I am surprised and disappointed by how long it is taking to pick up trombone. Of course I got a too-cheap one; scratchy slide, no tuning slide.
The embouchure is just different enough I'm having to relearn my slotting. Well, this week I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. I think it is because it is an octave lower than trumpet, you have to adjust the embouchure a lot more than you would on trumpet when valving/sliding down. Basically, you have to move your lip more; the notes are physically further apart.
My current exercise is to play a long note and slide slowly all the way out to seventh and back up to first. I keep getting a horrid blatty sound on the second partial but it is finally clearing up. And today I blew the top C. Which is loud.
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On the novel, I am pretty much decided I'm going to throw out the entire first chapter. And move the essential material (there's introductions to a bunch of concepts; dialects particularly Geordie, the difference between England and Britain, Panto, the Home Guard, metal detectors, archaeological survey) to following chapters.
It will make it more focused; all in London instead of starting in the Midlands, more about W.W.II -- dropping the Seven Day's Queen stuff. A weaker opening scene, unfortunately.
And that's 3,700 words of work going by-by, plus re-writes of every single scene in Part I.
I'm also contemplating an even more ambitious re-shuffle to shift the mid-point break earlier, bring in the diary earlier, and be able to have Linnet's experiences of the ghastly Kennington Park shelter happening as Penny is being both broke and suffering from an arrow wound. But that's a lot of shuffling.
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