42nd day sober. Last night after listing Ebay things, although I didn't feel like it at first, I got some practice done. Earlier in the day I'd watched some thing with Alan Vizzutti playing a piece with some crazy high notes and being Alan Vizzutti of course he had the exact same look on his face whether he was playing something super high or a note in the staff. He's Mr. Relaxation. I'd also watched a bit of a piece played by Alison Balsom; absolutely beautiful and I bet she uses some really deep mouthpiece to get that sound, but again it was a case of being utterly relaxed no matter how high the notes.
I also reflected on an exercise I'd heard about and tried when I was first ever trying the trumpet, where you make a thin needle of air come out of your mouth then bring the trumpet up and you should get a very high note - and I had.
So I went through the Rubank exercises, finding them easier now, and did some work on high notes with as little mouthpiece pressure as possible. And high notes really are easier with less pressure. So while it was only about an hour's practice I feel I learned something.
I woke up around 2 as usual, and while I really didn't want to go anywhere, I told myself I'll be cooped up in here all week so I really need to get out and do something different on the weekend.
I took off for downtown at about 3:45 and locked the bike up at Whole Foods, and went over to Diridon Station and eventually got on a train for Mountain View. I had to wait a bit but the actual ride is only 15 minutes which is far preferable to easily 3X that on the bus.
My first stop was the music store where I got a Yamaha trumpet care kit which actually came with a large bottle of Yamaha valve oil which costs me $10 all on its own. I got the 2nd Getchell-Hovey etude book because they don't have the first and some people on Amazon are saying the latest, Belwin, printing is unclear but this one is Belwin and looks OK and I can order the first on Amazon. And a book of Concone exercises.
Then I went to the drug store to see if they have the kind of lip balm I'm using these days, and they didn't. I walked around a bit and had a bowl of pork and shrimp on noodles at a Vietnamese place, and remembered I'd forgotten to "tag off" when I got off the train, so I went back and tagged my clipper card on the northbound side, and walked back to Castro Street.
I saw three street music acts. There was a black guy with a microphone and an amp and backing tracks singing "Christian" music and uninspiringly too. It was hard to tell how much he was actually singing and how much faking it as the track he was using had the original singer on it - I assume the flat bits were his singing. He was *not* getting tips.
I passed a Gypsy lady with a few kids and a begging sign, whom I'm sure I've seen at Whole Foods long ago. And then came to the 2nd act, a guy with a Fender Strat and a guy with an alto saxophone. They were taking a break, and the sax guy was rolling up a fat spliff of low-grade weed. It turns out the guy was the guy I'd met years ago who had a red baritone sax. He lives around there and they come out and play "sometimes".
After he and the guitarist had smoked the spliff they got down to a jam that sounded pretty cool, but frankly not the kind of thing that's going to grab people. Between jams I said it's a shame I didn't bring my trumpet to join in.
Presently the 3rd musical act, an older Black guy with an acoustic guitar, came by and stopped to watch for a bit, looking hang-dog. I stepped aside and motioned to where I'd been standing, to indicate he was welcome to join in. But he didn't. Hopefully he had a place all lined up to play.
So Castro Street is still closed off to traffic making it a nice pedestrian mall, and yes there are people playing music, but the kind of music being played is either an annoyance or being treated as one by the crowd.
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