Trumpets and Saxophones

I am starting into my 3rd month of trumpet lessons. Most of the first lessons are whole notes, scales, etc. - trying to figure out how to actually get the note out and have it sound good. While these are good exercises, they also get boring...so last night during my salsa band practice, I had both my saxophone and my trumpet out messing around playing with songs. I have made two main conclusions about learning a second instrument, one bad and one good:

(BAD) No matter how much musical talent, experience, and knowledge you have, nothing replaces practice when it comes to sound, technique, etc. While I am progressively getting better, I will not have a 20-year experienced trumpet lip without practicing for 20 years.

(GOOD) Experience and knowledge DO carry over into the other parts of learning a second instrument. For example, last night I was actually able to play along a little bit on some of the songs just be listening - something I never could have done when I started saxophone 22 years ago. And of course I can already read music, more/less tell when I'm out of tune, and transpose between keys, all skills I've learned in the last 22 years. This is also good and bad though, because your brain knows what it wants to do, but your mouth and fingers can't execute it....

So the moral of the story is, while I'm not starting from scratch, I still have to put in the hours of practice :) Why it takes 22 years to learn and appreciate this concept I guess I'll never know.

Coming Up...

• Niece Laynie's baptism tomorrow in Eden Valley - pictures soon!
• A post of some basic computer security things I have learned that every computer user should know