260th day sober. I was up late/early enough that while I got Ebay things listed which is good, sleeping in until 2 or 3 in the afternoon would have been proper. I woke up at 2, as it turned out, and could have jumped right on my bike and gone over to Music Village, assuming they were open, or could have jumped right up and dug out that big thing I have to pack and gotten that done and gotten it out of here. Instead I had coffee and aspirin and went back to bed and read "A Handful Of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh. It's a pretty good story except that everyone in it is evil in some way except the protagonist, Tony, who ends up by far the worst circumstances in the end. So it's not just Hemingway who wrote stories that were like real life.
But also, I practiced. The last few days due to various factors like zombie parties in the parking lot I didn't want to make aware of my presence and other things, I'd done lip buzzing "zooming" up very high and very low and holding it for a time and all sorts of things like that. I can really feel it in my lower gut now that I'm doing this more correctly, being made aware of the wedge breathing method. It's one of those things that, once you realize it's the way to go, you can't un-learn.
So last night I practiced on the actual horn, and am I ever on the right track. I might be just about 60 but now I feel I can keep up with any of those showoff high school kids who like to do their impressions of whistling tea kettles to show what trumpet aces they are. As long as I keep up with the program, range is not going to be a problem for me.
I still have very far to go, but the very basic problem of getting a wide range, with decent tone, is one I have a handle on now and one that so many struggle with. If I can get a *real* handle on things, I can write a book or books about this, as I've tried, it seems, every method under the sun and this is the first thing that has worked so well and is definable, not just dumb luck.
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