brassguymike

man... I ate at the Tulsa Casa Bonita when I was a kid. That was one of the few Mexican places in town back then. All I really remember was you had to raise a little flag to get service and the sopapillas!

In '04 we had several great trumpet guys on staff.... Drew Shanefield, Ed Roush, Al Chez, and Trevor Braselton. The only guys from the '01 staff that were still around in '04 were Chez and myself.... as far as high brass equipment during those years... I don't remember cause I was mainly working with the low brass but then again I think what's behind the mouthpiece has much more to do with the sound than the equipment itself.

Hey Drew... you can get it directly from the man himself.... http://www.merlinpatterson.com/index.php

Who would have thunk it? Our boy SNAG is big time.... :P

Bill was a great man and a great teacher. Back when I was working with the Bones brass, I had the pleasure of having Bill sub for me several times when I had to leave tour to come home for my real job. R.I.P. brother Mike Ary

see Nite Express 1995....

I did a quick google image search and found this Halliburton piece. It must be one heck of a mouthpiece cause it even comes with a guage. Ha. B)

In my 4 years of teaching the Bones brass, I only made it up to the International Auditions once so I can only speak of that year. I sat in on all the auditions cause at that time I was one of the two people officially on the Crossmen brass staff as we were in between caption heads. Not once all weekend did one kid that wanted just Crossmen get offered a Cadets spot. I was good friends with the Cadets guys that were there and would have whamped them one if they did that to me. Now if a kid tried out for both and made a spot with the Cadets, then good for them.

You can try out for either corps on Nov 18-20 in Pennsville or Dec 10 in Dallas or Dec 11 in Houston. I spent two and half days listening to all the kids try out a few years back and can guarantee you that the kids check either trying out for Cadets only, Crossmen only, or Both. There's no pressure on the kids to go either way. It's not like a great kid walks in to try out for Crossmen only and the Cadets guys convince him to march with them, or vice versa.

the leadpipe has a screw on it with 2 circular nuts so that you can set the leadpipe length. If those 2 nuts get loose, they will rattle. It that's not it, then have someone stand next to you a listen for where the sound is coming from.

Agree. 86 Dev's was just a great horn line. 95 Regiment had some great contras. They used their talent and hid their non-talent wisely that summer. And well I'm just biased towards that Crossmen. Thanks.

Most prefer to split up practice into several different sessions. Your attention span will be greater in smaller sessions, and you can focus more on one thing during each smaller session. I know a lot of pros use their first session to "warm-up" (there is no such thing as a warm-up...as Bud Herseth likes to say "a warm-up is a practice session gradually approached), and run through technical excersises and other maintenance. The second session may be orchestral excerpts or if there's an upcoming concert, the concert music. The third session may be solo work and etudes. And the fourth session may be sight-reading or something fun.

ahhhh don't do that... you never know when you'll need a good paperweight or maybe you could carry it around in your glove compartment in case you ever get stranded underwater and need to break a window.

email me a message through this board and we'll talk. there's a big difference between lack of high range and lack of range. I'm not sure what your definition of the baritone high range is, so let's talk.

Sacreligeous....ewwwww Bad thoughts of fiberglass contra's running through my head...make it stop...make it stop.... ^0^ How about a carbon-fiber contra? Chuck Daellenbach (of Canadian Brass fame) has a carbon-fiber bell on his tuba so that it's lighter, more dent resistant and he can spin it around while playing...

Run down to your local music store and find some beginning trumpet method books. There are tons of good ones out there. The salesman should be able to help you pick out a good one they have in stock. In there you'll find a lot of good exercises and simple tunes. Beginning books are meant for those that are learning to read music, so your reading ability shouldn't be a problem. You need to work on tone quality every time you touch your horn. However you don't have to do long tone exercises every time. Just be thinking of a great sound and work on producing that great sound every time you play. Being around other horns may not necessarily help you. It may mask your problems and create a false sense of security. Playing by yourself will force you to play.

Show off your talent. If you have an incredible sound, show it off. If you have incredible technique, show it off. If you're incredible at everything, show it off. You are given the freedom of a personal selection. Select something that shows off what you are best at.

DCI hasn't ever ruled on what type of metal or finish our horns have to be.

Okay let's see... where to start? First off, what's your goal? What are you practicing for? Fun? Next season? Band? Recital? Why are you practicing long tones? Is it simply a "warm-up" to couple your mind and tissues? Or do you practice long tones to work on your sound? How long do you practice long tones? What about your flexibility exercises? Warm-up or working on increasing your flexibility? How long? It's great that you have a practice routine that includes this maintenance work. Now we have to find a balance between maintenance work and whatever music you need to be working on. Perhaps you could switch days that you do each of the maintenance exercises. Basically it all depends on your goals. If you have a recital that you're working towards, then you can't spend 75% of your practice time on maintenance. However if you're just working on maintaining/increasing your chops for next summer, then you have plenty of time to work on maintenance.

Anything you can play while standing on your head will do. Note I&E has never been just about musicianship, it's about showmanship, too.

Yes... copper strike, silver, then gold.

A lot of mouthpieces have a strike coat of copper under the silver and over the raw brass. The copper strike improves plating adhesion and protects against corrosion from subsequent plating. I've never heard of anyone trying to copper plate a mouthpiece. Why would you want that?

I assume you're thinking of something like "brass poisoning." Well, there's no such thing. What we call "brass poisoning" is simply an allergic reaction to brass. If you are allergic to copper, then this mouthpiece will give you a rash. If you aren't, then just don't swallow the mouthpiece. But if you do swallow the mouthpiece, there's some info on copper poisoning here

Yep, anything that's legal on the field is legal for I&E.

w/Stp: Minus the stupid part, of course. You can use your own horn. My age out year, I took my G conversion off my contra played the horn as a Bb tuba. Many sop players pull out their trumpets for I&E.