Life of Wiley

After a disappointing week last week (for reasons that I won’t divulge here) it was great to have a good rehearsal last night. The music that we’re playing at the moment is really stretching my ability as a trumpet player. Most of what we played last night was quite loud and raucous in the trumpet part and getting up into the higher register. It’s tough going for me, but last night I really felt as though I’m beginning to show some signs of progress. I’m not exactly nailing the top notes, but I am getting them to sound.

We’re playing a pop arrangement of Bach’s Toccata in D minor which has lots of the aforementioned high notes, but also includes a fair bit of double tonguing that I’ve never been taught how to do. That said, it does seem to be coming out okay, though perhaps not with the cleanest articulation.

It’s all good stuff though and makes for a fun and entertaining evening. I certainly left the rehearsal with a buzz last night.

As an aside I must change the category icon for these posts as I’m playing much more trumpet these days than cornet.

One of my favourite pieces of jazz music has to be Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol’s Caravan. It’s one of those pieces of music that’s very hard to get out of your head once it’s there.

On Monday night I got to play an arrangement of Caravan at the JSU Volunteer Band. It was amazing, though it’s going to need some work to get it up to speed and together.

It was a great rehearsal on Monday as we also did “String of Pearls” which has a solo in for lead trumpet. I didn’t do too badly on the first sight-reading run through, but contrived to mess it up on the second run through. Fortunately, Steve, the Band Sergeant had the foresight to do a copy of the solo so I could take it home to practice. I’ve been managing to sustain practicing every day for the last two weeks by doing it immediately after putting the kids to bed, it seems to be the perfect time to fit in half-an-hour or so. I’m working hard on slurring at the moment, and in particular lip slurs (which involves changing the pitch of the note purely by the position of the tongue in the mouth and pushing more air into the trumpet), which is good as the String of Pearls solo requires lip slurs.

I’m going to have to sign the Official Secrets Act for attending rehearsals in the future to allow me to go onto the JSU base at Northwood unescorted. Last week I’d turned up to rehearsal but couldn’t raise anyone to escort me to the building and had to go back home:(

As I indicated in this post I had two new mouthpieces for Christmas, a shallow one for playing the trumpet lead in the wind band and a deeper one for the more classical playing that I do in the brass ensemble. The reason for the new mouthpieces was so that they match the rim size (diameter) of the mouthpiece I use on the cornet that I’m comfortable with.

The first time I played with the new mouthpieces was on Tuesday night where I only lasted for about 15 minutes, but this was the first time I’d practiced since before Christmas and I was using a practice mute to keep the noise down.

Last night I rehearsed with the brass ensemble which was the first true test of the new mouthpiece and I managed 40 minutes which was a marked improvement. Everyone else was feeling the strain from lack of practice over the Christmas period too, which was somehow comforting.

It was a great rehearsal as Ken, our lead trumpeter, had written a new piece of music called “No Room” which was written as a Christmas piece for brass quintet depicting the story of Mary and Joseph looking for somewhere to stay in Bethlehem. It was a lovely, and at times, quite haunting piece of music. I hope we get the opportunity to play this in a church setting at Christmas time.

was all I could last when I practised the trumpet last night for the first time since before Christmas! I hope I do better tonight as I have a rehearsal with my friends at the brass ensemble. At least I’ll be able to give my new mouthpiece a proper work out.

Also on a band related note, I got turned away from the JSU Volunteer Band on Monday because they wouldn’t let me through the gate unescorted. It seems I now have to sign the official secrets act to play in the band!

Recently I decided to end my playing commitment with Watford Band as I felt that I couldn’t play to the best of my ability and to what the band required given my limited ability to practice.

Since leaving I’ve taken up playing with a volunteer military wind band at the NATO Joint Services Unit in Northwood, at the behest of a church friend of mine who plays saxophone with the band. I’ve enjoyed playing with this band as the rehearsals are much less pressured, and although I try to do the best that I can always, I am not left stressed about the amount of practice time I can fit in.

I am the only trumpet/cornet player which has challenges in some pieces as there is little room to rest and it can get quite exposed. But the payoff comes when you get to play some of the more exciting big band numbers or dixieland music that we did at the last two rehearsals.

It was great to use my plunger mute for the first time with my trumpet in the opening, easy solo to a selection from the musical Chicago. Now I just need to learn how to use the plunger properly!

The dixieland piece was good fun too as we had a 4 man dixieland band playing against the rest of the band. It included Copenhagen, Basin Street Blues and When the Saints. It was a bit awkward with Basin Street Blues as Watford Band have a great arrangement of that for trombone by their principal trombonist, Mike Innes, and I kept trying to play what Mike plays instead of what was written.

Thoroughly enjoyable it all was.

I took the plunge yesterday and made the new band website live. There were a couple of minor problems that have mostly been sorted now.

The one remaining problem concerns the map on the directions page. This is powered by Google Maps but doesn’t seem to display in Internet Explorer. It works fine in Firefox though and I can’t see any javascript errors that might give me a clue as to what’s going on.

Work that’s still left to do include pages to allow other members of the band to edit things like the list of engagements, the list of players, adding new profiles.

The new website will allow other members of the band to add news items and upload pictures (when I sort out accounts for them) so hopefully this will free me from maintaining the content of the site.

So, take a look, and send us your feedback.

The rehearsal with the band last night was excellent. It was lead by Glyn Williams, the Principle Euphonium of Foden’s and he took the band through some interesting exercises based on a hymn tune just to get us playing together, not only starting the notes together but also finishing together too. Unfortunately I arrived a bit late but it sounded like he’d also taken the band through some basic breathing and preparation techniques too.

We spent a long time going through the first movement of Divertimento, the test piece for the regional qualifiers next week. It was all really good stuff, but I fear it may be too late for it to make a significant difference. Interestingly Glyn altered the way Martyn was having us play some parts of the piece. It’ll be interesting to see how Thursday’s rehearsal goes on that basis.

I also took the opportunity to play a Courtois cornet. In summary it’s clearly a very well made cornet but I found it a little stuffy for my liking. The valves were good and very responsive though I suspect they could have done with a little oil. After playing it for about 40 minutes I switched back to my own cornet and was immediately much more comfortable as it’s more free blowing.

I’ve been talking to a fellow band member about the issue of the getting everyone to play the same instruments and the possibility of the band buying a set of instruments for such a purpose and he says, and I completely agree with him, that we’d be better off getting the existing instruments repaired (or replaced where appropriate) and spending time and money on having a weekend brass workshop with some people of the calibre of Glyn, perhaps we could persuade Glyn to bring some of his other Foden’s colleagues.

Getting the players playing properly would be the biggest gain for the band without a huge outlay of cash and we could use it to give those who play on band instruments the opportunity to try some other makes of instrument under expert guidance to try and find the right instrument for them.

It appears that my gripes about how rehearsals were being taken have been reinforced by others in the band and the recently rehearsals have been a lot better, though there’s always a danger of it slipping back through habit.

I’m particularly looking forward to next Tuesday’s rehearsal as we have members of Fodens band coming to give instruction and also to let us try some of their old Courtois instruments. It’s always good to get advice from other players, particularly from those who play in one of the top brass bands in the UK.

One concern I have though is that we have been told that it is the band’s intention to purchase a set of instruments, possibly the set from Foden’s, with a view to everyone in each section playing the same type of instrument. This concerns me because I currently play a Besson Sovereign cornet and choose this instrument after auditioning it alongside other cornets from Schilke, Getzen and Holton. I settled on the Sov because it was comfortable for me to play, offering the right amount of feedback, had the right weight and produced a nice tone. I don’t pretend that I can play it well, but for me, it was the right instrument.

I don’t mind trying new instruments, after all I’ve never played a Courtois cornet and it may be that I get on with really well. But what if I don’t? Am I going to be forced to play an instrument that I don’t find right for me? If it comes down to this I suspect I’ll be looking for another band.

I’m not usually one to blow my own trumpet, but last night I played my own trumpet pretty sweetly! It’s been a while since I’ve managed to get a decent tone out of the trumpet; I don’t usually have a problem with that on the cornet, but the trumpet does seem more hit and miss. I’m sure it was helped by the fact that I was playing alongside my good friend and former tutor Ken Bache, a professional trumpet player. I find that when I’m playing alongside players I look up to I tend to up my game and play a lot better.

I’ll be glad when Eva’s a bit older then I can get back to practising at home and that should help with consistency, and improve stamina.

Talking of stamina. The test piece that Watford Band has to play at the upcoming regional qualifying contest in Stevenage demands a lot of the Repiano part; very loud dynamics followed by soft dynamics in the low register. By the end of the piece I’m having to blast out at fff in the highish register, the trouble is, by then my lip’s knackered. Fortunately the soprano part is playing the same and for her the register is not so high, so I can leave the hard work for her and just play the bits that stand out and no-one else is playing. That’s what playing in a brass band is all about, team work

Had quite a good weekend at Butlins in Skegness this last weekend. I was there with Watford Band to compete in the Mineworkers Open Contest. Unfortunately the band didn’t do too well coming 12th out of 14. However, we played quite well (even though I did miss an exposed bar!) and fell down mainly on interpretation which is subjective.

The weekend would have been much better if Louise and the kids had been there, but I suppose Eva’s still a bit young. But Euan would have really enjoyed their swimming pool and Keith Harris and Orville (yes, he is still going, and doing the same act by all accounts!)

From the band’s point of view the fact that we had two players under 10 playing in their first ever contest was good, and they definitely enjoyed the experience.

I just wish there wasn’t so much aggravation and stress leading up to these things. I can’t get on being bullied into playing as our MD seems to want to do; and from what he said at last night’s rehearsal it seems it may only get worse for the Regional contest in March. It wouldn’t be so bad perhaps if there was any praise for when people do things well to balance the barrage of criticism. Perhaps I should just hang up my contesting boots, after all I don’t like them.