You're not a real brass student if you don't complain about how much you sound like crap every day

I was talking to a friend of mine who plays piano recently, she's probably one of the best piano students in the province.  We had the opportunity to premier a trumpet "sonatine" written by a graduating composition student at our university recently, and I'm hoping we can continue to do chamber music this upcoming year (I think the Hindemith would actually reflect both of our playing styles very well). She was at a national competition recently, and learned some incredibly valuable advice that helped her (already fabulous) playing: tension is bad. Now, all music students should know this, BUT all music students forget this from time to time, too.  I find there's a lot of simple things like this (exaggerate everything, relax, etc) that I have the ability to do, but will forget about for a while until someone reminds me.

There's a noticeable difference between improving on an instrument like piano and one like trumpet.  I've played a little bit of piano (up to grade 8 RCM), and I find it more... detached, I guess, than trumpet is.  When you know conceptually what you need to fix, you will need to work to get it habitual and not forced, of course, but at the same time, it's not the same degree of overhaul, I feel.

There's a trend I've had, and I'm sure other brass players have noticed this, that each time I meet a new professor or professional player, they point out one fatal flaw that MUST be fixed before I can be a professional myself.  Whether it's taking deeper breaths, relaxing, tonguing lighter, tonguing crisper, fixing my embouchure, or my most recent, moving the air faster, both out AND in.  It seems that no one can point out everything you're doing wrong, but everyone can point out something.

One of these days, I feel like I'll figure it out.  One of these days, I want to play like him.  Maybe he's not happy with his small-town gig (as the jokes us students make might imply), but that man is godly at the trumpet, and I just hope he realizes it every now and then.

So, this post was kind of random filler, I admit, but the summer's been slow.  Got a gig on Monday, maybe that'll spark something.  We'll see.  For now, a piece that I'm completely addicted to, and could listen to for hours on end (which is good, cuz it kinda takes that long XD).