Thoughts of a Beginner Trumpet

I have a couple of days of teaching in a private school in south Birmingham with some of the nicest primary school kids you can imagine.

I have 15 trumpet students ranging from 7 year olds starting out to my top student who is to take his grade 8 next year at the age of 12!!! He is part of the national children’s orchestra with solid technique, a great ear and if the trumpet is the career path he decides to take there is no reason he won’t be a great success in the future.

However this entry isn’t about my top student, more about one of my intermediates.

This particular student is very bright with a thought process like a pinball table, arriving at logical yet random thoughts all throughout his lesson.

Here is an example of such a recent bumper of thoughts and ideas.

Whilst explaining that not using enough air will starve the note leaving it weak and unsupported I used the phrase “trumpet fuel” (referring to air as the driving force behind making any sound on the trumpet). From here his thoughts moved on:

This took a total of 2 Minutes

Thought 1 ) Trumpet Fuel – to – Fuel prices
Thought 2 ) Fuel Prices – to global warming
Thought 3 ) Cars aren’t just responsible for global warming. Cows give off just as much pollution as cars.
Thought 4 ) We must kill cows to save the planet but how to without adding more pollution.
Thought 5 ) Take all the cows to one place and drop a nuclear bomb on them (as you do)
Thought 6 ) That should kill them – although it might not kill chickens (?!)
Thought 7 ) There’s a record breaking chicken who lived for 2 days without it’s head
Thought 8 ) A cockroach can live longer without a head
Thought 9 ) But they can survive a nuclear blast
Thought 10 ) I wonder if they produce pollution?
Thought 11 ) Do they produce more than cars?
Thought 12 ) Maybe we could use them as fuel for cars?
Thought 13 ) But we can’t use them as trumpet fuel.
Thought 14 ) So I need to put more air down to get the E then???

A full revolution of semi-logical pinball thoughts in order to play an E in “The Mexican Chilli Out”!!

I sat down for the rest of the lesson…