Lousy Week, Great Sunday

Monday. Ugh.

This cold. Why do I have a cold in the middle of summer? But I shouldn't complain. At least it's not the flu.

Monday was rough, not gonna lie. In between blowing my nose and gulping DayQuil, I got lucky and sold a trombone to a young man and his Dad who came in looking for something that would last through college. I was happy when they settled on the only Bach 42 in the store...that's the trombone I play, too :)

I actually got a lot done over the course of the day, it was just done in this haze of snot and pain. I was supposed to start my practice/workout regimen today, but was just feeling so awful, I decided one more day of rest wouldn't hurt. Traffic was blessedly light and I got home in time to eat a good dinner. But the rest of the night was spent losing my temper. I got a "past due" notice from my local PA tax department, for taxes due back in 2014. And it wasn't a small amount either. And right next to it in the mailbox was a notice that my taxes STILL haven't been filed for PA this year! Fees and fines, left and right. So then I got to be the "bad guy" and email and call my tax preparer to ask what the heck is going on, find out why my taxes for this year are not filed, and demand an appointment to discuss this stuff.

What a great night! Happy Monday!!

The rest of the week was not much better. At one point I found out that I'd priced a trombone too low, and while my boss just corrected me and moved on with his life, that's the kind of mistake that I really hate to make: one that costs my employer money. BAC Music is still small and trying to grow. Every dollar counts. I went back online to every market where I'd posted the ad, and changed the price, and added a disclaimer to apologize and explain why I'd changed it. Of course some people were not happy, but I'd rather have it right. Hopefully it won't happen again.

This week my boss implemented a new "tracking system" of sorts. We are all going to keep logs of our activities. As I said, BAC is still small and there's only one General Manager right now, and he can't be everywhere. By keeping a log, each of us will have notes about when someone within the company asked us to complete a task and what work we did. It seems a bit silly...the "Dear Diary" jokes have already started :) But actually I kind of like it. I don't want there to be any question about my work, and this way there won't be. Or at least there will be less.

(My boss asked if I was going to "blog about my blog", and the answer is yes, here it is, this one's for you Matt! LOL!!)

One good thing that happened this week was a quick visit from a BAC sponsored artist, Melissa Gardiner. She's a fantastic jazz trombonist, and was at the factory to pick up her new custom horn. Then she and Mike (BAC president) came by the retail store to look for mouthpieces and other accessories. Melissa test-played several mouthpieces, and I was awfully jealous of her sound. People who can play jazz are amazing. I am not one of those people. She sounded great and hopefully found a mouthpiece that works for her (though as she pointed out, getting a new horn and a new mouthpiece at the same time is often a bit much!)

Before leaving Mike insisted that I try Melissa's custom trombone. It was a small bore, with a yellow brass bell and a tri-metal slide, and bronzing or bronzed lacquer on the inside of the bell. The slide crook had a unique feature in that it was kind of oval-shaped, being a combination of the two most popular crook shapes, squared or rounded (I'm probably describing this poorly). I was surprised to see that the bell was not perfectly rounded at the edges, like you'd see with a production line horn. Definitely handmade. Definitely beautiful.


It felt pretty good to play, too. I wish I'd known this would be happening, I would have brought my Williams or the Minick to compare. The BAC custom horn felt open and powerful, with great control across the whole range. I especially liked the lower range...that could have been because the mouthpiece was a size 4! Anyway I enjoyed it. I couldn't play awesomely like Melissa did, but I played a little song and goofed around in the high and low registers. It was a good time.

Mike insisted that we have a picture before he and Melissa went to lunch. So here we are: Kristy (woodwind specialist), myself, and Ms. Gardiner. Yay!


If I'm being totally honest, after meeting Melissa I feel pretty inadequate as a trombonist. I have a lot of practicing to do. It hurt, in a personal sort of way, to realize that at the moment I'm not a musician. Again. But that's how it is sometimes. I'm going to have to suck it up and just be patient for the next gig, whatever it may be. For now I need to practice, and hopefully gain some local playing experience in the fall.

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