Music not dead

Just don't have any time, between writing and recovering and a crazy project at work.

Took the Shetland Gue into the shop, sanded it down, re-stained, gave it a glossier coat of polyurethane. I'm still lousy at staining and finishing but it didn't come out so bad. Looks like tuning the strings to A and C is the key (ahem) to playing the Game of Thrones theme, but it is still a bad stretch to that top note. Need practice time before I try to record.

Balked at bidding on a horn I wish I had gone for. Soprano trombone, but not one of those ultra-cheap ones: a used Jupiter in mint condition with mpc and case. Closed at about the same price as those Chinese jobs. I have this crazy dream now of three Bb instruments -- so the slotting is nominally the same (err, except the French Horn starts at the second octave so actually no) -- and all are portable and I can pitch shift them electronically to seat them. But...I adjust pretty quickly to different ranges in the woodwinds and when you shrink the dimensions like that the sonic qualities really do start to collapse as well. The piccolo French Horn basically sounds like a flugelhorn. A really out-of-tune flugelhorn.

Really, a better use of my money would be to start the rent-to-own on a used student-level trumpet. (My local store only has an Eastman at the moment, which doesn't exactly inspire me.)

Changed pegs so my lute-back ukulele is now hanging by my desk for those "practice for a few minutes while a file downloads" moments. So I'm getting a bit more time on it.

Went to the shop last night. I needed to look at the paperwork for the crazy project because dimensions are going out Monday but anyhow. The main chance I get these days to blow into an open horn, and thus really listen to my tone. Well, tone was not what I worked on. My slotting is still not firm, especially when making larger jumps. Practicing scales (actually, scale) is cheating; you can work your lip bit by bit and not have to make a dead leap to the next note.

Apparently French Horns are so bad with this even an orchestral player on a professional-level horn will miss their opening. And unlike the Perlman quote, it is really hard to correct that before anyone else hears.

Oh, and I can hit the E above the staff once or twice in a practice session. Working on stabilizing the C above the staff before I really go crazy up there.