124th day sober. I practiced last night and wow .... doing long tones on the high notes I'd been having trouble with is magic. I'd been just sort of "pipping" the high notes, telling myself "OK I went there" but had little strength to hold the note. Holding the note, AKA a long tone, works magic for getting the muscles used to being comfortable on that note.
I'd say this applies to low notes also. Sometimes you sound like crap on the low notes while the high ones are OK. Do long tones on whatever note is giving you trouble.
I got up at 3, was able to get cleaned up and get going and rode downtown. First stop was the post office, where I dropped off a few packages. Then the bank, where I did my bank deposit and my balance came out to exactly what it should be. Then I went to the Amazon place and got some bubble mailers and next I went to Dai Thanh for a few things then Da Kao for some little shrimp gyoza things and a pork stick.
I ate over at the college and it looks like the students are back. I guess I was near some dorms and they're all clustering around, getting a good dose of each other's germs.
I went over to Whole Foods next and the guy who has the "Save The Children" or whatever the scam is, booth, out front was packing up. There was a 12-pack of watermelon flavor fizzy water there, which I didn't think about as I went in to get my coffee, read the Metro, chew gum, etc.
When I went back out to play, the package of fizzy water was still there. I contemplated keeping it but I didn't really want to bother with it. So I set it over by a sign there in front and eventually a Whole Foods worker came out and asked if it was mine and I said someone had apparently left it, and he said I could have it but I said I didn't really want it, so the guy took it back inside.
The playing went ... weirdly. I thought I had things pretty well handled last night, with the high notes going so well, but I think there's a large difference between playing here in the office and playing outdoors trying to cover a fairly large parking lot. The long and short of it is, playing the 3D mouthpiece, which is shallower than a 3C and thus has more "edge" to the tone, didn't sound as good to me. And an even worse thing happened: As I got tired or maybe it was just getting warmed up, on high notes my lips would just shut closed. It was very annoying.
I remembered that I had the beat-up Yamaha 11B4 mouthpiece in the bike bag as I'd not gotten a chance to give it to Tom, so I put the 3D away and got it out and continued my playing, and things sounded a lot better and I stopped muffing the high notes. I did have a very "blatty" tone which I'm not sure is me or is the fact that the Yamaha is kind of messed up where it plugs into the trumpet, which I've not tried to fix because I think any attempt to fix it will only make it worse. But I was able to get through my night.
So I'd played from 6-8 and I made $44.85, when I count in a gift card for $12 I got from a guy I talked with for a bit, a violinist whom, once I'd asked and determined that the instrument case I saw peeking up behind his head held not a guitar but a violin, I extolled the virtues of busking to.
I had the whole ride home to ponder my mouthpiece questions. I think the shallower type, like the D type, is not so good for busking for me right now. But I think a little smaller diameter, like a 7C or 5C, might be a good choice for me right now because I feel almost like the 3C is too wide and I get "split" or "spread" high notes. So when I got back I looked around on Amazon and ordered a Blessing 5C. I'll still give the beat-up Yamaha one to Tom, or maybe I'll keep it around for stupid experiments like putting a trumpet mouthpiece on a long piece of bamboo or something.
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