Less squeaks

 29th day sober. Today it was the usual, up around 2 in the afternoon after having gone to bed around 6-7AM. 

I didn't practice last night, having felt tired after doing the ebay listings and having spent time with Tome etc. Today I had coffee and nuts etc for breakfast then rode to Japantown for some things from Nijiya (but forgot to get an onion) and since it was so hot outside, just hurried back here with my groceries and had some lovely sashimi on rice and watched stuff on YouTube and eventually got around to a thorough practice session. 

Before practice, I dug out the package of Stanley knife blades I got when I moved into the new building here, thinking I was going to install carpet in the loft and would go through plenty of them. I looked over my reeds, discovered one had a split so it's a dead soldier already and took out two more, went over all of the flat bottoms of them and shaves the "wings" just a little bit on each, as I've seen a number of tutorials on YouTube about, and the first one I tried, one of the new ones, wow did it play. 

Was it the reed, or myself, is the thing. It's far too early in this game to tell. I'm going to take people's word for it that if I slick up the bottoms it helps reeds work better, and just a little work on the "wings" seems to be a general good thing, so I'll do these things just because reeds cost a bit over $2 each and I'd like them to last as well as play well. 

I did a couple more pages in the book, and learned a new note now, the low Bb and played more of the little pieces. I'm sure I (a) sound awful compared to a skilled player and (b) sound better than when I started. I squeaked a *lot* less! In fact hardly squeaked at all.

I also practiced Taps a bit on the trumpet. No problem playing it without having to press down any keys to make it play lower; I can hit the high note fine which is more than I could say a year ago when I dragged my still slightly drunk ass downtown to play it at 3 in the afternoon for Taps Across America. If I can get up early enough I'm inclined to do it again for this year, if only to celebrate not being a drinker any more and being able to play it in the proper key. 

The only argument against doing this I can see is, as it gets more publicity it's sure to turn into more jingoistic nonsense like that "thank you for your service" crap.