34th day sober. The demolition of the old Smithfield ham site continues and the big machines are really tossing things around. So, when they drop something big, I get a vibration through the floor like I'm on the edge of a drum. Kinda cool actually.
I messed around with Ebay things last night then about 2 in the morning decided I should just practice instead of listing anything. Since I hadn't practiced last night I went back a few pages in the book and worked through the exercises. Then I thought, I can play these on the trumpet too, and got the trumpet out.
Frankly, it seems to be about the same effort to play the same thing on clarinet or trumpet. Spit valves are disgusting but slimy reeds would like a word. And even though a place on my lip had peeled I think I sounded fine, especially for someone who hasn't practiced for months on end.
I started to think about *how* I'd been practicing when I was reaching my goal of playing to high C and a bit above, and I was basically grinding away at the same exercises out of some book, and making it more exercise than fun. It was a fine method for achieving the goal I'd set out for myself but not good for actually enjoying playing the trumpet.
I would settle down to practice, get out the book of exercises, grind away on them, then play a few tunes to finish up; generally the same damn tunes because it was all I could think of, then put everything away. Then I'd generally watch some stuff on YouTube and there'd be some music in it or I'd think of something I wanted to play but the trumpet was all put away etc.
There's the anecdote that George Harrison would even play the guitar on the toilet, and whether that was true or not the idea was he played guitar a lot. It wasn't just a matter of taking it out of the case for an hour a day for him. He spent a lot of time with it in his hands or nearby, ready to pick up and try out some tune he thought up or had heard somewhere.
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull is supposed to be this way also. Some (including the owner of West Valley Music) call him a "prodigy" but he's said himself in interviews that he has flutes all over his house to play any time.
My point is, I think I need to do a lot more "fun" playing. Drills and exercises are great, but just doing those is both tiring and "tightening".
I went on Amazon and ordered one of those trumpet stands not to take busking with me but to have around here so I can do my "must do" exercises and then just have the trumpet by my side here to pick up and play along with YouTube stuff and so on.
Once I was done with that order, my computer started acting *really* weird. It took me close to half an hour to print out each of the shipping labels I needed to print, and my computer is in this weird mode where it's slower than usual, and I seem to have a very restricted range of areas I can go.
Email is right out. Forget about email; I'm back to written letters or phone calls. Reddit is likewise out. Ebay works... well enough. And YouTube works. Any Blogger blog works, and Google searches seem to work. I can understand some kind of "war" between Google and Reddit, but that doesn't explain Gmail, which is owned by Google, being out.
The annoying thing about Gmail no longer being a thing for me is it makes Amazon orders, which I can still do, a bit more complicated. I can't check any emails I get from them but fortunately I can still check on orders at the Amazon site. Hopefully my email address is still recognized by them. I can't send or receive emails with Ken or the land lord here - thank goodness the landlord sends a bill by mail as well as email.
Reddit being gone for me is even more annoying. It used to be really nice to read about what's going on downtown, or back in Hawaii, and about things in general. That's all gone now. Still, if I had to choose one, Reddit or YouTube, to keep, I'd keep YouTube because that's my access to music, local news TV stations, etc.
It just feels weird not having an email address when I've always had one since 1997 or so.
I did some searching around and have decided I'm going to go with the Rubank books I was considering using for clarinet so I ordered the beginner book. And I also printed out the fingering chart I'd been using (I'd given the one I had to Tom) and found another that goes up to the F above high C.
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