Another week in, more challenges and more progress.

This week alongside my other pieces I’ve been playing (very loudly) The Bear Necessities. A classic Jungle Book song almost everyone knows. Every time I play I find myself dancing around to it.

Asides from fun this song is very beneficial because it’s range is D to E  (in the regular staff–so nearly the whole thing). No matter how fun this piece is, I will not lie when I say that because half the piece is in a higher range my face hurts!!!!! Hurts so much, I’m so glad I don’t have braces anymore because I know my lips would be bleeding with the amount of pressure I’ve been putting on my face. That being said, now once I am all warmed up I can comfortably play in that range — but not for too long. So this is the improvement I’ve been hoping for, I’m very glad that my range is coming along and I can feel like a trumpet player again.

This piece is helping me improve my tonguing a lot because each note is to be seperate and big,  bouncy, I mean it’s the bear necessities.

When I think about playing the trumpet properly I’m reminded to keep my cheeks in and concentrate on airflow, and thinking while playing ruins the playing but how do I re-become a thoughtless trumpeter? I’m having a really hard time not being as good as I used to be, I’ve been getting really frustrated with it because I’m staring at these pieces I want to play but I can’t get there. Yet. Maybe. It breaks my heart that I no longer good. And I know I shouldn’t say that but I’ve honestly thought about packing up my trumpet and putting it in the bin so I never have to think about it again. But I know this isn’t realistic…or practicle..I’ll always hear some jazz tune and invision myself standing on stage in some jazz bar playing my heart out like Miles. This musical growth is also personal growth and that’s important and I will keep tooting along.