I thought I'd take this chance to say hi to all you trumpet players out there! I'm Christine, the one you probably talk to if you ever call or email us at Harrelson. I'm mostly here in the office in Minneapolis, figuring out solutions to trim questions and shim questions, stamping and clamping, shipping and quipping. Generally, I do everything I can to let Jason focus as much time as possible on trumpet-building and blowing our minds with his latest innovations. So feel free to drop me a line if you ever have questions or ideas! I also wanted to call your attention to a fantastic event coming up this week at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, PA: The National Trumpet Competition! Jen and Jason will be there to represent Harrelson Trumpets and support these talented players. (A big shout out to the entire University of Colorado trumpet studio who will also be there to compete and take in the many inspired performances!) Trumpet ensembles, solos, and Jazz performances will be streamed live all weekend, so I highly encourage you to check out some of the best and brightest in the up-and-coming trumpet scene! https://www.nationaltrumpetcomp.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=302918 The extreme mental pressures of a competition like this have always fascinated me, and they were brought even more sharply into focus by a series of talks I saw last year comparing musical performance to sports psychology. We are always trying to find that sweet spot where our minds are completely in the moment, yet we also want to execute every technical aspect flawlessly. We all strive so hard to make our performance adhere to a prescribed set of standards, yet at the same time we try to infuse our own human experience and emotion in order to make the performance our own. It's a constant battle of intention and focus that can easily become overwhelming if we allow ourselves to become consumed by it. It seems to me that this juxtaposition becomes even more drastic in the jazz realm, where everyone learns from the masters but has an intense desire to create their own sound, a sound that is identifiable yet new and hip. I am definitely still learning to find my own voice when I perform, so I don't have a real solution to these conundrums. However, I can share with you the immortal words of Tower of Power: Sometimes hipness is what it ain't. This blog post was inspired by Jim Weglewski, who likes to quote Tower of Power at board meetings.
2 Comments
Terry Sawchuk
3/17/2014 10:28:25 am
I'm liking your blog - keep them coming!
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John Baumchen
5/12/2014 01:42:19 pm
I could not agree more. As an athlete and band geek it took me a while to make the connection you mention above. I had long read many books on the mind as it relates to athletics but never one on the mind of a musician. So I took much of what I learned from athletics and applied it to the trumpet. We only have one body and one mind and it does not know much difference between throwing a ball with repeated accuracy over and over and over again and hitting the right note over and over again first try each time. The muscles in our face are not any different from the muscles and nerves in the rest of the body. I did not make the connection you made until I was in my mid 30's!
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Christine Palmer
I work here at the Harrelson workshop- talking to trumpet players, finishing and assembling trumpet parts, and loving every moment of it. Archives
January 2017
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