The hard part about listening to your recordings is NOT trashing it so badly that you briefly think of quitting.

I’ve been listening to the recordings of me playing last Saturday quite a bit and while I haven’t taken it to that extreme — I have been pretty hard on myself. I should have played louder… I should have stood up while I played… I should have used more than 5 notes on Summertime… that sort of thing. Still, the purpose of recording yourself is to hear what you need to work on and I definitely got that.

A few people were interested in hearing a complete song so I prepared the entire version of “Summertime” for your listening pleasure. It’s a pretty big file (3.5MB) so keep that in mind before clicking on it.  I hesitated to do this without the permission of the other players but I think they sounded great. Still, if it becomes an issue I will take it down. We had never played together and this was the very first take. That being considered – I thought it turned out pretty good. With additional work and some polish I could see it being REALLY good.

After the master class I practiced really hard the following day even though my chops were tired. I didn’t take a day off until Wednesday (and that was only because I had choir rehearsal). Thursday I played GREAT. My tone was good, my range was solid and everything clicked. It really reinforced the fact that playing the trumpet requires muscle and just like any form of exercise you see the best results after a day or two of rest. I don’t plan on resting two days but one definitely will do me some good.