Thank you all very much for your friendly and helpful answers.

Bonnie, I got your PM. Apparently, my last one got lost. I'll reply to your new one when I've sent this message off, so if you don't get it, please let me know.

I have progressed from getting no sound at all out of the instrument to being able to make dreadful noises fairly consistently. I have titled my first improvisation "The Bull Moose Declares His Love Before Expiring".

Actually, I can get middle C (actually Bb --- whoever came up with the idea of transposing instruments has a great deal to answer for) fairly well and have made fairly passable stabs at D and E.

Done the buzzing thing. You mean I have to keep practicing that for _years_?! At first I was doing what is apparently known as "fluttering", which didn't work at all. My own silly fault for not reading the book properly.

My main instrument is the guitar and I play the piano whenever I have one available, which hasn't been very often during the past 20 years. I have practiced chords, scales and arpeggios lots and lots, so I'm pretty good at them. What's really helped me in recent years is working on playing by ear. Now all the work on scales etc., has started to show results.

Getting the noise out of the recorder is very easy. It took me a couple of weeks to feel secure about the fingerings and I still have blackouts sometimes. The different tunings, C and F, were an additional difficulty, but most of the time I can switch from one to the other without too much trouble. It seems like getting the noise out of the trumpet is significantly more difficult, but having gotten it a few times, I'm sure I'll be able to do it again. Of course, I use far too much breath, but I'm sure I'll learn to play more efficiently.

I've had mostly bad experiences with music lessons and good experiences teaching myself how to play instruments, and I can't really afford lessons. I don't think we have the same sort of brass bands in Germany that they do in Great Britain. They have brass bands in southern Germany that play traditional German folk music, but German folk music is a rather sticky wicket. The genuine article does exist, but mostly what is known as "Volksmusik" is not really traditional and also not really my cup of tea.

Subject: RE: I've bought a trumpet
From: Rapaire - PM
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 10:51 AM


"(Asthma doctors like patients who play brass because it helps overcome breathing problems.)"

I have had respiratory problems in the past and after giving it a try, I thought it might be good for my breathing. Some of the things in the book are similar to what my former singing teacher said, and also things I learned while practicing tai chi chuan and qi gong (which I used to do).


"One thing: the mouthpiece is the small bell-shaped part. The other, great big, bell shaped part is called "the bell" and is where the music comes out. Blowing in there wouldn't do much of anything except make you look foolish."

Ah. That explains a lot. I will try it the right way around when I get home.

I might try to find a teacher to get me started off and show me how to do things like oil the valves. The description of the "general overhaul" was a bit daunting. I don't think I want to be soaking my trumpet in water overnight without asking someone face-to-face first.

Oh, and is it normal for saliva to dribble out of the holes at the bottom of the valves?

I'd been wanting to play a wind instrument for a long time, but what I didn't think about was how often I would be wiping up spit.