In 2008 I gave up the trumpet. At the age of 35 I was getting braces. I didn't want anything to mess up the process so I gave up one of the things that had really defined who I was...playing the trumpet...particularly playing jazz on trumpet. The whole braces thing lasted a lot longer than expected. I was a unique case. It's also tougher to straighten teeth out as an adult. Two years lingered into three years. Then there were four oral surgeries to go with it.
I had to have implants and bone grafts, the whole works. I had a team working on me. A dentist, an orthodontist, an endodontist and an oral surgeon. My oral surgeon had to invent a new procedure to make my bone graft work. He uses my case at conferences. I'm very thrilled about that. Also thrilled to help pay for several of his ski vacations during those years. Three years merged into four, then five. Finally after five years the whole thing was done.
But I did not pick the trumpet back up for fear of ruining a process that had cost several thousands of dollars. After a year, I decided to give the trumpet a shot. Playing trumpet had given me so much joy over the years. I wanted my son to know me as a trumpet player. He had never heard me play. Guitar yes, trumpet no.
So in July of 2014 I picked up my horn and everything had changed. My chops were out of shape after not playing for six years. My embouchure was completely different after braces and reconstructive surgeries. I said on Facebook that if Chet Baker could re-learn to play after having his teeth knocked out I could re-learn to play. Of course, I'm no Chet Baker, never was, not even close.
I could barely get out a low C. I couldn't even hit the tuning note, the concert B flat. It was super depressing. I tried to play for a few days and then just gave up. I put the strad back on its stand and left it there...
...for another two years.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to give it another shot. Not that I had ever stopped listening to jazz but recently I had been diving back into listening to jazz pretty heavily and all those swinging cats had inspired me. Jazz provides a respite from the stresses of current events. And I wanted to play. But this time I needed a plan.
I lowered my expectations. I restricted myself to the basics. The first few days I would simply try playing long tones. That's it. Five to ten minutes of long tones on low notes. Nothing higher than middle G. And yes, it did sound awful. But after the third day the low notes began to sound reasonable.
After a few days I decided to play the concert B flat scale. Long tones and real slow. One time. Just one scale. Getting to the concert B flat was not easy. But I played that one scale for a week. Five minutes a day. I had already told myself this was going to be a slow process so I was okay with it. I wasn't going to bail.
Within a few days the scale sounded acceptable. And I made it a goal to play the B flat scale ten times each day. I set strict limits. No more, no less than ten runs through this most basic of scales per day. Nothing else.
After a week of that I began playing my old warm up...running through five scales, C-D-E flat-F and G. Man it was rough. Getting to high G was a killer. But I refused to get depressed even though a high G was nothing back in the day. I played them slow for days and then faster and faster.
Baby steps.
My dexterity began to return. My range began to slowly improve. After two weeks of crawling I started to add some of my other old warm up exercises to the mix. And then I felt ready. I had gone to Amazon and ordered the Hal Leonard Ultimate Jazz Fake Book, the book I had used in college when playing with the Earl Enterline Quintet. This book has all the great jazz standards in it with all the chords.
I had already decided which song I would practice. My plan would be to practice this song for a month until I was satisfied I could play it without embarrassment. Not only would I master the melody, I would re-learn all the chords I had forgotten. I actually wrote out all the notes of all the chords so I could eventually start to improvise again.
The song I chose was "Four" by Miles Davis. "Four" is a jazz standard and one I had played quite a bit in college. I chose it because the melody is simple yet the end of the chart does require some dexterity both in valve fingering and embouchure. The chords are accessible but not simplistic. Plus, on the second run through you have the option of taking the chorus up an octave which would provide an additional challenge for me to attack. This seemed like a good song to play.
"Four"...the first song I had played on trumpet in eight years. Here's Miles and Coltrane playing it...
Three days and it's proceeding slowly but nicely. I've got the chorus down. The close can still snag me a bit on occasion. The upper octave still doesn't sound as clear as I would like. And I haven't even started trying to improvise with the chords yet. I figure in a couple of weeks or so I'll put it on the stereo and try to play along. I'm taking this nice and easy so I don't freak out and bail again.
I can't tell you how much happiness this has brought me. Just playing a song has been cathartic. Getting back into a chorus has been a sweet release. Geez, I needed this. I didn't realize how much a void there was without playing jazz. Words can't express it.
I have many many months, perhaps years to go before I feel good about even getting close to playing trumpet in public again. And I was never that great of a player to begin with. But I had forgotten what the sheer joy of being lost in a jazz classic felt like. Once I have "Four" down, memorized, and improvised I'll move on to some other classics that will help me progress in various ways. "Friday the 13th" and "Well You Needn't" by Thelonious Monk are definitely on the list for their dexterity. "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" will be a nice easy ballad to work on tonality. "Cherokee" for the challenging chords. I'm in this for the long term.
My goal: to play trumpet with my son playing on piano. That would be sweet.
