Western Europe Group

A case is the least of your worries…

@Dennis-Anthony-Ferry I've been trying to learn that since I started playing in 1988... never worked for me...

@robertwerntz Alphorns can be dismantled into small pieces!

Hi all,

in a few weeks - departing Munich on 25 April - I am to play 2nd trumpet in Brahms' Double Concerto for Violin and Cello, in the Teatro Salvatore Cicero in the lovely town of Cefalu in Sicily. Now, the part is written for trumpet in D - originally for those big low D trumpets then in use. Last Brahms I played - 2nd Symphony - was written in D as well, and it worked quite well with my Courtois Roger Delmotte Then, it was no problem - I drove to Sicily with my own car and had enough luggage space. This time, I am going there by train, and luggage space is extremely limited. Last year in Cefalu, I carried three instruments... this year, I can at most manage two, and only one would be a bonus... the other pieces of the programme (Wood Notes by William Grant Still and 2nd Symphony by Kurt Weill) only require a Bb, but need lots of mutes... so if anyone here has the Brahms in a Bb transposition, I would be very appreciative indeed!

I do not think that I have missed anything. It is a simple fact that our lives are far more public than we realise and that brings a bunch of opportunities - good and bad.
As far as someone "secretly" recording me and publishing, that would only be a (solvable) problem if my name or picture were attached somehow. Especially in Germany, there are very fast venues to take care of situations like this.

That being said, my practice sessions are generally purposeful and I think for the most part it is audibly very clear what I am working towards. I almost never "noodle around". This means if a recording was made without a picture or video of me or my name, I probably would not care. The chance of someone "stealing" my practice work and making money with it is so unlikely, I have never given it any thought.

The idea of a private detective digging dirt up about trumpet practice sessions reminds me of Guy Noir of "a Prairie Home Companion" fame. Garrison Keillor is my hero!

A friend of mine, former musical show trumpet player Alexander Gerzenberg, now has decided to throw his vast expertise in all things trumpet in with the Breslmaier company, being part responsible for mouthpiece development. A few days back, he gave me one of his first efforts at hands-on creating screw rim mouthpieces for my birthday. It's quite a story, so I am sharing it with you.
One of the chief products of Breslmaier is creating screw-on rims for existing mouthpieces, and vice versa. Usually, the leftover bits are thrown away for recycling... now Alexander has made it his pastime to root through the throwaways looking for something nice. What he found was a Bach Mt. Vernon 1 1/2 stem and cup, and a Bach Mt. Vernon 1 1/4 rim, both discarded. He cut a thread on both, inserted a slightly tapered distance ring and thus created what might easily be described as a Bach Mt. Vernon 1 1/4 A mouthpiece...
I played it for a full day yesterday, on both my Courtois Balanced and Olds Recording, and it was fabulous... nice control, warm silky smooth sound with optional paint-stripping... definitely a keeper! Thank you, Alexander!

P.S.: Tried it on my Courtois Roger Delmotte D today, a very mouthpiece-sensitive horn, and it was grand on that as well...

@harry A picture would help...

I would heartily disagree that "warts" are bad. Why can we not accept that we are human, fallible but capable of development? A recording of a live concert by a school band, symphony orchestra or church choir is a time document - showing various realities and triggering honest memories. That is far more "valuable" than pimped material where we would like to portray ourselves as superheros.
As far as the bar for putting stuff on YouTube, we are simply feeding the beast. Like with social Media in general, "weak content" prevails, not because of lack of talent, rather because of lack of humility. I have no trouble rubbing that in peoples noses years later. A CD passed around to friends and family would have been enough but wanting to be a movie star clouded our common sense.
It becomes even more problematic when we try to help the misguided by critiquing the posts. Then the excuses start and those in a position to help are attacked for misunderstanding the purpose behind publishing.
Nope, I say our recordings are what they are and bad decisions are no different. If our first posted recordings are weak but we show incredible growth, we are good model roles. If our performances stay weak but we continue to post, we learn something about that person. Also not a bad thing. Black and white lists are available for most forms of social media.
The choice has ALWAYS been ours but the results involve others whether we like it or not.

@administrator only considering a few aspects...
There is always a "cost of business". When the recording industry was in its infancy, the ensembles had to play an entire side of a record. The musicians did not have a "second chance". I believe in the beginning, that made them more interested in playing safe instead of "with abandon".
Fast forward to the recording to multichannel analog tape. Now we could splice out things less desirable, reality became something else.
Fast forward to digital recording (starting further developed perhaps in the late 1990s). Now we can manipulate with surgical precision pitch, rhythm, phrases or even individual notes. In addition we can add all sorts of "vitamin supplements" like reverb and instrumental effects, we can modify the size and directivity. We do not HAVE to, but we are FREE to.
In spite all of this real musicians have always been very selective about what influences affect their playing. The possibilities are also tempered by the physicality of their playing. How many "reference" recordings of major concertos have working symphonic players as the soloists?
Enter AI with a huge database of what has been (albeit a very incomplete database). How are the styles across centuries linked? How is the physicalities of the instruments implemented? Do we really need an even blonder Barbie with Botox lips for better embouchure, 100-20-100 hourglass figure for better breath control?
Of course we can maintain that the pop industry could produce ever more cheaply. I am also convinced that "serious" music could benefit from AI but not in ways that we currently consider. Just like the fact that it took the digital recording industry a decade to develop its own new face and voice, AI still has a long way to go. I can reference Googles Bach Doodle project which in my view is HORRIBLE! Experiments to finish various symphonies have also failed by not even sounding like the original composer - in spite of dedicated database training.

We also have an ethical issue when we "colorize" black and white photography or let dead musicians perform notes that they never played. Even more critical is when movies get soundtracks from samples and the musicians that created the samples as basis for AI get no credits or money!

I have recently found something else (the exact opposite): a young lady Alma Deutscher that composes and improvises as if she had been born in the early 18th century. This lady has unbelievable instrumental talent as well as ability to improvise.
https://www.almadeutscher.com/compositions. This is my next best thing.

....once in a while you discover the next best thing. AI-generated music is pretty damn wild.

https://app.suno.ai/song/4e6b1da9-b5b3-453d-a5df-aaafbe54b98d