SteelyDan

"1. Tell us how you would improve a trumpet with a new feature or design."

First of all, I would like to thank Eclipse Trumpets and TM for the opportunity to participate in this contest. Their combined generosity is undoubtedly appreciated by all of this forum's members. Secondly, although I had originally envisioned a base finish from of NP3 or Metacol III, I have since been informed that neither can be easily applied in the long tubing of a trumpet. With that in mind, I would choose to go with a horn that yields a responsive, "open" feel with lots of projection. a) Large Copper Bell. b) Expanding bore to .470. c) Finger rings(no hooks) for 1st, 3rd, and pinkie fingers with an angled ring for 1st valve. d) Amado water keys, of course. I've come to the realization that I don't know near enough about horn design as you guys so, I'll trust whatever advice you give.
"2. Give us a theme for a trumpet!"

The "Phoenix"(Voice echoes around room.) Just as the Phoenix rose from its mythological ashes, so has my city risen from the Arizona desert. (Dramatic pause between sentences) In keeping with the hot nature of our climate, food, and culture the horn would have a deep candy-apple red(metallic) "paint job" over the majority of its outside surface. The bell will display "hot rodder" style yellow, and orange flames streaming out of the throat and back a significant distance towards the bell bow/tuning slide. Furthermore, lightweight sheet-bracing(for effects not added weight) will be shaped into flames and placed in such a manner that they too trail towards the back of the horn(thus giving the illusion of movement.) Of course, the "flame" bracing would have my initials and a "hot rod" paint job to match that of the bell. Gold plated accents(heavy top/bottom valve caps, finger buttons, 1st & 3rd finger rings and slides, and a pinky ring up top.) There you have it folks; a responsive, free-blowing horn that can really turn up the "heat" to cut through the crowd!
Here's a thought: maybe "Firebird"(tribute to "The Boss") would be in order. We do, after all, have several things in the area named in such a manner (Firebird Raceway etc.)

3. Storytime!!!

Fall had come to the Vermont countryside and flora, fauna and the people of the town in the valley below the shadow of the mountains were all busily preparing for winter’s deep sleep. Much has been made of the proverbial beauty of this grand state’s autumn leaves, but even the most hardened, cynical heart would not be able to ignore the natural splendor of the forest’s twilight celebration. Every possible shade and variation of crimson from a dark, deep, maroon to burnt cayenne was furiously washing and blending into the firebrick-orange and canary yellow leaves that hung in a last, gleaming, colorful song of life. The squirrels, woodchucks, and chipmunks had long since filled their coffers with acorns, and the few remaining birds were already hunkered down in the warmth of their winter roosts. Outside his living room window Willie Nelson Mandela could hear the sounds of neighborhood children playing in the street. Halloween had come and gone which meant that Thanksgiving was right around the corner and with it the promise of a winter break from school in the not so distant future. Too much time had passed since Willie had last spoken with his only daughter and it was days like this one that made the emptiness in his heart swell and consume him.

As twilight slowly gave way to dusk Willie fought the aching feeling in his heart long enough to get up from his tattered easy chair and turn off the garish neon sign that hung from the awning on his porch. With this action the neighbors would now know that the Mandela residence would not be conducting any more private lessons on this day. Moreover, they also knew it was time to bring their kids indoors for once the “Poultry in Motion: Trumpet Lessons, Fried Chicken While You Wait” sign went off, the rusty Jeep inside the Mandela garage would start squeaking it’s way over to the Fromage d’Amour, a local watering hole and no sidewalk within fifty miles would be safe. Once inside, Willie normally began his usual custom of deliberately sipping mug after frosty mug of ice cold bliss, but on this day there would be no comfort; there would be no rest for the memories of what once was would torment him for hours until the darkness came up to swallow his mind.

Before he’d even gotten half way through his first pitcher of Guinness Willie couldn’t stop thinking about that fateful day one year ago when Dolly Mandela, his only child and last surviving relative, left home in dishonor and disgrace. The tears that welled up and blurred Willie’s eyes did nothing to change the vivid picture that was burned into his soul with such ferocity. The Fromage d’Amour was packed to the limit and a local DJ was doing his best to keep the unruly crowd of Hell's Angels happy, but Willie was oblivious to all of this; he wasn’t even aware of the “Live to Ride, Ride to Live” t-shirt that someone had shoved into his hand on the way in. As he absentmindedly lifted the heavy glass to his lips for the umpteenth time, Willie’s mind traveled back…

“Daddy, I have something important to tell you,” her voice was nervous and shaky but there was a definite note of brassy resolve to it.

“Dolly, is this important or just some more of your usual nonsense?”

The obvious impatience in Willie’s statement only served to steel Dolly’s conviction that this was something that she not only had to do; it was the only right thing to do.

“Daddy, I know that you had really big expectations for that guy you set me up with, but he’s just not my type.”

“Guy!? That’s not just some guy off the street! He’s my protégé and long time student! You don’t call the guest artist at ITG some guy!!! You speak and treat him with the same respect that you’d give me! Besides, what isn’t there to like about him?”

For a moment it seemed as if she’d quietly turn around and go back to being her normal, obedient self but when he locked in on her bright, blue eyes Willie saw an ice cold fire!

“You wanna know what’s not to like? For starters, there’s that dry, tight, tiny little pucker that he calls en embouchure; it’s like kissing a miniature suction cup!” Dolly’s defiance was growing with every syllable.

“Okay, please, calm down,” Willie pleaded in an uncharacteristically desperate urgency, “You don’t have to go out with him. Have you thought about Steve?”

The last time he’d seen her like this was when Alice, his ex-wife and her mother, ran away with that cursed rebel-without-a-clue of a French horn player from the Boston Pops.

“Steve! Do you have any idea what kissing a tuba player is like? Those huge, flapping, slabs of meat that pass for lips are just gross! Daddy, PLEASE, stop trying to hook me up with people you know and PLEASE stop and listen. I’m in love with someone.”

“So that’s what this is all about. Dolly, why didn’t you just say so?”

There was an awkward pause before she finally spoke again.

“Well, I think I should tell you a little about Charlie. His kissing is okay, but I just LOVE the way he holds me!”

Now it was Willie’s turn to be confused.

“Daddy, Charlie plays French horn in an alternative punk ska band… “Dead Dog in Grass.”

“NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! You can’t possibly be serious! Do you have any idea what the only difference is between lowlifes like this Charlie and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four!”

“Daddy, that’s not funny!”

“What makes you think I’m joking? The only thing that moron got on his IQ test was saliva! For crying out loud he doesn’t even play a real instrument; he barely has control of a crudely designed, cheaply built, wind driven, manually operated pitch approximator.”

As strongly prejudiced as Willie’s opinions were concerning horn players, for indeed anthropologists had recently discovered evidence of rudimentary intelligence in horn playing cultures, his concerns regarding Charlie Cousteau a.k.a. “Jack” were entirely well founded. A close personal friend of Willie’s had some time ago told him about a renegade French hornist that had recklessly floated through a full semester of introductory theory in the upstate college where he was tenured. Among his countless, nonsensical, and rather quirky answers in class were the following precious gems: “All female parts were sung by castrati. We don’t know what they sounded like because there are no known descendants… The principal singer of nineteenth century opera was the pre-Madonna… Music sung by two people is called a duel; if they sing without music it is called Acapulco… The main trouble with the French Horn is that it’s too tangled up.”

Willie knew just how much trouble Charlie was and he desperately tried his best to help Dolly understand that he would do nothing but turn her life upside down, but the urgency in his voice and the emotion in his heart worked only to make his words sound like the ravings of a madman. In a futile attempt to express how dangerous it is to play with fire, Willie instead blurted out “If you ever catch on fire, try not to look at yourself in a mirror because I bet that’ll REALLY throw you into a panic!” From that point on things only got worse.

“Dolly, that’s not what I meant to say… I’m just trying to remind you how important it is to find someone with a TRUE appreciation of music; Charlie, for instance, is the kind of guy that thinks boxing is like ballet except that there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other… No, that’s not right… it’s more like this: Think of Jack or whatever his name is as an animal that’s boring its way into your head to lay its eggs; someday you may think your having a good idea when it’s actually those stupid eggs hatching!”

At this juncture there was no coming back from the inevitable fall into the abyss which lay before them. Willie increasingly made less sense and Dolly’s young feelings were so hurt that she didn’t look back once as she blindly ran from their once happy home. As his world came crashing down around him Willie’s mind focused on one thing and nothing else: The belief that it’s bad luck to be superstitious and that everything would somehow be okay.

As time went on, Willie would intermittently receive letters from his beloved daughter informing him of the latest gig she and Charlie “Jack Cousteau had landed. First they were playing with a band named “Carnage Asada” then it was “Pepto Dismal” and for months it seemed as if there would be no end to the instability that marked their new lives together. On an almost weekly basis the list of counter-culture bands grew to a staggering number and included such memorable names as “Pro Midget Mafia”, “The Albino Toilet Boys”, “Cap’n Crunch and the Cereal Killers”, “Lawn Piranhas”, “Screaming Iguanas of Love”, “Zulu Leprechauns”, “Potatoe Peacemaker” and “Penguins of Fire.”

During this time Willie neglected his own practice and study routine to the point that his mind could no longer comprehend simple musical notation. This led to several unfortunate incidents where his diminished playing abilities resulted in the loss of a paying gig in addition to the musical fines so customary for trumpet players in his part of the country: 1) Raising hand after mistake- $15. 2) Vibrato on unison passage- $50. 3) Being told by conductor to play louder- $400. 4) Missing last note of “In the Mood”- $200. 5) Getting marble or similar object stuck in bell- $50; doing so while on stage-$75. 6) Farting on bandstand- $25. 7) Continually asking, “Where are we?”- $10 per incident. 8) Pretending to be friends with a t-bone player- $200. 9) Actually being friends with a t-bone player $750. 10) Loaning money to a t-bone player- 4x amount loaned. 11) Failure to swing- $1000.

If his skill as an instructor would have remained untouched Willie may have still survived, but this alas, this was not the case. Willie was unaware that he was teaching his students that “Tonic is what is enjoyed after a gig…” and “The chromatic scale is what you use to give the effect of drinking a quinine martini and having an enema simultaneously." Eventually, after the gigs dried up and his students left him Willie turned to a diet of imported beer, kettle cooked potato chips, fried chicken, and high fructose pizza for consolation.

However, hope had not been completely forgotten by either of the remaining Mandelas. Willie miraculously stumbled into an old nutritionist friend who put him on a strict diet of steak, eggs, and low fat tree bark. As he shed the excess weight and lowered his insulin to a healthy level Willie found new purpose in his life: One day while trying to combat a particularly virulent carb-craving, he frantically began chewing on a boxful of Lego’s and discovered that a broken tooth hurts a whole lot more than a broken nail! Some time afterwards he graduated from a dental assistant program at the head of his class. Dolly, in the meantime, did come back to her senses. Late last year she heard about a contest to win a trumpet on a relatively new online forum and while she didn’t even bother to register for said contest, the passion which she saw in all of the forum members entries rekindled once lost memories of life long ago forgotten. You see, while some people’s lives may have a short, happy story and others may endure a lifetime of suffering the Mandelas, like most of us, have experienced and will continue to live a little bit of everything that life throws at them. Even during their darkest hours they realized that wishing for a “normal” life was pointless since there is only the life one is given and everyone must play the hand they have been dealt; beauty, humor, comfort, and peace can still exist in the midst of suffering.

While neither Dolly nor Willie have spoken since that fateful day, Dolly has since dumped “what’s his name”, is now majoring in business, has very nearly completed a twelve-step counseling program for co-dependants, and is thinking about her father on a daily basis. Willie, on the other hand, is enjoying his new career and has contacted a private investigator to help him find his daughter. Both are now much more responsible and empathetic towards others because of what they’ve been through and perhaps that is a lesson we can all learn from.


4. Why should I win?

Well guys, I can’t really think of a real reason why I “should” win this contest. While I definitely need to get a new horn there are a lot of professional players out there who are more deserving of that honor. Additionally, some of these entries are absolutely spectacular! I had been thinking of changing my entry to a proposal for an all copper or all sterling silver horn, but I’ve since realized that one has already been built and the other has been submitted by a well deserving entry. I play mostly in church related activities, but I believe that Liad has a more deserving position in his quest to play holy music. In short, I can think of dozens of reasons why others should win but only one for myself and it’s not a very good one: Simply that you may find my proposal entertaining and inspiring because that is what I strive to do with my playing no matter what horn I’m holding.

Everyone, keep up the good work!!!
Good Luck,
Dan