SessionCat

Brief history -

Me: Male, 47, Phoenix, AZ-based freelance audio engineer (live and studio), custom A/V cabling tech, sometimes musician and fulltime home studio owner.

Played cornet in the Illinois public school system from 5th grade thru roughly the middle of High School, then bought the trumpet which carried me through Freshman year of college, at which point I then stopped playing entirely for reasons as yet undetermined. I suppose the muse had simply left me, or perhaps it was the drugs and alcohol. Tell ya what: I'll blame the mid-'70s Midwest subculture, and we can just leave it at that, ok? heeheehee

Fast-forward 28 years: Finally rekindling my long-lost love of the trumpet and the feeling of actually creating something emotional and transforming from within once again, and slowly attempting to regain some of my former expertise and performance glory (or was that shame? there's such a fine line between the two sometimes... just one bad note makes all the difference!)

Still have my old horn from school: a Yamaha YTR-232S (s/n 016xxx) w/ Schilke 13A4A MP from roughly 1975 - mowed a lot of yards to buy that, and have never once regretted the investment. Even though it is 'just' a student model, it plays very well. I think that was made during the Schilke design collaboration period with Yamaha, but don't quote me on that.

Recently picked up a nice companion piece to it: an Olds Studio Trumpet (s/n 784xxx) w/ Schilke 14A4A MP - purchased from a friend who had bought it at a garage sale. I paid him double what he paid for it, and it was still a screaming deal!
Sure, it needs some work: 3rd slide ring is missing and there are a couple of minor dings and it could probably stand a complete overhaul someday, but buying it was the inspiration to get back into playing, so someday I hope to be worthy of this fine old instrument.

I've been lurking in the shadows here for quite a while now, and have found this to be a most amazing community and resource. There is so much to re-learn, or un-learn, and so many things that I never knew existed - and I'm finding that what I thought was a fairly comprehensive musical education back in the day was really just an illusion: a teaser, if you will, that touched on nearly none of the 'real' studies and was likely designed to simply get as many students through the doors as possible... and so I see my path back will not be an easy one, but it is sure to be interesting, and a challenge.

Anyway, that's the story so far. Didn't mean to write a novel here - really just wanted to say hey, so I've probably overstepped my boundaries a bit.

I'll get off now and leave some bandwidth for someone else's introduction.
Thanks for letting me share your space.

Peace
SessionCat