As I mentioned in my last posting things have been really busy for me musically. I’ve had quite a few gigs over the past few weeks – all of them quite enjoyable. Still, as fun as that has been I am looking forward to putting in some serious time in the woodshed. For me practicing to prepare for gigs and practicing to improve or fix problems are two different things. Since I am not a full time musician I don’t feel like I have enough time to get ready for a gig AND hit my problem areas. I’ve been recording and reviewing many of my performances and I hear so many things that are lacking in my playing.  I feel like I need to work even harder to improve.

I’ve got a long laundry list of items that I need to hit once I wrap up my last gig on 7-30. Some of them include:

• Endurance – I still find myself wiped at and struggling near the    end of gigs. I am fortunately enough to play with cats who understand what    I’m dealing with on a brass instrument but there is nothing more frustrating    than having a ton of ideas that you want to play but can’t because you’re    tired. While I understand that this is all part of playing trumpet – it    doesn’t make me feel very good.
• Tone – My tone still isn’t the best. While I like the core sound I    feel like I play too soft. Part of it may be me dialing back to keep from    tiring out but I still need to work on it.
• Intonation – My intonation is all over the place (see Lady Bird    clip below). The good news is I can tell when it’s off. Now I just need to    figure out how to fix it. I’ve noticed that there are certain notes that    routinely sound bad for me (4th line D comes to mind).
• Breathing/Use of Air – I probably should have placed this in front    of the first two items. There is a very good chance that the core of my    problems center around this. I’ve been working with The    Breathing Gym fairly regular to make me mindful of what I should be    doing. I am also using a breathing bag which also gets me moving air and    taking that sensation to the horn.
• Solo Development – I think I have some great ideas when I play    solos but I don’t organize them very well. I tend to rush and lump all of my    best stuff in the first two chorus. By the third I’m wandering and babbling musically    – not saying a thing. I think I would be better served to use more space as    well. Much more.
• Blues – My blues playing needs a lot of work. I do ok but there is    so much more I could do with it. I plan on doing a lot of shedding on this    including transcribing some solos or choruses from cats that I like.  I    had a conversation with my buddy Lorenzo and we surmised that Blues is the    stepping stone for all other tunes that we struggle with.  Master the    blues and other things will become easier.

As you can tell from this list – I’ve got a lot of work to do. If there are any players out there who have suggestions on ways to work on any of these items – feel free to email me.

Sound File

After a LONG time I’m finally posting a sound file that I threw together today. Lady Bird is one of my favorite tunes and it routinely kicks my butt when I play it. I sound much better playing it now compared to when I first started.  I have a bad habit of using certain ideas more than once and it shows in this clip.  Still, I hear promise…

Click here to listen… as always – your feedback is appreciated.