Ornery Trumpet Grips Mouthpiece, Won't Let Go

Something very thrilling happened this week, which was that, thanks to answering an ad on Craigslist, I played my trumpet in public for the first time in a handful of years, as part of a jazz combo at a café in the Western Addition.

When I talked to Ted on the phone, he said I would be the main soloist and player of melodies. I said that would be fine, and got to work preparing: rehearsing the heads to the songs we would play, improvising, doing some transcribing—learning to play a horn line by listening to the recording, with or without writing it down. I’m working on “Ecaroh.”

I became a bit worried about my lip lasting through the whole evening, as I would have very little recuperation time. I mentioned this to Ted and he said I should feel free to skip a whole song as needed.

The night before the show, a lifetime first occurred: I got my mouthpiece stuck in the horn and could not get it out, thanks to having dropped the horn several inches onto the carpet. I don’t think I’ve ever dropped it before, either.

I tried everything I could think of to get it out without damaging anything, including my back, and finally called my friend Alix in Guerneville, who plays trombone. She said I needed a mouthpiece-puller, that standard implement of the middle-school band director. The next day, I called Union Music, and they said that if I brought my horn over, they would extract the mouthpiece for me.

Fortunately, my trumpet fits in its gig bag (though not in the hard case) with the mouthpiece still in it. And fortunately, that was the mouthpiece I meant to use at the café (a good old Bach 7C).

I was scared the day of the show, and watched the waves of anxiety rise and fall. I noted thoughts such as, “Uh oh, you’re scared—that means it’s going to be a disaster.” I know for a fact that one isn’t true, because I am frequently beset by stage fright, and usually it ends up going just fine, though strong and persistent fear—dry mouth, shaking knees—can indeed have a disastrous effect on performance.

I remembered that as long as I physically survived the experience, that was really all that mattered and that the point isn’t to prove I’m an awesome trumpet player but to provide pleasure to the listeners—even one note that was beautiful or made someone happy would be enough. It is also true to say that I’m playing for my own pleasure, and if someone else enjoys it, that’s a bonus.

To avoiding jinxing it, however, the only person I told beforehand was Tom, who came with me.

The rhythm section, none of whom I met until the night of the show, proved to be quite good. I was quite nervous when I started, and my second note of the evening was a nice loud wrong note, which didn’t help my anxiety level.

But a couple of tunes later, I played, if I may say so myself, an absolutely gorgeous rendition of “Black Orpheus,” both the head and the solo. During my solo, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and with the beauty of the minor key, and nearly cried. Afterwards, I got an enthusiastic compliment from Ted, and from then on, all was well and I felt very comfy.

However, it was clear the little lip muscles were not going to make it for several hours of this, so it was very lucky that a guy walked up and said it was great to hear us playing and that he is in a group that sometimes plays at the same place.

We asked what he plays and when he said saxophone, we said, “Great! Run home and get it!” So he did, and then we had two horns for the rest of the evening, providing some periods of rest, and all in all, it was a very great thing.

The last time I had performed was probably at a church on Easter, and before that as part of a brass quintet in another church, and before that, an earlier Easter. (Though an atheist, I do love an Easter church service.)

Today I saw an ad on Craigslist looking for trumpets for Easter. The ad said respondents must be able to read in concert key, meaning to transpose up a step on the spot, as the trumpet is a B-flat instrument, meaning that when I see a C on the page and play the note I call a C, it sounds to the rest of the world like a B-flat.

Between you and me, I’m not a world-class transposer, nor do I have Easter clothes. But I said to myself, “Life is short,” and answered the ad. Lo and behold, the church’s music director wrote back and said he had already left me a message after getting my name from a trombone-playing friend of mine! Talk about synchronicity.

Trumpeting on Easter once again—yay!