38th day sober. After doing things like a ton of software updates on this computer, I got out the Rubank book and did some practice. The real strength of the Rubank book and maybe why so many who give lessons rave about it is, it's got tons of exercises that "increase endurance and range and lung power" but are actually fun to play.
I've been talking about testing this or that horn and going to high C and above, and it's like being someone who built up to doing a ton of pull-ups and can always do a few with perfect form but a lot of them, no. Endurance has to be built back up. But that doesn't bother me in the least because I know it can be done.
My new spit valve "corks" on the Yamaha trumpet seem to be working well. Actual cork corks, it seems, have to be replaced fairly often. Which is OK, it's just cork. But for the average player it means taking the horn to the shop and leaving it for 2 weeks or whatever their bullshit time is, and paying what, $35 or so?
Last night I also polished up the exterior at least, of the "Conn 4" mouthpiece that came with the $50 cornet. It cleaned up really nicely. That thing's worth $25 right there. It wasn't as gunky as an "Al Hirt" mouthpiece I'd gotten from that same hole in the wall embroidery shop years ago, and which I wish I had just to have it.
Things are starting to open up, gradually, but there's still a "wartime" feel put there. For instance, the Recycle Book Store is all picked over and even with $26 in trade credit in hand I just could not find anything I wanted to buy the other day. Trumpet books - all wiped out. Craig's List is a wasteland, only having the same old horns people have been trying to sell for years and may not actually exist.
So I feel like if I can get anything decent, I should pick it up. This $50 cornet is a prime example. Once I get it all cleaned up and things unstuck, it should play fine. One day I may be very thankful to myself for having gotten it.
Capitalism is like a boa constrictor. Once it tightens a step, it only loosens up partway, in preparation for an even tighter squeeze in time. 90% of us never recovered from the crash of 08, and while it's not been talked out for fear of causing panic, this opportunistic tightening under cover of the covid virus has been at least as bad.
I could enumerate the things that are gone now, mostly due to the capitalist response to the virus and some due to general decay.
(1) Safeway downtown is gone.
(2) Ross downtown is gone.
(3) Walgreens downtown is gone.
(4) Fry's is gone.
(5) The VTA light rail is gone - mass shooter took out a critical maintenance team.
(6) Medical care unless it's a dire emergency is gone.
(7) Dental care ditto.
(8) Needless to say "shooting sports" stuff is gone or nearly so.
(9) Haircuts - gone. I'm glad I got those fancy-schmancy clippers I use now.
(10) Buskers - gone. The people running this city finally got their wish.
(11) Cafe Stritch, along with a lot of other "cool" places - gone.
(12) Interestingly, a lot of the bums around here are gone. This I consider a plus.
(13) Bicycles and bicycle parts are hard to get and I'm extra careful keeping mine locked etc.
(14) Bentos, well, Nijiya has stopped selling them, pretty much. A small thing but annoying.
(15) NPR. Yep good old public radio. Signal's gone to shit. Probably can't afford their elec. bill now.
Since Whole Foods is staying open until 10PM again, I might consider some busking soon. I was there fairly early in the day and the petition-botherers were not around, not even the old guy with his little table and tons of stuff to sign. So I don't know if I'll get run off if I try playing there but then I was worried about being run off when I first played there and that never happened.
And now I have a clarinet "waiting in the wings" if I ever feel frustrated or want to try something different. In terms of grossness, it's kind of even with trumpet or maybe actually a bit worse. Who knows what evils might lurk in clarinet pads in a tropical environment back in Hawaii? Artie Shaw noted that the pads on saxophones would rot when he and his band toured around the Pacific in WWII. And while due to all my trumpet practice I can do all kinds of notes on a clarinet, I've found to my dismay that due to a snaggly tooth that never bothered me on trumpet, on low notes on the clarinet a fine spray of spit issues from the left side of my mouth. So that thing can just wait in the wings for now.
I've come around to thinking that it's not that "trumpet is too hard on my system" but that playing trumpet AND being a drinker is. In fact when I think of Eric Miyashiro, the trumpet player from back in Honolulu talking on YouTube about how hard trumpet playing is, well, the guy's *really* overweight. I don't know if he's a drinker but he does not look all that healthy and it can't all be blamed on playing a trumpet. Meanwhile Miles Davis kept himself to a healthy weight and did physical training and "Doc" Severinson, famous for playing well into quite an old age, works out too.
I like to think I'm losing some unneeded weight now that I'm not drinking 2 liters of wine every 24 hours, and my general life keeps me more active than many, with the hours I put in one the bike and packing things and so on. And once back in Hawaii I'd like to do things like ride a bike or even walk around the island.
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