I took a week off to visit my family.  I had planned to bring my trumpet  or mouthpiece with me but did not.  I was concerned what the break might do  to my playing but I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were really no  ill effects.  As a matter a fact — my chops actually felt stronger as a  result of the layoff.  Completely different from my experience of being  sick a few months ago.  Even though I was tempted to go full blast with my  normal routine (time playing before taking a rest) I forced myself to several 15  minute playing sessions followed by a 15 minute rest period.  I also  limited my exercises to E in the staff and below.  Today I am hoping to  increase my playing sessions by about 5 or 10 minutes and prepare myself for  Saturday’s Master Class.  I’m also working on “His Eye Is On the Sparrow”  for Sunday’s service.  Back to work!  I love it.

I haven’t made any comments regarding equipment in a while and that is mainly  because there has been nothing to report.  I’ve been using the Lawler/Laskey  70C combination for nearly 7 or 8 months now.  Particially due to the  problems I was having with second line D I started fooling around with some of  the old mouthpieces that I’ve had sitting in various places around the house.   I hate to admit that I have gone through quite a few… it is ALMOST as bad a  Fred Sanford’s drawer full of glasses.  Fortunately earlier this year/last  last year I realized that the mouthpiece was NOT going to fix all my problems…  shedding is the only way.  That being said I started fooling with a Kanstul  M-B4S and I like it a lot.  I’m not sure why I didn’t click with it  earlier.  It is comfortable and immediately sounded good to my ears.

There has also been a change on the flugelhorn front but I won’t talk about  that until things are finalized over the next few months… stay tuned.

As many of you know – I am a huge Ingrid Jensen fan. She is a player with her  own unique style and voice. There was a great interview with her on NPR.  You should definitely  check it out if you have time.

On a closing note I found out that my niece is taking up jazz guitar and my  nephew is playing the drums. As much joy as I get from playing my trumpet I  can’t describe how happy I was to hear that they were allowing music to enhance  and enrich their lives. If they are reading this message — keep it up and most  importantly… HAVE FUN!!!  Be sure to tell me that when I post something  about how I hate my playing, I stink, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…