It’s been several more months since the last time I wrote about my trumpet progress.

I’ve been struggling with a plateau since then.

My range is still roughly F#3 to D5. On better days, after I’ve been playing for a little bit, E5 comes out a bit more naturally than it used to but it’s still not comfortable. Occasionally, I can squeak out an F5.

I’ve been making slow but steady progress through my method book. I think working through these exercises is helping me, but not in the way that feels as obvious as I’d like.

I struggle with all of the classic beginner hurdles:

• I jam the mouthpiece into my face
• I over-blow and constrict my embouchure to produce higher notes
• My breath control is all over the place
• I struggle to read “ahead” on sheet music, so sight-reading is quite hard, and longer passages tend to trip me up just because I get lost hopping around between lines.

On the positive side:

• I think I’m playing notes more accurately than I used to. When I start to play a note, I’m much less likely to squeak out something very wrong before settling into the right tone.
• I think I’m developing a better ear for a lot of the notes in the first octave. Without a reference, I think I generally know what to expect out of C4 and G4 and can work from that to other notes semi-successfully
• I think in general my tone is getting better and more consistent.
• I still really like to play (especially on private lessons days where I can practice without a mute).

My private lessons teacher recently let me try playing her Flugelhorn and I really liked it! She said I was playing like I was playing a trumpet and so I wasn’t quite realizing its darker-tone potential, but playing still felt noticeably different to me. A sort of tactile difference. Not something really in my tone, but just how it feels to play.

I should take a video of me practicing one of these days. It’d be fun to share that here.

I recently read something in a YouTube video comment that filled me with determination, so I want to share it here:

“I’ve been playing the piano again lately. It’s one of the few things that I love so unironically I struggle to even talk about it. The word “amateur” originally meant “lover,” a person who does something out of passion, not professionally. So despite its current sneering connotations, I think being an amateur is good, actually. You don’t have to be “the best” at something for it to be worth doing.” source

Makes me proud to be an amateur (even a beginner one).

Wish me luck while I keep at it!