It has been a little over a year since I 1st concieved of the idea to develop a site to share my experiences playing trumpet and I worked on the site here and there until today. In addition, I built a bit of a makeshift recording studio in one of my closets with the help of my oldest son, buying gear along the way and trying to figure out how to use it. There is much more to learn and I can tell you it is a slippery slope.

As I got deeper in, I started to ask myself why in the world do I want to do all this and what do I hope to achieve, especially when it started with a simple interest in making a few videos to post for family and friends. I don't know that I have figured that out yet - LOL! Having said that I guess I really don't care if anybody follows along with what I am doing but I am curious if anybody would. The world is a big place so who knows. Anyway, thanks for making it this far and here are a few thoughts about my 1st two videos:

Before you listen though, just a word about my performance. As I started recording, the 1st frustration came with determining how perfect of a performance/recording was I going to accept before I would release it. The answer came after 2 recording sessions and maybe a dozen takes on one tune. Keep in mind that I am not doing any edits and just simply running the piece down and to do that flawlessly is, well, very difficult and is made more challenging the more difficult the piece is and how long it is. This is akin to a live performance and not at all like making a professional recording. In the pro recording world, any time an artist makes a mistake in their performance, they simply rerecord the passage and splice it in so the listener never hears the mistake. While I do plan on making a few select recordings in this way, the vast majority of what I will record will be a live run through from top to bottom without edits. Because the recordings wont be flawless, I'll rate how I feel about the performance had I sounded like that during a live a concert.

The 1st piece I chose is a 9 minute grade 4 (our of 5 in difficulty) piece and while I am confident I could have gotten a clean run, I decided to come up with this rating system so I could move on with life!

Title: Nightmare Before Christmas - Grade 4

Composer: Danny Elfman

Arranger: Bertrand Moren

Publisher: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/the-nightmare-before-christmas-19958616.html

My performance rating: B+

There are a lot of arrangements of music from this movie, most of them are not very good and oversimplified for younger bands. This one happens to be the best, most difficult which generally means closest sounding to the movie soundtrack. For a trumpet player, it isn't overly technical except the solo in the middle and even that isn't overly difficult. The challenge with this piece are all the places to chip notes - and there are a lot because there are several passages where you linger in the upper register and several places where you are plucking highish notes and intervals out of thin air. I made 4 or 5 technical errors in this piece that consisting of a few chipped notes, 1 timing errors - because there was no conductor to follow during a ritardando that I didn't perfectly time with the memory of how the recording went and 1 mistake because of a lapse in concertation. The solo went well and the few parts that are very hard to play (the opening and middle section high notes) went well too so had I given this performance during a concert I would have been largely satisfied with it.

Video 5

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Title: When You Wish Upon A Star - Grade 3

Composer: Ned Washington

Arranger: Sammy Nestico

Publisher: https://www.jwpepper.com/When-You-Wish-upon-a-Star/2001949.item

My performance rating: A-

This is a terrific arrangement of a timeless classic by the late, great Sammy Nestico. While not technically difficult, it is VERY hard to be precise in intonation and to not chip notes during the beginning and ending solos. The recording I was playing with was slower and more rubato at the beginning than most bands take it and the band/soloist was very sharp (which may have been an artifact of the recording) which added to the difficulty of getting a clean, in tune take. Additionally, I struggle with stability starting phrases in the low register which creates a wobble sound effect until I can stabilize the note. One of the many issues I am working on in my daily practice.

Video 6