Recording

Played with a prog rock band for a recording on Sunday – Easter Sunday, yes. God. I really have nothing to do. We were playing some kind of quasi-orchestral parts in a brass ensemble. They had string parts as well but they recorded those on the previous day.

Had to drive down there all the way across London. Managed to get there alright, but then as I was trying to find the place down this narrow village road, I clipped the curb and my pristine wheeltrim went flying off. I decided to turn round and pick it up – I can’t stand the look of missing wheel trims. Sadly it was broken but I managed to fit it back loosely. It’ll do.

Well, my lip was knackered, I was only playing 2nd trumpet so I was mostly in the staff, but just playing orchestral stuff and trying to match the dynamic of the other trumpeter and not having practised for so long was really hard work. I’ve almost completely forgotten how to play orchestrally, it’s shocking. You really have to hit notes dead centre and sustain them without resorting to vib or backing away. Shockingly I can’t do that anymore, I was using so much pressure and playing on the lip so much in order to sustain notes. The intonation was all over the place and the pitch was probably bending all the time, but my ears are so bad now I can hardly tell.

Anyway, it was interesting to play in the style again. The other players were music college alumni by the looks of it. The most frustrating thing for me besides the lip mashing was that my sound was just not cutting through. I was trying to match up to the first trumpeter and it sounded ok in the room, in fact I thought his sound wasn’t really very round. But then when I listened back to the track, all I could hear was him, my sound just wasn’t cutting. The same thing happened in the a recording I did a few weeks ago with the afrobeat band. The other trumpeter’s sound is shit and forced, but when I listened back on the recording someone did a few weeks ago, all I could hear was him. My sound may be quite nice and purer, but it just rolls out of the bell and falls on the floor evidently. Weird. I need lessons.