jsodam

the main groove is all open and first valve

Cheap horn story.... One of my friends was looking for a cheap baritone to buy so he could practice...he played baritone but only owned a trumpet at home, and trumpet was his primary instrument. Well he got on ebay and found a bunch of baritones for $75. Good deal? For what he was doing I guess. The only problem was that the baritones were made by an Indian company in a factory in India. The baritone was $75. The shipping was almost $600. Needless to say he still needs a baritone....

Well, not a tour story (I play baritone on tour) but it is a guard injury story. Long story short, in our winter guard show we had these 8' or 9' tall flats that we danced on and stuff..... well I was up there and kind of forget to pay attention to where I was dancing (kind of a free-style thing, no set placement) and I ended up dancing over nothing. I pulled off the landing though lol. Everyone knows the trick is making it look like you were SUPPOSED to do whatever crazy thing ends up happening. It hurt like a mother though. Gym floors are quite unforgiving. You gotta love when the sabre falls on your wrist.

Prospectives on why I love the color guard from a div one baritone dude: The thing I loved most about our guard was that before every show they'd walk through our block burning incense (nag champra or something like that.....) and pat us on the back and tell us good luck and everything. Of course since we were in block we couldn't reciprocate or even acknowledge them but they still did it every night. It got to where it felt weird to do a show without having smelled the incense, even while marching in other orginazations and when I stood on the line as a staff member for the first time. To this day whenever I smell that it gives me a little thrill, a reminder of what it was like to stand on the line in uniform with my corps family waiting to preform for a packed house. I found some of it at a mall in San Antonio and I keep a little box of it with my other corps mementos. I absolutely loved the color guard because they took massage classes before pre-tour. You have no idea how great it was as a skinny little 15 year old rookie baritone, after a 16 hour rehersal day of wondering what exactly he had gotten himself into, to get a massage from anybody, let alone a nice girl from the guard. That helped me get through the day. If it wasn't for the guard, my corps career might have ended before it even started. I always thought it was amazing that they could have probably the hardest job on the field, and still have the energy to be the nicest section of the corps. I wish all the guard members out there an amazing season. I'll see you all in the parking lot.

uggghh.....I can't believe there are corps out there that let baritones play on 6 1/2 ALs......just because it comes with the horn doesn't mean its a good mouthpiece. Personally, I think they're much too shallow and the cup is much too small to produce a good sound, but I come from corps trying for the dark bari sound, I don't know how they do it in jazz corps. I would never play on anything smaller than a Bach 5G. I prefer even larger mouthpieces, but they're harder to use on the field.

1980 SOA baby. Talk about loud.....