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Yesterday & Today
Nov. 25th, 2020 01:21 pmYesterday, I had the absolute WORST practice session on the trumpet that I've ever had in my life. And that's saying something because I've been playing brass instruments, starting on alto horn in 4th grade, playing trumpet from 5th through my first semester as a music major at SUNY Fredonia, and finishing--brilliantly, I might add, lol--as a French horn major in my second semester at Fred.
And today, I had one of the BEST.
So what makes these two best and worst days worthy of all caps? Not merely the fact that they came back-to-back, because I think we've all had that happen at one time or another in our lives. It's happened to me at least a few times, though not necessarily in the context of musical studies.
What makes this occasion stand out so incredibly for me is that my BEST day came after not only my WORST day, but after a week-long string of really BAD days of which yesterday was merely the culmination.
It had gotten so bad, in fact, that I was considering which young relative, which school, which impoverished child on the city's South Side might I donate Stella Starlight to. In fact, I was thinking about renaming her DONALD J. TRUMPet. Yeah, THAT effing bad!
The problem was that the bad days were not in some way attributable to the normal ups and downs we might expect to encounter in the process of acquiring a new skill or reclaiming an old one.
There was something fundamentally wrong with my ability to produce a decent sound on the instrument. Among other things, no matter how I positioned the horn, no matter how I formed my embouchure, I was consistently getting what I thought of as a "double buzz."
The only way I can describe it would be to say that it's the kind of sound you might hear from a trumpet, sax, or 'bone player in some nasty strip joint in New Orleans. Only they'd be doing it on purpose and could, if they wanted, play the next chart as straight and clean as the principal horn in the Boston Symphony. Well, maybe not THAT clean, but, you know.
What made it even worse was that, when I first noticed the problem, I turned down the volume to my headphones so that I could hear as clearly as the neighbors what was coming out of the bell of my horn.
(I have a couple of websites that I use for warmups and for the first dozen or so exercises I've been doing while building towards a transition to the more classic etudes I have in the books I acquired along with Stella.)
And what I heard was not only bad but it was getting progressively worse, regardless of what I tried.
I finally looked on the internet and, surprise, the "double buzz" which I thought I'd invented--or at least named--is actually a thing.
I first encountered it on a music educator's website where they talk about mouthpiece placement and the importance of lots of rest during practice sessions with beginning players. Which sort of fit, but suggested nothing that I hadn't already tried.
Then I looked up "playing trumpet with dentures."
And found all the expected references to Chet Baker who got his teeth knocked out in a drunken bar fight and then worked in a gas station for several years before getting the dental work done, adjusting his embouchure and playing style to the new reality, and eventually working his way back to the recording studio and club scene where he died of a heroin overdose.
That was helpful. Not to mention uplifting. Although I guess you could say that he died doing something he loved. In a manner of speaking.
Anyway, when I sat down today, I was fully aware that this might be my last time doing it. And I decided to do something I'd tried with just the slightest glimmer of success the day before. You know, my worst day ever.
The warmup I'd been using, ever since I'd gotten this horn, was a YouTube video by a Brit by the name of Brian Hayes. I think I use it as much for the entertainment his accent provides as for the technique he teaches.
Which is mouthpiece buzzing. But I'd been using it as just a regular warmup with the horn.
Then, just on a whim, I decided to use it in the way it had been intended. And, like I said, found it actually helped. A little.
That was yesterday. The worst day.
So it was truly out of desperation, on what might be my last day on the horn, ever, that I tried it again and KNEW, from the first note I blew--or buzzed--through it, that this was gonna be AMAZING. And it was, from start to finish.
If there's a lesson in this, I'm honestly not smart enough to know what it is. Don't ever quit? What a difference a day makes? I dunno. Just very happy that I've had this one.
And hope that I have a few more of before I kick the bucket that Stella Starlight and my mouthpiece came to me in.
Hope everyone has a good day...
LPK
Dreamwidth
11.25.2020
And today, I had one of the BEST.
So what makes these two best and worst days worthy of all caps? Not merely the fact that they came back-to-back, because I think we've all had that happen at one time or another in our lives. It's happened to me at least a few times, though not necessarily in the context of musical studies.
What makes this occasion stand out so incredibly for me is that my BEST day came after not only my WORST day, but after a week-long string of really BAD days of which yesterday was merely the culmination.
It had gotten so bad, in fact, that I was considering which young relative, which school, which impoverished child on the city's South Side might I donate Stella Starlight to. In fact, I was thinking about renaming her DONALD J. TRUMPet. Yeah, THAT effing bad!
The problem was that the bad days were not in some way attributable to the normal ups and downs we might expect to encounter in the process of acquiring a new skill or reclaiming an old one.
There was something fundamentally wrong with my ability to produce a decent sound on the instrument. Among other things, no matter how I positioned the horn, no matter how I formed my embouchure, I was consistently getting what I thought of as a "double buzz."
The only way I can describe it would be to say that it's the kind of sound you might hear from a trumpet, sax, or 'bone player in some nasty strip joint in New Orleans. Only they'd be doing it on purpose and could, if they wanted, play the next chart as straight and clean as the principal horn in the Boston Symphony. Well, maybe not THAT clean, but, you know.
What made it even worse was that, when I first noticed the problem, I turned down the volume to my headphones so that I could hear as clearly as the neighbors what was coming out of the bell of my horn.
(I have a couple of websites that I use for warmups and for the first dozen or so exercises I've been doing while building towards a transition to the more classic etudes I have in the books I acquired along with Stella.)
And what I heard was not only bad but it was getting progressively worse, regardless of what I tried.
I finally looked on the internet and, surprise, the "double buzz" which I thought I'd invented--or at least named--is actually a thing.
I first encountered it on a music educator's website where they talk about mouthpiece placement and the importance of lots of rest during practice sessions with beginning players. Which sort of fit, but suggested nothing that I hadn't already tried.
Then I looked up "playing trumpet with dentures."
And found all the expected references to Chet Baker who got his teeth knocked out in a drunken bar fight and then worked in a gas station for several years before getting the dental work done, adjusting his embouchure and playing style to the new reality, and eventually working his way back to the recording studio and club scene where he died of a heroin overdose.
That was helpful. Not to mention uplifting. Although I guess you could say that he died doing something he loved. In a manner of speaking.
Anyway, when I sat down today, I was fully aware that this might be my last time doing it. And I decided to do something I'd tried with just the slightest glimmer of success the day before. You know, my worst day ever.
The warmup I'd been using, ever since I'd gotten this horn, was a YouTube video by a Brit by the name of Brian Hayes. I think I use it as much for the entertainment his accent provides as for the technique he teaches.
Which is mouthpiece buzzing. But I'd been using it as just a regular warmup with the horn.
Then, just on a whim, I decided to use it in the way it had been intended. And, like I said, found it actually helped. A little.
That was yesterday. The worst day.
So it was truly out of desperation, on what might be my last day on the horn, ever, that I tried it again and KNEW, from the first note I blew--or buzzed--through it, that this was gonna be AMAZING. And it was, from start to finish.
If there's a lesson in this, I'm honestly not smart enough to know what it is. Don't ever quit? What a difference a day makes? I dunno. Just very happy that I've had this one.
And hope that I have a few more of before I kick the bucket that Stella Starlight and my mouthpiece came to me in.
Hope everyone has a good day...
LPK
Dreamwidth
11.25.2020
