I used to take my trumpet playing quite seriously: I practiced daily. I bought a number of Nonesuch records featuring Baroque trumpet tunes.
I treasured a picture, cut out of a Nonesuch catalogue, of 18th C. trumpet players. In high school I got the nice Selmer trumpet I have now. I took lessons from Mr. Mac, the band director, who had actually studied with Edward Tarr, a Baroque trumpet expert. Daily practice and weekly lessons helped me to reach the last chair of the first trumpet section in my senior year. That same year Mary Beckett, an incoming freshman, took first chair. She had an awesome tone. The boys in the first trumpet section appeared not to be threatened by Mary's superior talent. In fact, they fawned all over her and ignored me. It was an important lesson for me: being unafraid of success does not actually ensure success.
Fond memories! How can I ever let go of my trumpet?
2 comments:
I seem to remember a story from you about playing a trumpet concerto with a Music Minus One record. You said that at the cadenza the groove in the record would just stop progressing. When you got to the end of the cadenza you said you'd have to thump the table holding the turntable (with your hip?) to get the tonearm to move ahead to the rest of the recording.
An image of your finishing the solo and getting the record to resume the concerto lives on in my mind.
Jeez, I don't remember that. But that's why you need more than one person to reminisce with.
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