There hasn’t been too much going on with the trumpet chronicling lately.
We started community band practice again. Tonight is the 2nd practice of the year.
I have been using my friend Donnie’s Denis Wick mouthpiece, and I’m getting used to it. The rim is larger in diameter than the Yamaha 14B4 mouthpiece I was using. It has a shallower cup, and a larger throat (I think that’s the name of the hole in the mouthpiece at the bottom of the cup).
I’m also learning it’s better to skip measure or two that are proving to be a technical challenge to avoid a dirty look from the lead trumpet player. I make note of those passages and practice them at home.
Speaking of trumpet players, there is a very good YouTube video from the Gordon Goodwin Big Phat Band, called “Backrow Politics”, which features the four trumpet players, Bob Saunders, Wayne Bergeron, Willie Murillo, and Dan Savant. It’s worth a look.
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dVCeiaxTZA[/embedyt]
If you have some time you want to kill, YouTube is a great place to do so… it’s a black hole similar to Pinterest.
I was looking up video of someone playing a contrabass trombone, which led me to the cimbasso, and from there into some of the more “unusual” instruments that exist. For example, there is a tuba called the “titanic tuba” that is supposed to be the biggest one in the world (you can hear someone try to play it from the linked video). Then I somehow ended up listening to someone playing a subcontrabass flute. Fascinating (but you have to do the Spock eyebrow). I listened to James Morrison (a superb Aussie trumpet player) “auditioning” for the Big Phat Band on another version of “Backrow Politics”, which then led me to Wayne Bergeron playing Maynard Ferguson’s arrangement of “MacArthur Park”. Whew. From there, I delved into someone playing a Tiger brand plastic trombone and tuba. Next it was the Canadian Brass playing “Flight of the Bumblebee”. Then it was an epic cover of the theme to “The Game of Thrones” by a low brass ensemble. I’m not familiar with this music, but if you’re a “heavy metal” (tuba) fan, you definitely should watch this one. Next I watched some guy named Oren Marshall playing Bach’s “Badinerie from the Orchestral Suite No 2 in B Minor” on the weirdest looking tuba I have ever seen. It kind of resembles the shape of a saxophone, best I could tell. I assume it was a custom build. Finally, I wrapped up by watching Jon Sass performing his composition “Meltdown” with members of UNITUBA and guests from the University of Iowa tuba studio.
Bam! Three hours wasted… just like that. And I didn’t even list the cat videos, or the one of the P-51 Mustang startup and fly-by, or even this amazing drum line video by the Top Secret Drum Corps of Basel, or Antoine Dufour or Lindsay Sterling or chainsaw ice racing or the twin turbo 60s GMC pickup truck or 5000 ducklings (loudspeaker) ALRIGHT MR. IRWIN, PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD!!!!” No, wait, I have LOTS, LOTS, more videos…. like Overture In B Flat and English Folk Song Suite and … Alright, Bill, hit ’em with the taser!!” BRRRRRZZZAAAAPP (flop flop flop…..) ARRRGGHHHH!!!!