Transitioning
May. 18th, 2025 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taz_39Thursday, working at Epic.
It was quite hot and no cloud cover at all. High of I think 92, with a heat index of 96 (33-34°C.)
And it is still MAY. By the time we hit July the heat index will be triple digits every day (41°C and up.)
All of our sets went just fine, we were sweating buckets and I drank a whole electrolyte drink which I don't normally do but it seemed a good idea. Not surprisingly most of the talk backstage is about the park opening, and the special event on the 21st. It's all very exciting but I'll be happy when the publicity part is over. They hype is well deserved of course...just speaking on a personal (introvert) level :p
Adrian (clarinet) has a garden which has produced a surplus of veggies. He gave me some!
The little tomatoes are called everglades tomatoes and are the size of blueberries.
Not sure what I'll do with everything yet but the tomatoes will likely be a weekend snack!
Back home I caught up with Jameson and packed a small purse for Hollywood Studios tomorrow.
I'm very excited that we'll get to have a day just for us. For fun, for enjoying each other, for enjoying Disney, for celebrating having made it this far, and for the exciting job things that are hopefully to come.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday was an INCREDIBLE day at Hollywood Studios! Full post HERE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday. I got up and did laundry, hydrated a lot to make up for yesterday, vacuumed, ran the dishwasher, and practiced bass and tenor trombone. Ran through all of my Disney music in anticipation of subbing in at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow.
After lunch I drove out to my new friend Ilan's house to pick up the 3D-printed bass trombone mutes I'd ordered from him a while ago. Ilan is the founder/owner of Morningstar Mutes, among other things. And he recently celebrated the birth of a little girl. He's not new to fatherhood, but even a childless schmuck like me knows that a newborn baby is just as much work as a full time job. Therefore I was pleased and grateful that he'd managed to get my mutes finished in the original time frame.
I got to his house and texted "I'm here" rather than ringing the doorbell and potentially waking any little ones. That was a good call: the baby was dozing and the toddler was having a quiet storytime, and Ilan was able to bring me into the house without disrupting either. He went to go get my mutes while I looked around the foyer. There were mutes EVERYWHERE, and a 3D printer quietly humming away in the corner. Ilan informed me that there were two more printing night and day in his garage.
Ilan just recently started producing these mutes after years of testing and collaboration with other professional trombonists (he's a bass trombonist himself.) While trombone mutes are important for creating colorful sound changes (hear some samples HERE), many mutes do not work well across the entire range. Some notes can sound distorted, out of tune, or may not even sound at all if the mute disagrees with your horn. And the design and structure of mutes has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years.
The options available up to this point have been Humes & Berg cardboard composite mutes (virtually unchanged design since 1935) and a variety of aluminum mutes, all shaped like wine bottles and perhaps sporting a copper base if you wanted to get boujee. There were also mutes introduced by jazz artists, such as the plunger, bucket, and hat mute, and you can guess from their names where all of those originated!
To counter the problems of imperfect mutes, musicians have done goofy things like drill holes in them, wrap tape around them, intentionally dent them to change the sound, etc. And mutes freefalling out of your bell in the middle of a concert has always been a common problem thanks to the use of cork to hold them in; cork wears and chips over time, dries out and crumbles, and even filing cork down to fit your bell doesn't guarantee a good fit (especially if you get a new horn later on, or want to sell your mute to someone with a different horn.) So as you can see, all sorts of problems exist.
If you've read this far, congratulations, you total nerd.
Anyway, Ilan's mutes address a lot of these issues. For the problems with distortion and tuning, he's made the mutes larger than traditional ones which results in less backpressure and adds more resonance. He can do this because carbon fiber-infused plastic is even lighter than aluminum, so the size of the mute can be increased without increasing the weight. Additionally, carbon fiber does not dent or rust, so the mutes are more resilient. And instead of cork, Ilian is using a sort of soft synthetic material attached to the mutes via velcro so that you can move them around and adjust them without permanently changing the shape of the mute, as would happen with cork.
And on top of all of these improvements, you can add metal bottoms to the mutes which improves the sound. Copper is very preferred for adding warmth to sound, but he also offers brass or aluminum bottoms which usually offer a sharpness/clearer resonance.
Here are my two mutes, a straight mute and a cup mute for bass trombone.
The cup portion of the cup mute is a flexible plastic, which makes it easier to store and less likely to crack on impacts.
The straight mute has a small handle printed into the body on one side to make it easier to grab and remove (another innovation you won't find on traditional mutes.) Both mutes have a copper bottom. It's been a long time since I could afford a copper-bottomed mute.
In addition to these, Ilan showed me a tenor cup mute that hadn't printed quite right and asked if I might like to buy it at half price. There was nothing wrong with it other than aesthetics (some visible glue + it went a little wibbly on the cup portion) so I took it. In fact, since the cup is removable it's exactly what I need for one specific mute change on this tour. Yay bonus mute! It was great to meet Ilan and do business with him. He's a bit in the weeds with orders right now but I really hope that he'll get his feet under him because he's got a great product with innovations that a lot of trombonists really do need.
On the way back home I stopped at a Walgreens to get some special Snack Pod treats for Jameson and I!
He wanted Nerd Clusters, Mike & Ikes, Reeses Pieces, and Combos. I also got PB M&Ms again, sesame stick snacks, and Gushers. We weren't sure that all of these would work, and we were right: Combos are too big, and Gushers are too sticky. I tossed some Gushers in corn starch and we'll see if that helps. This is a fun experiment!
The rest of the evening was pretty chill, I just packed my Disney meals and tried (and failed) to relax.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, up early for the Magic Kingdom.
(photo courtesy Disneytouristblog)
The Castle stage is under repairs right now, so they're having the band do more sets to provide more entertainment in the area. Five sets, one parade, and the flag retreat, which is seven sets total and two more than usual. It has still been very hot, mid-90s even without the heat index, and minimal cloud cover. Therefore I went into work bucking myself up for a long and sweaty day with shorter breaks between each set.
When I arrived, however, I was surprised to find Cory, another of Keith's subs, setting up. After conferring we realized that Keith must have double-booked us. This happens from time to time; Keith did book Cory first but neither of them remembered to tell our boss, and then Keith must have forgotten about it and asked me to cover later on.
Our boss walked in, looked at both of us, shrugged, and said, "Rehearsal day. You two work it out."
Translation: Neither of us needed to go home. We could both stay, get paid, and he'd just call it a rehearsal for one of us. Yay!!
We quickly decided to divide the sets evenly, and for the flag retreat Cory offered to play the 2nd trombone book so that Crash (2nd trombonist) could go home early. The result of this was that instead of doing 7 sets today, I only had to do 4! YAY!!
Needless to say I had a wonderful day and did not care one whit that it was hot and sticky work. I got to play all of my favorites including Be Our Guest, Hot Dog Dance, and the parade, had time to cool off and chat with the guys between sets, and did not feel overexerted. Truly lovely.
(Courtesy random IG account)
The tough thing about subbing right now is that I don't know which day will be my last before tour starts.
So, I treasured today. I noticed the smells of candy and popcorn and roasted nuts. I felt the little bubbles from the bubble wands pop on my cheek and hands as we danced with kids during our sets. I played "When You Wish Upon A Star" as we marched past the castle, and remembered how my heart had pounded and my eyes had welled up with tears the first time I'd gotten to do that, because it was a dream come true.
Things like that.
It was a good day. I'm sure there'll be more...just don't know when :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday and Tuesday: Days off. Now is the time to prep for tour. Practicing, packing, cleaning the guest bedroom, gathering supplies. Some cooking and cleaning too I think.
Wednesday: You guys. Can you believe it? Wednesday the 21st is the Epic Universe Grand Opening Celebration. I'll be at the park from 8am-9pm for this special event. The entire event will be livestreamed HERE if you'd like to watch (you do need to sign up.) Not sure if you will see me in the footage (or if you'd even want to) but there will certainly be lots of exciting stuff in store!
(random photo)
It was quite hot and no cloud cover at all. High of I think 92, with a heat index of 96 (33-34°C.)
And it is still MAY. By the time we hit July the heat index will be triple digits every day (41°C and up.)
All of our sets went just fine, we were sweating buckets and I drank a whole electrolyte drink which I don't normally do but it seemed a good idea. Not surprisingly most of the talk backstage is about the park opening, and the special event on the 21st. It's all very exciting but I'll be happy when the publicity part is over. They hype is well deserved of course...just speaking on a personal (introvert) level :p
Adrian (clarinet) has a garden which has produced a surplus of veggies. He gave me some!
The little tomatoes are called everglades tomatoes and are the size of blueberries.
Not sure what I'll do with everything yet but the tomatoes will likely be a weekend snack!
Back home I caught up with Jameson and packed a small purse for Hollywood Studios tomorrow.
I'm very excited that we'll get to have a day just for us. For fun, for enjoying each other, for enjoying Disney, for celebrating having made it this far, and for the exciting job things that are hopefully to come.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday was an INCREDIBLE day at Hollywood Studios! Full post HERE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday. I got up and did laundry, hydrated a lot to make up for yesterday, vacuumed, ran the dishwasher, and practiced bass and tenor trombone. Ran through all of my Disney music in anticipation of subbing in at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow.
After lunch I drove out to my new friend Ilan's house to pick up the 3D-printed bass trombone mutes I'd ordered from him a while ago. Ilan is the founder/owner of Morningstar Mutes, among other things. And he recently celebrated the birth of a little girl. He's not new to fatherhood, but even a childless schmuck like me knows that a newborn baby is just as much work as a full time job. Therefore I was pleased and grateful that he'd managed to get my mutes finished in the original time frame.
I got to his house and texted "I'm here" rather than ringing the doorbell and potentially waking any little ones. That was a good call: the baby was dozing and the toddler was having a quiet storytime, and Ilan was able to bring me into the house without disrupting either. He went to go get my mutes while I looked around the foyer. There were mutes EVERYWHERE, and a 3D printer quietly humming away in the corner. Ilan informed me that there were two more printing night and day in his garage.
Ilan just recently started producing these mutes after years of testing and collaboration with other professional trombonists (he's a bass trombonist himself.) While trombone mutes are important for creating colorful sound changes (hear some samples HERE), many mutes do not work well across the entire range. Some notes can sound distorted, out of tune, or may not even sound at all if the mute disagrees with your horn. And the design and structure of mutes has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years.
The options available up to this point have been Humes & Berg cardboard composite mutes (virtually unchanged design since 1935) and a variety of aluminum mutes, all shaped like wine bottles and perhaps sporting a copper base if you wanted to get boujee. There were also mutes introduced by jazz artists, such as the plunger, bucket, and hat mute, and you can guess from their names where all of those originated!
To counter the problems of imperfect mutes, musicians have done goofy things like drill holes in them, wrap tape around them, intentionally dent them to change the sound, etc. And mutes freefalling out of your bell in the middle of a concert has always been a common problem thanks to the use of cork to hold them in; cork wears and chips over time, dries out and crumbles, and even filing cork down to fit your bell doesn't guarantee a good fit (especially if you get a new horn later on, or want to sell your mute to someone with a different horn.) So as you can see, all sorts of problems exist.
If you've read this far, congratulations, you total nerd.
Anyway, Ilan's mutes address a lot of these issues. For the problems with distortion and tuning, he's made the mutes larger than traditional ones which results in less backpressure and adds more resonance. He can do this because carbon fiber-infused plastic is even lighter than aluminum, so the size of the mute can be increased without increasing the weight. Additionally, carbon fiber does not dent or rust, so the mutes are more resilient. And instead of cork, Ilian is using a sort of soft synthetic material attached to the mutes via velcro so that you can move them around and adjust them without permanently changing the shape of the mute, as would happen with cork.
And on top of all of these improvements, you can add metal bottoms to the mutes which improves the sound. Copper is very preferred for adding warmth to sound, but he also offers brass or aluminum bottoms which usually offer a sharpness/clearer resonance.
Here are my two mutes, a straight mute and a cup mute for bass trombone.
The cup portion of the cup mute is a flexible plastic, which makes it easier to store and less likely to crack on impacts.
The straight mute has a small handle printed into the body on one side to make it easier to grab and remove (another innovation you won't find on traditional mutes.) Both mutes have a copper bottom. It's been a long time since I could afford a copper-bottomed mute.
In addition to these, Ilan showed me a tenor cup mute that hadn't printed quite right and asked if I might like to buy it at half price. There was nothing wrong with it other than aesthetics (some visible glue + it went a little wibbly on the cup portion) so I took it. In fact, since the cup is removable it's exactly what I need for one specific mute change on this tour. Yay bonus mute! It was great to meet Ilan and do business with him. He's a bit in the weeds with orders right now but I really hope that he'll get his feet under him because he's got a great product with innovations that a lot of trombonists really do need.
On the way back home I stopped at a Walgreens to get some special Snack Pod treats for Jameson and I!
He wanted Nerd Clusters, Mike & Ikes, Reeses Pieces, and Combos. I also got PB M&Ms again, sesame stick snacks, and Gushers. We weren't sure that all of these would work, and we were right: Combos are too big, and Gushers are too sticky. I tossed some Gushers in corn starch and we'll see if that helps. This is a fun experiment!
The rest of the evening was pretty chill, I just packed my Disney meals and tried (and failed) to relax.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, up early for the Magic Kingdom.
(photo courtesy Disneytouristblog)
The Castle stage is under repairs right now, so they're having the band do more sets to provide more entertainment in the area. Five sets, one parade, and the flag retreat, which is seven sets total and two more than usual. It has still been very hot, mid-90s even without the heat index, and minimal cloud cover. Therefore I went into work bucking myself up for a long and sweaty day with shorter breaks between each set.
When I arrived, however, I was surprised to find Cory, another of Keith's subs, setting up. After conferring we realized that Keith must have double-booked us. This happens from time to time; Keith did book Cory first but neither of them remembered to tell our boss, and then Keith must have forgotten about it and asked me to cover later on.
Our boss walked in, looked at both of us, shrugged, and said, "Rehearsal day. You two work it out."
Translation: Neither of us needed to go home. We could both stay, get paid, and he'd just call it a rehearsal for one of us. Yay!!
We quickly decided to divide the sets evenly, and for the flag retreat Cory offered to play the 2nd trombone book so that Crash (2nd trombonist) could go home early. The result of this was that instead of doing 7 sets today, I only had to do 4! YAY!!
Needless to say I had a wonderful day and did not care one whit that it was hot and sticky work. I got to play all of my favorites including Be Our Guest, Hot Dog Dance, and the parade, had time to cool off and chat with the guys between sets, and did not feel overexerted. Truly lovely.
(Courtesy random IG account)
The tough thing about subbing right now is that I don't know which day will be my last before tour starts.
So, I treasured today. I noticed the smells of candy and popcorn and roasted nuts. I felt the little bubbles from the bubble wands pop on my cheek and hands as we danced with kids during our sets. I played "When You Wish Upon A Star" as we marched past the castle, and remembered how my heart had pounded and my eyes had welled up with tears the first time I'd gotten to do that, because it was a dream come true.
Things like that.
It was a good day. I'm sure there'll be more...just don't know when :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday and Tuesday: Days off. Now is the time to prep for tour. Practicing, packing, cleaning the guest bedroom, gathering supplies. Some cooking and cleaning too I think.
Wednesday: You guys. Can you believe it? Wednesday the 21st is the Epic Universe Grand Opening Celebration. I'll be at the park from 8am-9pm for this special event. The entire event will be livestreamed HERE if you'd like to watch (you do need to sign up.) Not sure if you will see me in the footage (or if you'd even want to) but there will certainly be lots of exciting stuff in store!
(random photo)
