The Cabrillo Festival (which is discussed in more detail in the post, New Trends for New Music) starts in one week, which means I am in the throes of final preparation right now. This year, as every year, I am wondering how I am going to get everything learned in time, especially with a difficult concerto added to the mix. Playing new music is always demanding; composers don’t always have what I would call a perfect grasp on how to write effectively for the trumpet. A couple of composers this year suffer from one of my personal pet peeves — I call it the D Trumpet Disorder. This condition leads to parts like this:

A classic example of DTD

I can see it now, the composer sitting guiltily at his desk, wanting to stretch the range of the trumpet to include that high E, held by the knowledge that it really is not a reasonable thing to write. “I know,” he thinks excitedly, “I’ll write it for D trumpet! It will still have a big sound, but it will be easy to play!” With the guilt now gone, the composer hurriedly transposes the part into D, and voila! problem solved. Right? Not so fast…

The D trumpet is not a panacea for all that ails our beast of an instrument. That high concert E is still a concert E, no matter if it is played on a Bb, C, D, or Eb trumpet. In fact, for me personally, I’d rather play the high E on my C trumpet than on a D. Hakan Hardenberger mentioned something similar when he told me that he plays the Maxwell Davies Sonata on C trumpet (rather than on D trumpet as indicated in the part). He said that he just doesn’t see any reason to use D. I tend to agree, though the piece is not exactly easy no matter what you play it on. On D trumpets I have tried, the upper register gets a bit tight and tends to be even harder to play above concert D than my C trumpet. I do find that playing on one of the small instruments (G or piccolo) does make it noticeably easier, but it is still certainly no walk in the park. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my D trumpet, and I find many great uses for it, especially in the orchestra; I just don’t tend to use it for extreme high register parts.

You may be curious as to what exactly has driven me to write this article. After all, it’s really not that big of a deal. If the composer has written for D trumpet, then you can still transpose it to piccolo, which is what I almost always do without a fuss. This time, though, the part continues past what is indicated in the image above. It goes a few lines, and then changes key — to Db major — and then it continues for a full page after that. Now, this transposition wouldn’t be too bad, except for the fact that the part is loaded with accidentals. So now, I am doing mental acrobatics while playing outrageously high trumpet parts at the end of an intense festival, at the end of a long concert — a concert which, it just so happens, occurs twice on the last day day. Now that makes me cranky.

You see, if the composer had simply left the part in C, then I could choose for myself what kind of wuss-out tool would be best for the job, and then I could quietly go to said tool when the going gets rough, glady accepting the compliments afterward for nailing the screaming high trumpet part. Of course, the composer too, would then have to suffer the indignity of anyone who is familiar with the normal range for the trumpet looking at the score and saying, “What the hell was this idiot thinking here?” Most composers don’t really like to take the chance of such a thing, so the D Trumpet Disorder bails them out. Meanwhile, I am left to pick way through the minefield. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.

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You remember that article (Going Home) where I talked about the joy of playing my old Bach and how it had at last relegated my Yamaha to it’s rightful place in the closet? Do you remember how I said that it would be my Bach that would be used on the then upcoming recording for my solo CD? Yeah well… Sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned.

About a week before the recording, my Bach started feeling tight and kind of squirrelly. I started struggling with the Schumann Fantasiestucke and in general felt like I was playing on ice — with nothing really slotting in, but rather gliding constantly to and fro. So what did I do? Yep, I pulled out my Yamaha (Chicago Artist Model) and almost instantly felt more comfortable. From that point on I stuck with the Yamaha and ended up using it on my recording after all.

Commence the throwing of the pies. My face is poised and at your disposal.

Equipment is a funny thing, and while I stand by the general message in my previous article, it is also worth mentioning that you should always go with whatever is working the best, whatever you have the most confidence in. For me, when crunch time really came, the Yamaha was the horn for me, and that should come as no surprise really, because it really is a damn good instrument!

So, I have been in the process of trying to move back into a bigger mouthpiece lately, something more along the lines of what I used during my orchestra career (I guess I have missed some of the fatness of sound, soft control, and low register sharpness. It turns out that, at least for me, some of those things get to be a little more of a struggle on smaller equipment). This attempt to go into a bigger mouthpiece, though, has proven more difficult than one would think.

I played the mouthpiece that I won the principal job in Chicago on (a Mt. Vernon 1 1/4C if you are curious), but all I was left with is wondering how I ever managed to win that job playing on that mouthpiece (it tends to ride a bit high… yeah, just a bit). Anyway, I am going through my collection of larger mouthpieces — not finding what I want — when I get a voicemail from my good friend Rod Mathews. On this mesage Rod mentioned to me that he finally got a copy of the recording of me playing the Furtwangler Symphony No. 2 with the CSO, and he mentioned how much he enjoyed my playing on that recording (How nice is that, anyway? To call up your buddy and tell him how much you enjoyed something he did, just because. Very classy.) So I am listening to this voicemail and remembering the CD, when I suddenly remember the mouthpiece I used for that recording, a mouthpiece that I have left inexplicably untried in this process. After hearing the message I promptly dig out the mouthpiece, play a couple of hours on it, and wonder why anyone would ever look for a mouthpiece different from the one in my hands. Now I am no fool; I know that this is only the first practice session on this mouthpiece and that there are bound to be things I won’t like about it after playing on it for a while. However, if it weren’t for a good friend who took the time to send a considerate message, just because, I wouldn’t even have thought of digging it out in the first place.

Yeah, that is what good friends are for, to help you out when they don’t even know you need it. Thanks Rod.

For a while now I have had two brown trumpets sitting on the piano in my studio. Well, they aren’t actually brown, but I affectionately refer to them, with their raw brass patina, as my brown trumpets. They are both C rotaries: one Schagerl and one Thein. Both horns have been a big part of my performing career at one time or another, with performances in some of the greatest halls with two of the world’s top orchestras. They have played Carnegie, Boston Symphony Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Musikverein in Vienna; the list goes on. The Schagerl is the horn I used in the one significant recording that was done while I was playing principal in Chicago, the Furtwangler Symphony #2. Now, though, they sit on an upright piano in my studio in Miami.

I looked them over a few days ago only to find the valves frozen in place and some extra development of their patina. After quite a bit of elbow grease, the Thein’s valves are free and working well, but the Schagerl’s valves remain frozen in place. Looking at the horns, I am struck at how extraordinary a path a couple of sheets of brass can have, and how strange a place it is that they find themselves in now.

Any suggestions on freeing up the valves on a rotary trumpet? I think my Schagerl has plans for life beyond the top of my piano.

All the talk about valves in Dirty Valves = Sticky Valves reminds me of some more important advice about good valve maintenance, your choice of valve oil. It is important to remember that not all valve oils are created equally. There are essentially two types of valve oil: petroleum based and synthetic based. You can decide for yourself what type works best for you, but make sure not to mix the two. In fact, if you are planning on changing the type of oil you use then you should clean the valves as described in Dirty Valves = Sticky Valves, only applying the new type of oil once the valves are clean. This is especially true if you are planning on changing from petroleum to synthetic or vise-versa. Different valve oils can have adverse reactions to each other which can lead to severe problems with your valves. Fortunately, If you have made the mistake of mixing incompatible oils, this crisis can be solved with a simple cleaning.

Along with your choice in valve oil comes a choice in slide grease. You should pick a slide grease that is compatible with your valve oil. Be sure to use petroleum based grease with petroleum based oil, and synthetic based grease with synthetic based oil. When using synthetic oils, I like to use the same brand of grease to avoid any problems with compatibility. Believe it or not, oils and greases are getting more sophisticated all the time. If you want to avoid being embarrassed by a sticking valve or slide in an important performance, it is important to give at least some consideration as to the products you use on your instrument.