Kickstarting

I guess life can be like a box of chocolates. Sometimes I bite into one of those rancid cherry-filled ones that make me gag. Bleagh. I hate those. Chocolate and imitation fruit are like fingernails on a chalkboard. Not that anyone knows what that is anymore. But life can sometimes be like that. You think you’re getting something amazing like caramel and peanuts and you get some limp-wristed and pale attempt at imitation awesome, and it might be awesome if it were real, but it doesn’t even go with what it’s been put with so not only is it not awesome or even imitation awesome, it’s infuriating, because who puts cherries with chocolate? Who!? It’s like wrapping a turd in a tortilla.

But I think life is more like a trumpet. At least it can be. Okay, it’s nothing like a trumpet. It would be more accurate to say that people are like trumpets. Okay that’s not really accurate either, the more I think about it. Let us dispense with the generalization, then.

Here’s what I mean to say: I am like a trumpet, okay? That’s what it is. I’m especially like the one I just bought. I told you in the Trumpet Crowdsourcing video I posted up that I could do it; I could find a decent trumpet for a couple hundred bucks. I did. After I tell you this story though, I’m pretty sure you’ll think it was God doing the doing and not me. And you would be correct.

I used Kickstarter to raise funds for the launch of my new studio. My goal was $500 and I reached that goal at the last minute on my birthday, thanks to acts of extreme generosity by some very dear friends. And, thanks to one interested student, I have begun to teach. He’s already showing improvement.

Helpy Helperton.

Now, just so you know, a professional trumpet can cost, brand new, at least $2000, if not $3000. That’s for a run-of-the mill type, the kind every serious high schooler thinks is the bomb. Rightly so; I have played some of those Yamahas and they’re a revelation. A really good pro-line trumpet will set you back about $5000, and there are some out there for $20k or more. If you want to spend less you’ve got to be savvy and you’ve got to do the research. I had a hunch I could find something decent—albeit old and used—for about $500. I just didn’t know how good it would be.

I looked on craigslist.com at first, knowing that’s where the local deals would be, knowing that I could play-test the horn before making the final decision (an important consideration not always available on Ebay). Of course there are some stunning examples on Ebay, some of them vintage horns made before 1980. It’s not that every trumpet made these days is junk. It’s just that they were freaking incredible back in the 50’s and 60’s and 70’s, that some of these  trumpets are going for $400 - $700, and these are every bit as good, if not slightly better than a brand new $3000 trumpet made recently. If you don’t mind a few dings and dents. You know, character. These old trumpets wear the passage of time on their sleeve, but then again so do I.

Red rot.

I perused the makers marks on Ebay with interest: C.G. Conn. Reynolds. Bach (that’s Mt. Vernon, not Elkhart). King. Schilke. F.E. Olds. Even a very rare Italian rotary trumpet by Rampone & Cazzani of Milano that switches from Bb to C with the twist of a lever. They were thinking of these things back in 1916. Very smart. Stuff that people aren’t doing now, except for David Monette, maybe, (Adam Rapa had him build a trumpet in low G, which sounds like the tenor sax version of trumpet; way cool and different) but his stuff is a little out of my price range.

Anyway, Ebay’s got the goods. I was “watching” a few items, and if you’ve ever done this you know what it’s like. Gratifying and terrifying all at once, because you’ve marked the item as something you want, but it’s still there for someone to buy, and what if someone else takes the risk and gets the deal and you don’t? ARRGH.

One day, and I don’t know really why, I started looking at Olds trumpets. Their student model Ambassador from the 50’s and 60’s is said to be every bit as good as the typical pro-line trumpet nowadays. I looked them over. In my price range, or just a little over it, there were Ambassadors and even a bashed up Super Recording, a Mendez, and some other stuff. Then, and again, I do not know why, I realized I hadn’t checked Craigslist in a week or two, and I decided to check it.

Polishing with a Dremel tool and Tripoli.

Up popped an ad for an Olds trumpet, $165. I looked at the single image. I typed in CTRL > + to zoom in on the miniscule thing, but the resolution was poor. “Huh,” I said out loud. I don’t remember Olds, or anyone else for that matter, manufacturing a silver plated student model trumpet, I thought. I looked at the price. “A hundred and sixty five bucks,” I said aloud.

I need to back up a little here. Kickstarter works like this: people pledge support over the life of the promotion, but if you don’t reach the goal, Kickstarter doesn’t run the transactions. If, however, you do reach the goal, they run the transactions and deposit the funds into your Amazon account (minus their fee). My Amazon account was bulging, over the weekend, with about $458, my net of $500. I requested a transfer to my bank on Sunday night, but Amazon says they need up to seven days to get it all complete, so I wasn’t expecting to see my bank account change until the subsequent Monday or Tuesday. But lo and behold, the funds popped up first thing the very next day.

Quite excited to be shopping in earnest, I got tapping and browsing, and that’s when I discovered the Olds on Craigslist. I called the number on the ad. I got the guy’s wife; she said he was busy with a client but that she would give him my number and have him call me back when he was free. She said she had picked up the trumpet at a yard sale and given it to her son to play when he was in high school years ago. Beyond that she had no information.

Looking better.

I sat down to watch Secretariat with my wife. I’d never seen it. I wondered if the guy was going to call me back or if he would forget. Maybe I would have to wait until the next day for a callback; I didn’t know.

Around 8:30, in the middle of the movie, the phone rang. I answered. It was the guy with the Olds. I asked him for some pertinent information on it: serial number, any engravings or markings, do the slides move, do the valves move. He replied that everything on the trumpet worked, then rattled off the serial number. That dated it to the late 50’s, when Olds moved production from LA to Fullerton.

And then the piece de resistance. “It says, ‘Opera’ on the bell,” he said.

“Does it,” I said, trying not to sound too interested. The word rang into the deepest recesses of my brain, setting off vague alarm bells that said in essence, jump on it. “Is it too late to pop over?” I asked, looking at the clock: it read about 8:45 at that point.

It was not too late, he told me, and said I could even play the thing as much as I wanted in order to make a good decision.

When I finally got to his house, which is in Caldwell, it was about 9:30. He cracked the case open on a genuine F.E. Olds Opera Bb trumpet, about 60 years old. It needed a good cleaning. There was a cobweb in the leadpipe. The first note I played came out very mellow, forced, soft. I removed the cobweb with the snake brush that came with the trumpet and tried again.

My Olds Opera.

Clear, bright, eminently modulatable, easy and free was the tone, the sound that came out of this fine instrument. It has been languishing for God knows how many years, waiting for this moment. The moment of its rediscovery. The moment it could be used for that which it had been built. The moment I took it up.

I played octave slurs with ease. It was fluid, easy, fine. It worked with me, greeting me, inviting me on, hinting at undiscovered delights in musical expression. One of the valves was quite slow; I oiled it and it loosened right up. There was “red rot” all over the finish. The bell had a gigantic patch on it, the size of a nickel, where there had been a hole. It was obvious that the thing had been munched at some point and then been repaired—brass is like paper; it can crumple and even rip. The munching was pretty bad, I guessed, to produce the need for a patch like that. It was a little hideous, but it played like a marvel. It made me sound better than I am.

“I’ll take it,” I said. I gave the guy $180 and told him to keep the change. It felt right in my gut, which, by the way, has grown to be so prodigious that I cannot ignore it even when I want to. Cue the rimshot.

I didn’t know until I got home that what I had bought was what I had been looking for in a trumpet all along. See, a really nice friend of mine shipped an old Conn trumpet to me on his own dime about a month ago, telling me to find a use for it or pay it forward. The Conn is nice, but it has issues. There’s a certain telepathy, I guess, that develops between a musician and his axe, and the better quality instrument he’s playing, the clearer the link and the better the result. With the Conn there was a blockage for me, and I deduced that it was rooted in the bore size.

See, most manufacturers today have settled on a bore size for trumpets, measured at the 2^nd valve slide, of either .459 or .460 inch. That’s ML or medium large bore. The Conn uses a stepped bore design that’s supposedly a revelation in playability, but it’s really small at .438 and one cannot argue with physics—you can’t move the same volume of air through a .438 aperture that you can move through a .459 aperture. I played on a .459 trumpet for years; I know what they feel like. I had developed hunch that a large bore trumpet would suit my style of playing quite well. Since I’m so full of it. Hot air, that is.

I did more research on the Olds after I got it home. Turns out it’s an XL extra large bore instrument, at .468 inch. In trumpet terms, that’s like the difference between a wheezing 4 banger grocery getter and a supercar. No wonder it played so light, so easy. I could play just as effortlessly at pianissimo as I could at fortissimo. It was second nature.

I also found out that Olds Opera trumpets are quite rare; not many were made in the first place. That’s why there weren’t any to speak of on Ebay. Well, there was one, but it was way out of my price range at $3000. I think the guy’s asking too much, but if people will pay it, I suppose on some level the price is right. I think he will get a buyer, eventually. As for my Olds Opera, it’s been cleaned pretty well, lubed, and is now in fighting trim. I’ve played it at length once, as of this writing, and I can tell you something: I’m not equal to it. It makes everything easier—far easier. It may need some more work, like a professional valve job, but it’s still a precision tool. One has to know how to use it. I’ve not yet discovered the limits of this beast. It takes everything I can throw at it and demurely asks for more. It’s like that Bill Cosby sketch where they’re playing buck-buck, where Cosby tackles one of the rough kids and the rough kid says, “what was that? A piece of paper?!” This Olds is enormous.

Trumpets are like people. There may be some that look the same, have the same model number, or similar outward appearances. Some are old, some young, some understated, some larger than life. Some, also, were made to endure. Some wear their “red rot” as a badge of honor, a testimony to the hardship they’ve had to endure. The character that accumulates like a crust, tempering, even armoring the glossy and perfect shine that lies beneath, ready to be revealed by loving hand. Tubes of cold metal can be made to sing like angels, trust me. I know. It is the same with these elegantly designed but fatally flawed sacks of dirt we call our bodies, our temporary homes. We too can be made to endure, to become warm and glowing under loving hand, indeed, to sing.

This now is what I have purposed to do with my own life. This Olds Opera, so very much like me, is the mouthpiece for my song; the instrument of choice. It’s seen better years, yes. It shows its battle scars. It’s been bashed and repaired and it shows. But the sound it makes! There might come a day when I plunk down the 2k that will be needed to completely restore it. But that might not be money well spent. It may be that the imperfections, the patched holes, the dents, the patina produced from sixty years under the sun, the rarity of an unconventional large bore, the quality of its hand-crafted build… these make it sound so good. And I think when beauty surprises us in unlooked-for places, well… it’s all the more arresting. To a guy with his own scars and issues, I probably couldn’t have paired myself with a better trumpet. And to all my Kickstarter supporters, thank you. You’ve invested in the beginning of something, well, XL.

Updates are a Comin!

Gang, I've got some information that I'll be posting up here later today or tomorrow about my Kickstarter trumpet fundraising campaign, life, art, and music. Don't miss it.

Revelation 3.7

I hold in my hand a check I wrote but which was never remitted. It never will be, either. I had written the check out in the car in the parking lot before I went inside, intending to pass it to my trumpet instructor, Dennis Keck, at the end of our time. He refused to allow me to pay.

Through the convoluted process of networking doing its thing, I met with Dennis, a professional musician, for an evaluation. He was for a long time the second trumpet in the Boise Philharmonic. He’s an educator par excellence as well. So much of good teaching is just clearing the floor of pretense and making the complex simple, and he did that for me. But to refuse to allow me to pay? Just wow. What’s going on here?

Allow me to back up a little. I walked into Dunkley Music not long ago, asking about renting a trumpet. They told me, “Hey, why don’t you take one home for a week and see how you like it?” I didn’t turn them down. Then I got a call from the department head, later in the day, asking me if it was the Chris White that had borrowed one of his trumpets. Turns out the department head for brass and woodwinds is an old friend of mine. He wanted to do all he could to help me get started playing again. He gave me the contact info for one Justin Stamps, the current second trumpet with the Boise Phil and trumpet instructor at BSU. Justin agreed to meet with me to discuss strategies for making my way into the professional network here in the Treasure Valley, and he also gave me contact information for some of the premiere players around here. One of them was the guy I met with who would refuse, a month later, to allow me to pay for my lesson: Dennis Keck.

After making the initial contact with Dennis, we finally synced up our schedules and met. I made sure to ask him what his rate was so that I could be prepared. I guess I didn't need to know. We hit it off really well. We didn’t do much “evaluating,” really, because we were too busy talking excitedly about trumpet geek stuff, trying to sight-read some jazz duets and chatting about teaching kids. And at the end of the night he refused to allow me to pay. Did you get that part?!

As we made our way to the parking lot, Claudio Roditi came up. He’s the dude with the Weird Al hair in this video. It's around 5'00" on the timeline. An amazing trumpet player. Turns out Dennis went gaga for him when he heard this solo as well, and went out and bought everything he could find that featured him. So that was common ground.

We also talked about trumpets; which one to buy. He confirmed my suspicions about the intonation problems I’ve been having on the Conn that I’ve been playing (it’s not me, it’s the horn), and also highly recommended the Schilke X3 I’ve been watching on eBay. You can tell yourself you’re smart all day long, but you won’t believe it until someone else confirms it for you, ya know? So that was really cool too.

He also asked me where I planned to teach, and gave me some pointers on the mechanics, the logistics of it. Since he’s changed up his gig (letting the Boise Phil go), he’s also taken up a job at a local middle school. In the process he’s had to let much of his private studio roster go. He now wants to tell these kids to come see me, have me teach them. At least, as many as are able and don’t have another teacher now. Is that crazy or what?!

The best part was this: as we were packing up to leave, he said, “Make sure to send me your contact info so I can distribute your phone number to those students. And also make sure to get ahold of me about once a month so we can get together and jam to some more jazz duets.” I was like, “Really?” I must have looked like a kid myself. So here’s this world class musician who’s inviting me into his circle of influence, not just as a colleague but as a peer who will get together with him to jam occasionally.

I’m still blown away.

Sleep Notes

My hair is far more sexy now.

Out of the great wisdom God has seen fit to dump upon me (oh dear, we can see where this is going already), I decided not long ago to open a file on my iPhone’s Notes app titled, “sleep notes.” The intent was to provide a way for me, the author, to jot random arresting thoughts as I hover on the fringes of sleep at night.

Some things are just too good to forget.

The problem is I forgot most of what I wrote about. I can’t blame me, either, because what I left for myself is pretty cryptic. Take the first note, for instance:

But you will be brought home with yr head in a sack.

I am wracking my brain to try to remember what that was all about. I’m pretty sure I had been listening to my audio Bible that night, somewhere in mid-Genesis. Life was rough in those times. We’re a bunch of pansies now. That’s what I get out of it. I should take better notes, I know, but you’ve got to admit I’m doing pretty good for a guy who’s writing while mostly asleep. Next.

Underwater ok w o scuba. Rooms that go forever. Something is wrong with my companion. Strangers walking by my son and take him big clang

I’m providing fodder to the psych machine, I know. Before everyone else has a crack at my subconscious, though, allow me to oblige with my own analysis: I can breathe underwater, but only in large rooms, and only if my buddy is completely deranged. If someone I don’t know tries to take my son whilst we’re walking, they will be destroyed by a massive falling steel girder. That is all. Next.

Dog your own grave without knowing it.

I like dogs. I like them when they belong to other people and I don’t have to live with them. I don’t like picking up poo out of the grass. I especially don’t like, and this has been well publicized, picking up poo out of my grass, especially since I do not own a dog, and I especially do not like it, Sam I am, when your dog is the cause of the poo in my grass. Therefore the meaning of this cryptic note, having set the stage for proper context, can be summed up with one word: dogicide. That is, if I catch your mangy walking shite factory doing the doo on my grass. I will throw rocks and not try to miss.

Of course I’m speaking metaphorically. Which brings us on to our final dreamland note:

Metaphorical plunger

I’m pretty sure I was thinking along the lines of a stopped up toilet. Perhaps what had clogged it was, let’s say, akin to “waste.” I really don’t know what I was thinking, but I can guess. And by the way, why does it always come down to potty jokes for me? Is it because I’m a man? Perhaps. If that’s true, and a man, any man, every man, can be summed up so cheaply and so easily, then all women—by extension—are vicious gossiping harpies. See, that’s not nice, is it ladies? DON’T JUDGE ME, THEN. I’m a man, and I have feelings too, and they’re in my heart, not somewhere else as has been rumored, FALSELY. Just because a man’s definition of romance is a little different than yours doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Okay. Uh. Where was I. Oh! Yes. The meaning of this dreamland note is this: I’m not taking any more of your crap, World. Yeah!

Oh, and one more thing: Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

Trumpet Times

Some of you may have noticed that a friend of mine posted up images of an old trumpet on his Facebook wall, tagging me in the process. This was my friend Nate, a high school acquaintance from way back in the day. Of course I’m now old and farty; it happens to the best of us. All that aside, it begs the question: what’s up with that old trumpet?

Turns out after I launched the Kickstarter campaign for my new trumpet studio, Nate messaged me on FB the same day. He told me about this old Conn he had kicking around. It’s a Connstellation 36B Lightweight, and it was most likely made in the late fifties (cf. The Conn Loyalist). These old trumpets are quite legendary. Conn made some of the finest back then. The tone of the 36B Lightweight and especially the 38B (which I now want to try, naturally) is dark; powerful at fortissimo and mellow at pianissimo. In essence, just what I’ve always wanted.

The 36B that I received from Nate is wonderful, but not without its flaws. Anything that’s sixty-plus years old is going to have some imperfections, I daresay. The mouthpiece receiver probably broke off at some point, because it was soldered back on, quite inaccurately. The bell and some of the bracing is bent. The proper felts and corks aren’t installed on the valves and I don’t know if you can even get them anymore. These are really just little niggles, because the horn plays really well. When you step to something like this, you have to try not to tell it what it’s going to do for you. You kinda have to ask it how it wants to go about its business; respect your elders. I did and I was rewarded. While the intonation isn’t completely consistent and the valve action is really heavy, it turns out that it all works in context. Having played my new Connstellation 36B Lightweight, I rather like it.

So, you may be asking, does that mean I’m no longer trying to raise money for my new studio? Not hardly. I still want to get my mitts on a trumpet I’ve had a chance to playtest, to choose for myself. While I don’t begrudge the gift of this old Conn, it’s still not exactly what I need as an instructor. It's very very cool, but it's  not something I would feel comfortable playing everyday. It's like an old classic car in that way, and time will tell if it suits me right down to the ground. One of Nate’s conditions on sending the Conn all the way from Ohio to Idaho was that, if I didn’t want it, I send it back to him or “pay it forward.” I certainly want it, and I certainly will use it. One way I could do that would be to allow my students to playtest this ol’ beauty, experience something completely different than the new school of trumpet construction. Trust me, the old Conn is way different; I don’t have the space here to go into it.

Another reason I’m continuing on with the Kickstarter fundraisingcampaign is because, as I said in the videos, this isn’t even about buying a trumpet. I have a close friend who offered to let me borrow one for a while anyway. What the Kickstarter campaign is about is starting up my private studio so I can teach music and trumpet to kids who need something more than they’re getting in life. Yeah, I need a trumpet to do that, sure, and I have one. Actually two, because I picked up an old Bach basher for fifty bucks at Dunkley the other day (fifty bucks?!) which I’ll use as a loaner (or as punishment) for my students. I'm telling you, doors are flinging wide open for me in this endeavor.

My assistant...

Since I last played, there are new method books out there. I need to know them, which means I need to buy them and use them. There are also approved Idaho contest pieces that I do not own, and I need to get all of them if my students are going to compete at state. There’s a list of about a dozen of them, and I need to get cracking on learning them so I can teach them to my students. What else? My daily routine includes stacking various boxes on the bed and propping my case open, stuffing a pillow inside, so I can get my books and music up high enough to practice good posture when I play. It would be nice to have a heavy duty music stand like I used to own. Another practical concern is that I need a diverse collection of mouthpieces, small- medium- large, that I can use with my students to make sure they’re playing on the right equipment. One mouthpiece is about eighty bucks, and I need probably five of them. Seven or eight would be better. I could probably find some for cheaper on eBay, but the list goes on.

So the fundraising continues. Good news: I’m still making connections here in Boise. I’m meeting with the band director at a local private school in Boise this week. We’re going to go over some of the problem areas his trumpet section is having so I can pop in to clinic on them soon. Perhaps I’ll gain some students out of the deal. I already have one verbal commitment from a kid at another school already. So I’m on my way. Thanks for journeying with me.

The Carnival of Venice

The Carnival of Venice (Arban) is one of the toughest pieces in the trumpet repertoire. It involves blisteringly fast scales, double tonguing (ta-ka-ta) and triple tonuing (ta-ta-ka-ta), crazy intervals over an octave in difference, 32^nd notes, and on and on. I played an easier version (Clarke) my senior year of high school, and it took me a fair bit of practice to get it as perfect as I could.

I’ve heard it said that masterpieces are never finished, merely abandoned; and if you’ve ever gazed long at a renaissance painting you’ll begin to understand. The details could go on forever, and one wonders at the process… how the painter went about his business. When did he paint what? How did the pieces fit together in time as he created it? What made him move on from one zone of the canvas to the next and why? And at what point did he abandon it, effectively saying (in Italian, no doubt), “enough is enough!”

Wynton Marsalis, whom I practically worshipped as a young trumpeter in high school, produced a pinnacle of the art form in his recording of The Carnival of Venice on the record Carnaval. And yeah. It’s the Arban’s version, which is in another universe from the Clarke’s. Here's a YouTube link of Marsalis with John Williams and the Boston Pops orchestra that will blow your freaking mind. He's playing a cornet, not a trumpet, in that video. 

It’s a theme and variations, so it starts off with the basic melody. It’s in 6/8 time, so it feels like a waltz; oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah. It’s a nice little melody, if it does anything it lilts. I said lilts. Now I get a triple score. Anyway as the variations go on, they get more difficult until gradually, in the final variation it literally sounds like there are two trumpets playing simultaneously. I am not making this up. Just a shower of sound. Marsalis did this to perfection on the record Carnaval (aforementioned), released in the early nineties. It was and is incredible. I’m waiting on my public library to call me with my reserved copy of that recording; I just have to hear it again.

As you may or may not have gleaned from the buzz in the ether around here lately, I’ve picked up a trumpet after about a seventeen year hiatus. Right now I’m just using loaners however I can get them, but I’m back into practicing again nevertheless. Today during my routine I cracked into a dusty long-forgotten section of the Arban’s book.

J.B. Arban’s first comprehensive trumpet and cornet method was published in the late 1800’s and quickly became the ultimate authority on the instrument. I’d argue that it still is too, in many ways. It’s over an inch and a half thick and has everything you could ever and never think of inside it. Included is the trumpet part for The Carnival of Venice.

When I collided with it today it was glorious. I just thought you should know. As I was playing it, fond old memories started coming into focus again. That melody, those notes, are up near the rarified heights of musicianship that I was just beginning to know so many years ago. For me to make my clumsy little forays around the edges today was nothing less than a delight.

Mind you, our collision was probably hideously ugly to my next door neighbors. But to me, in my heart and head, it was a thing of beauty. 

Resurrection

It's a funny thing about gifts. While a thing that we're gifted to do in life can master us, define us, lend us a piece of our identity, enable us to do what no one else can do, steward us to great heights of accomplishment... it can also break us, back us into corners, entrap us, destroy us, burn us like wicks until all the fuel is gone and we're utterly spent.

Probably the best metaphor for this is the simple seed.

Seeds. Contained within one of these impossible capsules is an entire forest, given enough time, good soil, rain. Generations can be supported on one grain of wheat, which again, given enough time, will produce field upon endless field of staple crops for the children of the children of the children of the man who first sowed it. It's incredible, but we can hear in this expression of creation the voice of God asking us why we're so amazed.

I've experienced a weird hate-love with a gift in my own life. It all started when I was eleven years old and in desperate need of something to do. I needed something to define me. Tell me, at least in part, who I was. The first time I ever touched a trumpet it was clear that I had a natural ability for it; a gift. I was able to make it work. One of my band directors in high school, Dan Christian, pulled me aside one day during my senior year and asked me why I wasn't auditioning for the Indiana All-State Band. I just shrugged and implied I was bored with it. That's when he told me that he had never in his life seen a kid take to the trumpet like I had. He told me that I really shouldn't be able to do half the stuff I was able to do, that I had been fortunate that no one had ever told me I couldn't. This is an incredible guy, by the way: he famously told us, "If you're gonna make a mistake, make it loud." I ended up auditioning for the Indiana All-State Band, and I made the All-State Honor band. Not first chair, but first part. I still have the CD of our concert somewhere, I think. That was the year I played Carnival of Venice, too, which is, as any trumpet player worth his salt will tell you, one of the premiere pieces in the repertoire.

Why do I bore you with these inane details? It's not to brag about anything. I'm far past those immature days; I might even hazard the opinion that most of it has been burned out of me. No, I tell this story to set the stage for a radical idea that, like a seed, has germinated within me after years--seventeen of them--lying dormant.

But first, another story. Bear with me. In 2006 I started up a construction company with my dad and my brother. By summer of 2007 it was busted, and for lots of reasons, but I maintain that I was rescued from success because it would have been more damaging than failure, at least given the way we were going about our business. After that, we entered the crucible. I was unable to find work for over a year. I was deeply depressed. It was as if I had lost someone, not something. We started selling off everything we didn't need in order to make ends meet. My drums, our band's PA system, my huge home stereo, the months-old plasma TV... then pretty much all that was left was the trumpet.

I had delivered papers for two years, maybe three years, saving my money for that pro-line trumpet. At the Indiana Trumpet Competition in Anderson Indiana in the summer of 1991, after play-testing several trumpets from the hundreds on display, I selected a Bach Stradivarius model 180S with a 43H heavyweight bell and 25LR reverse leadpipe. Very sexy for the times, let me tell you. And it played like nothing else. Rather than inhibiting my talents, it amplified them, made everything easier, better, richer.

In 2008 I sold it. I prayed about it quite a lot beforehand, too. I knew that I needed to provide for my family, and I wasn't opposed to selling it. "No sacred cows," I say. My in-laws lived in Hawaii at the time, and they told us, "Why don't you guys come here and look for a job?" All we needed to do was get there; they told us they would put us up in their one bedroom condo in Honolulu until we found something that worked. We needed about $1600 for the plane tickets, if I remember right. I appraised my old Strad and guess how much it was worth? It sold on eBay quickly for the appraised value. Some rather fortunate young trumpeter in the London area is now (hopefully) the proud owner. Off it went, certified post, and off we went to Hawaii. I found a job there quickly, working at a marina doing dock maintenance. Of course, I was laid off after about four months and we then came back home, but it was precisely what we needed: refreshment.

When I made the decision to sell my Strad I distinctly heard God tell me if I laid it down completely then, He would repay my decision, my sacrifice, many times over. I was glad to do it. And I don't believe that word repay connotes monetary value, either. God is creative. I shall be wise enough to allow Him to choose how and when; I live and breathe at His mercy daily. So we'll see what happens next.

And speaking of what's next, we're now full circle in the little story I'm telling here. I think also that it's significant that I'm posting this on the first day of a brand new year. That's what I'm talking about: my radical idea. Actually, it's probably not radical at all for anyone but me. Forgive me this indulgence, will you? You see, in the hard years now hopefully behind me, I've learned a great deal about holding to things loosely. How to lay my will down. How to make sacrifices for others. How to stop thinking so damn much about me, me, ME. In fact I learned it so well that when this idea finally occurred to me I was shocked at how out of the blue it was. Truly, it was the furthest thing from my mind.

I was so over the trumpet that I had actually gone to a local music shop and talked with them, casually, about getting a tenor sax on a rent-to-own program. But that was months ago. This new idea came gently, like a steady rustling breeze on a bed of hot coals, enlivening them slowly, roundly, thoroughly. I thought, Hey. I could teach trumpet. And that was it. Then, Why not rent one? The next day I was in the same shop looking, seriously, for a trumpet to rent. They obliged me with a play-test, also directing me next door to  a studio that, strangely enough, was looking for trumpet teachers. Huh, I thought. The lady was busy with students, however, but she took my number and promised to call.

I took another fine instrument on approval for a week, from another local shop. I got back into my fundamental routine, daily gaining more flexibility. The day came to return it, and I walked in and asked for another. A better one. A Bach Strad. There was a guy in line behind me as I went through the checkout process. He seemed a decent fellow, and asked me if I was buying a new trumpet. I told him no, just checking one out on approval, trying to get back into playing. That week, I had also Googled that nice lady with the studio who was looking for trumpet teachers and called her up and left a message. You've gotta chase these things down sometimes.

Later on that day, I got a call from the other shop; the one from which I had borrowed the Strad. This one took me way back. On the phone was a young man I had known since he was small enough to ride piggyback on my shoulders. He saw my name in the transaction record and decided to track me down to see if I was indeed who he thought I was (I was). Today he's an accomplished cellist, educated at Vanderbilt. He's quite well-connected, shall we say, with the local schools, and told me he was very interested in doing whatever he could to help me build up a private studio. He gave me a phone number as well: one of the trumpet players in the Boise Philharmonic. I called that gentleman right away and introduced myself, telling him I had been given his number by a young man who worked at Dunkley's Music. He said, "Hey, were you down at Dunkley's today?" I answered yes. He said, "I was right behind you in line." Turns out I had already met, in person, the guy I was going to meet over the phone. We're going to meet in person again soon to talk about strategies for building up my clientele. And just like that, I'm tapped into the local community of professional musicians.

The only thing is: I need a trumpet if I'm going to teach. It's not something that's learned out of books. It's learned by rote, by doing, by example, by repetition. A trumpet instructor without an axe is absurd. I was wracking my brain to figure out how to acquire a trumpet in the most cost-effective way. I could rent one, but that's a long-term expense that adds to the overhead of my business. While that remains an option, I nevertheless had a brainwave and struck on an idea that could be better, plus allow people that I've known for years to have a hand in helping me out, getting me back into playing trumpet and fulfilling a long dormant and frustrated part of me that wants to positively impact the youth of my community, the musical capabilities, particularly of younger musicians and students.

What is it? Crowdsourcing. If you've heard of Kickstarter, you know at least a little about what it is. And as of this writing, I'm still waiting to hear back from Kickstarter.com about my submission and whether or not it's been given a go. Whatever the case may be, my goal is simple:

Raise at least $500, buy a trumpet, and start teaching.

I've already looked on Craigslist and found some. I'm hoping to raise more, of course, but at least with that minimum amount I can get started, start my studio, gain students, make a difference, and earn my way back into this thing, eventually buying a pro-line trumpet again. Maybe even a Bach Stradivarius. I plan to weasel my way into local schools and offer to teach a day of sectionals with the trumpets, train them in proper warm ups, range expansion, the finer points of mouthpiece selection, maybe even give 'em some tips on jazz improvisation. It'll be a great way to recruit students. I'm going to have studio recitals with my students. I'll organize competitions. Together we'll raise the bar. We'll get some of these young musicians listening to properly good music, maybe even positively influence the pop culture with something besides sex and bling and gratuitousness. And who knows, maybe Idaho could become a musical oasis. Anything is possible. I know that for a fact because I have experienced it.

Stay tuned to this space for updates. When I hear from Kickstarter, I'll be posting up their yea or nay. If it's nay, I'll just raise the funds through my blog and social media, using Paypal. There' s more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to buy a trumpet and make a difference. The key is that we do this together. I really do believe that's crucial. Thanks for being a part of this "radical idea." And for now there are some videos that I put together that will tell you more about me and my story and my idea--plus you get to hear me play (yikes). There's a short and sweet version, and a longer one with an additional ten minutes of footage that tells the whole story. Leave comments here if you have questions/ideas about all this. Thanks for popping in here, and I look forward to getting started on this project ASAP.

Chris