and sneak instruments in and then be discovered breaking the rules.

@Dr-GO

Sadly there may still be problems with a mouthpiece and nothing more even if it is totally silent.

Is a mouthpiece a musical instrument, is a drum a musical instrument. Is a plastic pipe that can be used as a digeridoo an instrument, is the human voice a musical instrument. All of these are musical instruments.

I have been told while being escorted and ejected by security staff from a public place that members of the public are not allowed music, nor are they allowed to sing to themselves, nor are they allowed to even hum to themselves in a public place without being prosecuted. This is the level of stupidity that Disney are displaying.

I have busked a mouthpiece and nothing else around the streets of the city and made money from it I have had dozens of people dancing to a mouthpiece buzzing a tune like a kazoo. So a mouthpiece alone is quite definitely a musical instrument.

I am totally opposed to petty rules and petty rule makers who enforce those petty rules that make no sense.

But we are where we are and if you found a way to bring a mouthpiece onboard a Disney cruise Disney will find a way to ban it and punish you for doing it.

I hope you find a way forward but I fear that bringing a mouthpiece on board however silent will simply be seen as evading the Disney rules and I predict you would be treated like a criminal for doing it.

I have faced this level of persecution many times this is not my first rodeo.

And the result might be that your tickets are rendered invalid and everyone with you has their vacation terminated.

I hasten to say I am not a doctor, and I am not a sufferer of this condition.

I have a great deal of experience in golf and in music among other things and I suspect I may be seeing a correlation with a condition that professional golfers can suffer called the Yips.

This is a condition brought on by high levels of stress in a professional setting typically while putting in a highly pressured situation such as holing a putt that would decide the outcome of a match.

One single putt can be worth tens of thousands of dollars if it is sunk. This is immense pressure to succeed and is the root cause of the condition.

The sufferer suffers a spasm that makes controlled playing impossible and the putt often ends in a hazard.

This is a very real condition and almost without exception has ended the careers of many top money earners.

Bernhard Langer became a sufferer and after many years managed to control the condition and play golf professionally once again.

If there is a link perhaps Bernhards experiences and how he overcame the problem might prove to be helpful.

Perhaps this is worth exploring.

For all sufferers of this condition I hope you can find a way forward. I would hate to be a fellow sufferer of such a debilitating condition.

I have owned and played several plastic instruments.

Plastic recorders

Plastic Cornettos (zinks)

As well as plastic mouthpieces

The plastic instruments play slightly differently to brass instruments as do the plastic mouthpieces.

But then a good player can deliver great music from almost any instrument.

It does not surprise me in the slightest that Charlie Parker sounded great on that plastic instrument. The man was a phenomenon so naturally he sounded phenomenal.

@flugelgirl

escalated? are you serious.

that was intended as a clarification.

People escalate things where I am all the time.

There is a guy at the moment who is escalating on me, he is demanding money with menaces if I travel to the city to perform and goes into attack mode when he sees me.

My choices are to run away and never go the city again, or to be beaten up, or pay through the nose for the right to travel to gigs. Or end up in hospital.

And he increases the severity of the attacks whenever we meet. That is escalation.

Not a few words of clarification on a chat site.

I thought I was keeping it light hearted.

You may be reading too much into my words.

And several ice hotels exist in several countries including Sweden and Canada in December.

Holiday packages are sold for stays in these ice hotels and they have full hotel facilities including cocktail bars, and of course music

Why would they not have small ensembles performing in the ice hotel.

The thread was posted at the time of year when the ice hotels are open for business and very close to christmas day when it would be expected that live performers would perform carols in the ice hotels.

I think the assumption that the OP was talking about how to appear in an ice hotel is a reasonable one given that we are here to help members perform.

If a thread appears entitled Young man with a horn, should we reply Kirk Douglas.

I think the members showed good grace in the answers posted and I am happy to have been part of that.

As for the rest perhaps Donna the OP could confirm that the thread is indeed about a movie and we can all smile about it and be happy to have a light hearted thread posted for Christmas.

If nothing else I am happy to have learned about the movie and the trumpet solo in it. Thank you Donna.

Merry Christmas one and all and happy new year, and Donna please do post again we need active members to keep the site alive.

I am assuming this to be a serious question about the effect of sub zero performance on the performer.

There is plenty of work already relating to performing out doors in sub zero, check those out.

Marching bands could be a good source of tips in the northern states. I am sure they have faced this question.

I have done this many times and it is never pleasant.

Below a certain temperature around the -5 area intonation and articulation falls apart. That is the single most worrying aspect.

My personal approach is to dress with several layers and insulate the valve block in some way to limit heat loss into the instrument.

Sticky woven bandage like elastoplast can be used on brass contact points with hands. It doesnt seem to affect the instrument intonation and is easily removed later.

Plastic such as delrin mouthpieces can be used to keep the chops warm. I personally dont like the lifeless tone of delrin but the alternative is misery.

Take your usual brass mouthpiece in case you cannot get along with delrin. I use brass and suffer.

It wont be pleasant but you can get through it and still sound professional if you prepare.

Take a towel to rest your equipment on if you have to lay it down.

It is about surviving the gig and still sounding competent it is not about sounding your best.

Best wishes and good luck.

@Dr-GO

Wise words Dr-GO, musicianship in general and trumpet playing in particular is a very good therapy and is recognised as such.

When I am feeling down, and I generally do not suffer from this condition, I play and the problems evaporate.

Stress I feel comes in part from unrealised personal expectations.

Expecting high pay for our great skill and yet receiving low pay for that great skill is one cause of stress.

If we lower our expectations happiness can be the result.

I have very high standards but very few expectations other than being allowed to have a ball playing for both appreciative audiences and for myself.

Do we musicians deserve to be raised up. No, Doctors deserve that, charity workers deserve that, the emergency services deserve that, the armed forces deserve that.

So many in the world who are starving or have no water or are caught up in wars or suffer horrific injury deserve so much more than I do.

For a musician to complain because they dont earn enough money is taking yourself too seriously in my opinion.

We are all in this life together and so many suffer so much more than I or we musicians do.

I am not rich in money, I am enriched by music and will always be grateful to have my music and to help others through their lives by the meagre skills that I possess.

It is a privilege to be a musician.

I am with you J. Jericho those complaints in that clip are typical of all low paid jobs in USA and Europe in all sectors and professions, high hours, low pay, no tenure, having to hold down more than one job just to pay the rent.

At will workers in many states in USA like nurses or teachers can be sacked at a moments notice.

Look at that musical director in Birmingham Alabama who was conducting 150 band members at a high school game. They were supposed to be playing after the match it was all agreed and arranged that they play after the game.

They were part of the game like the cheerleaders or the ground staff or the coach and the football players.

The kids had all rehearsed long and hard for their appearance, they were in the middle of their set, the fans were still in the stadium and the school called the cops to kick the band out mid performance and shut off the lights in the stadium with fans and band still inside.

I believe laws pertaining to health and safety of fans and staff were broken by the school here in an effort to bully the musicians into obeying and leaving.

The director quite correctly in my opinion refused to silence the band mid performance and was then tazed by the cops and arrested. The kids were screaming seeing their director tazed and jumped on by the cops.

What about the safety of the musicians who lost their director when he was taken away to the cells.

This must have been traumatic for the school band, and the parents of the players, not to say very dangerous forcing the musicians to carry their instruments in darkness.

Musicians are treated as no better than criminals by many people, and are victimised for fun, I know what I am talking about here. I have been on the receiving end of a lot of physical abuse.

I have been physically attacked many times during performances.

Complaining about low pay and having to hold down a second job is just pathetic and laughable.

I dont think that musician in the clip could cope with the reality that we face as performing musicians every day of the week.

Of course we receive adulation and bouquets of flowers as well and that makes us continue.

The blues brothers movie showed it very well and truthfully, being showered with glass or beaten up in one venue and then receiving adulation in the next venue.

That is the way it is and how it has always been.

It is easy to speculate especially about quality when there is no real evidence available one way or the other.

The thing about trumpets is, not all instruments were engraved or stamped with makers marks or details. The better ones usually were but even that means little.

Some instruments that appear to be great when looking at them can turn out to be poor.

It can be a crapshoot.

Even good engravings could turn out to be false and intended simply to mislead purchasers.

You have to know a huge amount about instruments to be confident that you have a good one just by looking at it unless you know its history.

Only one test matters. How does it play.

Have a good player test it and give an opinion or take it to a good tech for an opinion on it.

It just looks like a trumpet and that is all I can say about it from those few images. I dont think anyone can say any more than this.

See what a good player makes of it before having an opinion on it..