The Life of a Band Nerd

Meet Stewart

  I got to officially take Stewart home on Tuesday (I just didn't get the chance to post about it then or  yesterday)! 
  Fluffeh and I did the basic maintenance on him in the band library/kitchen Tuesday morning. I managed to pull the tuning slides out, wipe off the grease, and give them to Fluffeh, who ran water through them, along with my snake brush. She also cleaned off the mouthpiece that came with it, and when she pulled the mouthpiece brush out of the mouthpiece it was brown 🤢. It is also deeper than my rental mouthpiece, which means that I can play low notes on it better. I might actually take it to school for when we play the Machine Awakes, lol. We made sure to clean it really well. I was amazed at the condition that the valves were in. They are actually cleaner and shinier than that of my school rental. As DiAngelo put it,"Beauty comes from the inside." Yes, he really did say that about Stewart.

   About how the dent thing happened....well, our band director, Mr. Holder, was talking to the seller when he got it and the seller said that his son was playing the trumpet on the patio or something one day when he dropped it and it landed bell first. (Yikes!)

Ok, I'll post a picture of Stewart. Some of you might cringe. He's the Frankenstein of the trumpets. Take it from me, he sounds better than he looks.

He's been through war!!!!

The reason for the tape is because the joint was broke off.

See how deep the mouthpiece is!?

And here are the valves. Just look at these beauties!

Everyone freaked out when I brought him in the bus without the case Tuesday. The non band kids were like,"Play something!" Fluffeh actually started playing a quiet scale about the middle of the bus ride. I was kind of freaking out about that. When I looked out the window, there was a cop coming from the opposite direction and I was like,"They're coming for us!!!"
   Fluffeh was like,"I only played four notes!"
  When I got off the bus, the bus driver was just like,"You didn't bring the case this time, did ya?" And I was like,"No....." then I got off the bus.

So, yeah this is Stewart. He's not the prettiest of trumpets, but he'll work as a practice one.

At the beginning of the year, I never had the slightest thought that the trumpet sitting at the front of the classroom would eventually be mine.

  Fluffeh and I were also playing him in the car at the Taco Bell drive thru with the windows down....