Just what does a brass player do when he's sick? A few days ago, I could tell that something was up: fatigued, not sleeping well, feeling congested upon waking up, headache. It finally caught up to me last night when I got no sleep while dealing with the persistent feeling of a ten-pound weight sitting on my chest. Unfortunately, I've always been susceptible to respiratory illness, and pneumonia nearly killed me when I was age six. As a trumpet player, this kind of thing is really disheartening. I've been making a lot of progress lately with my rehabilitation after not playing for almost two decades. I'm happy with my tone, although I occasionally have my "airy" days, up to A above the staff. My pedal tones have never been better, so that gives me hope that I can stretch my upper register up to E/F above the staff with power (which was my limit in college). I can reach those notes now, but not with what I feel is a good, full tone. Ascending past the A above...

Ok, so the title for this post is pretty melodramatic, but there is more than a little about it that is fitting. Two days ago my long-forgotten favorite trumpet came back into my hands after an overhaul by Charlie Melk. To say I was excited to see her again is an understatement. I unwrapped her with some serious nervousness. And then, there she was... After marveling at how amazing she looked from various angles for a few minutes, I went about my routine of checking all valves and slides in preparation for a test playing. Man, the slides were immaculate and slid so smoothly! I noted that the 1st valve slide was no longer out of round and the 3rd slide had been appropriately tightened a bit as I'd requested. I think the valves looked better than when I'd first bought the trumpet from the original owner back in 1983. Charlie had mentioned that he'd replaced the springs with a stronger batch, and indeed the valves felt quick and sure. If you've never played a set of G...

After a thorough examination of my old Getzen Eterna Severinsen Large Bore Model trumpet, Charlie Melk, of Charlie's Brass Works in Georgia, provided me with two options: partial restoration with spot-plating as necessary, or complete restoration and re-plating. Both options were about what I expected for a job of this nature. Charlie said the horn was in good shape for its age and it only had plating wear in a few places. All of the rest of the work was going to be pretty ordinary repair work with the exception of the leadpipe since those of that era have not been made in a long time, and current Getzen replacement leadpipes are simply not the same. He mentioned mine was probably one of the last of that particular style, as well, even though the Severinsen Model was manufactured quite a few more years after mine. Given all of this information, it really boiled down to going the extra mile to have it look like a new trumpet with a complete re-plating job or just clean it thoro...

I did not expect to have anything else in terms of gear to talk about this month, but an arrival today is worth mentioning. If you have never heard of Messina Covers, I'm not surprised -- it's a small Ebay business. What do they make? They simply make the best leadpipe and mouthpiece covers and bags! Their bags are made out of durable cordura with 3/4 inch foam. They come in single, duel, triple, quadruple, quintuple, and hextuple in a variety of colors with prices ranging from $10 to $25 (shipping is a reasonable $2). The best part is they will embroider your initials on the bags for free  in either block or script letters in a color of your choice. The bags provide tough padding and are divided to keep your mouthpieces from clanging into one another. Today I received my second Messina Covers mouthpiece bag (a quintuple) to go along with my quad which I got a few months ago. I am absolutely thrilled with how great these bags are and I highly recommend them if you are lo...

Featuring: Stomvi S14A VR Vs, Bob Reeves 41/dF Flugelhorn Mouthpiece, Lynn Nicholson XPiece and Reversible Rim Every few months, I plan to make a post such as this one titled, The Buzz . Here I will summarize any recent gear acquisitions, things I am testing, and brief thoughts on such things. This month I have been working via phone and email with K.O. Skinsnes of Stomvi USA on a new mouthpiece purchase. K.O. knows a thing or two about mouthpieces and mouthpiece design having worked with/for the great Bob Reeves in the past. I really like K.O.'s approach to mouthpiece design and the way he works to find the best match for a given person. I initially spent about 45 minutes on the phone with him (incredibly generous that he spent that kind of time with me) explaining my needs and my history, both successes and failures, specifically with previous mouthpieces. Like just about everyone else, I wanted to increase my endurance/efficiency. After chatting a while, ...

As I've mentioned previously, I've been having a discussion with a brass guru, Charlie Melk, regarding the possibility of having my favorite trumpet fully restored. Today he asked for some photos to get an idea of the work involved outside of the obvious: replacing the leadpipe which has red rot. So this evening after I returned home from work, I pulled the old girl out of the mothballs, so to speak. Now, you have to realize that the last time this horn saw the light of day was roughly 22 years ago. I was more than a little apprehensive of what I would find when I opened its case. Was it black with tarnish? Were the slides stuck? My biggest fear was frozen valves since they had always been one of my favorite features. I took a deep breath and opened the case... To my surprise, she hadn't turned to dust like the irrational part of my brain kept telling me to expect. In fact, the tarnish didn't even look that bad. I tugged on the main tuning slide and, after a mom...

Other than teaching myself guitar over the last ten years or so, I've been away from music. Music was once a huge part of my life, and the thing I most looked forward to on a daily basis. Gradually, and for a number of reasons, it became less and less so over the years. I seem to require some degree of external stimulus to stay engaged with something, and while I enjoy playing guitar and reached some modestly useful degree of musicianship with it, I've never really felt the way I used to when I played trumpet. This is particularly true when I consider that I also miss playing as part of an ensemble. True, I could form or join some sort of a band, but the voice of the guitar typically stands alone or is at most part of a two person unit in a band. I miss blending with two, three, six, twelve, or three-hundred trumpets. Yes, I was part of a three-hundred trumpet group that performed at halftime of a football game at the University of Kentucky during their "Trumpet Day...