Trumpet is a win.

 316th day sober. I practiced about 45 minutes doing the octave exercise on the flute headjoint, then got out the trumpet and played around with it. 

On the flute headjoint I'm making real progress, playing longer per breath and the octave much more obtainable and controllable. 

As for the trumpet, the music store owner kept saying that it's a *really* good one and I took that with a grain of salt. But it really does seem to be. I can do these really cool dynamics from very quiet up to very loud, and it sounds great all along. 

I did some more reading and tons of people are saying online that it's a model that takes a lot of air, the it's "tiring" and "air-hungry" but I didn't notice any different feeling. I wonder if trumpeters, as they go to more "pro" instruments, are getting ones that are getting ones that take less air than a student horn, to make things easier since anything can be made to sound good on a mic. 

In fact, I've read that the reason the jazz guys, for a while at least, liked those trumpets with all kinds of bracing until they were almost a solid hunk of metal, was that they could almost be played "like a kazoo" doing any note bends you wanted. Who cares if they sounded ehhhhh, not so great. The mic and effects would take care of that. 

I even looked up the trumpet's prior owner, a hotshot guy who teaches a bunch of school bands around here including at Stanford, and has played gigs with a bunch of heavyweights. Maybe it's even a trumpet that was given to him by Yamaha, in which case it's a good one indeed. I used to be the kind of athlete who was given equipment and they don't give top athletes the junk - they get the selected good stuff. 

I just need to get over to Park Avenue Music and buy some new corks - the tuning slide one looks a little odd because it's got a bit of paper on top of the cork, in it. Jeez. The horn could use an overall cleaning too, just to be sure. I wish I hadn't let the big ultrasonic cleaner we had go. I've still got a smaller one though. 

The guy my trumpet is named after, Wayne Bergeron, appears to be quite the shining star, having played on tons of movie scores and such things. He says he had the same range when he was 12, and has only refined things since then. That makes perfect sense to me because when you're a kid you can do anything. If I'd started trumpet when I was 11 or 12 I'd have had stratospheric range, if only to annoy people and send dogs running. 

I went to bed at 1, which means I should have slept in until 9. But I was starting to wake up, then was fully awakened by a phone call. I didn't answer the first time but the guy called again. It was some old guy whose daughter-in-law is interested in the ukulele. She'd call me, he said, after I gave him the address and said $40 would be fine. 

Pretty soon I got another call from a young guy. They're coming over at 10:30 to look at it. 

So what is the "state of busking" as I see it now? I've not seen a busker in months, but a couple of weeks back I did see/hear someone with a guitar by San Pedro Square, talking with someone else in a weird drugged-up/developmentally disabled/brain injury sort of super-slow voice and I don't even know if it was the player or someone talking to him. But there was a guitar. 

In Mountain View there's been a black guy with a sax who sets up with a mic and speaker and backing track of popular tunes and sort of noodles along. And yesterday there was a young Asian guy with a guitar and amp and mic, singing and playing. He was ... OK. But loud so he dominated the area. It still looked like playing in front of the Odd Fellows' Hall would be workable. And the little Chinese bakery was apparently paying Red The Flute Player to play in front of their place. Of course he's gone but that's a possibility if one plays flute. 

Yesterday was "Second Saturday" on the Alameda so there was some band that set up at Whole Foods in the downstairs eating area on the Alameda side. Judging by their "warm up" canned music, they probably played "boomer rock". I left before they actually got going, and when I got back they were hustling their equipment out to their cars. 

Some lady asked them if they were going to set up every weekend, to which she was given a noncommittal answer. I'm pretty certain the "Second Saturday" musicians are paid by the city. 

I'd thought it'd be a great thing if I took the brand new "Shew horn" I thought I was going to buy, and did a busking session there at Whole Foods. And not a bad idea if it's a used Bergeron, either. But it was getting cold and blustery and in fact the wind had me slowed to a walking pace at times, riding home along Santa Clara street so that was out. 

I still thing the "busking season" here is going to prove to be April 1 to October 1. That means the time when the earnings are really good as they were for me last year. Of course if busking is one's lifeline then there's no "season" to it. You just get out there whenever you can. I've only busked in the evening around here so I have no idea about the lunch hour, which Gabriel The Violinist says is good. Noon yesterday was sunny and pleasant, and non-windy. 

Soon the guy was back with the $40, I banged out a few chords on the uke and the exchange was made, and that was that. 

I oiled up the bike chain and weighed out 7 1-lb bags of brown rice since it's time I started cycling that out, and headed downtown, stopping at the little free libraries to pick up a few books and drop off rice. 

I went to Whole Foods and got some "pulled" pork and green beans, and a can of fizzy water. After eating I walked up to the book store and looked through the music books. I ended up buying (back) the 2nd shakuhachi book by Koga. There's a third, which is full of philosophical musings too arcane for me, but the 2nd has some solid information in it so I should probably have it. 

On the way back I stopped at O'Reilley's to buy a chamois, and wow they've not gotten any cheaper. But for the number of trumpet cleaners I should be able to make out of one, it's not that bad. There was an extra scary zombie lurching along the sidewalk, in the form of an elderly, tall, skinny, white lady with scraggly hair flying all over the place and making noises right out of a zombie movie. It staggered into O'Reilley's too, so while I was paying for the chamois we just ignored it, but when I left the salesman had to do something so I overheard him asking her if she's OK and her replying "No". Maybe she was an escapee from the Old Zombies' Home. 

I stopped in at the hardware store for weed whacker string. I think I have this stuff but I'd have to turn everything upside down to try to find it, so I'm just getting new stuff to make trumpet cleaners with. 

Then I went back to Whole Foods to pick up a 6-pack of cans of seltzer water - their last one. That's my treat now, since near-beer has carbohydrates in it. I also got out cash for tomorrow's planned trip to Park Avenue Music where I'll not only get some spit valve corks but there might be some deals on mouthpieces and such deals are best done in cash.