Darth report:
My daughter just called and reported that she got 1st chair in both the Honor Concert Band and the Jazz Band at the Missouri band camp she's attending.
She'd gotten first in Concert and Symphony in Kansas previously, so having reached the top of that mountain, decided she needed a new mountain. Having reached the top of this one, I suspect she'll be looking into Nebraska or Iowa next year. Hope so, as this'll be the second year I'll be in Omaha during her performance, and I really hate missing those. My wife will video-tape it, though, and she's found someone locally who can take her tapes and put them on DVD as MPG's. Which we'll do with this year's and last year's solo performances at the spring concert, too. It also won't hurt to have "1st chair" in as many different bands/states as possible when she's trying to get into Berklee or Eastman.
I'm a bit surprised that she got 1st chair in Jazz Band. She's truly a freak of nature when it comes to technique and tone (extremely mature sound for her age, especially considering that her horn tends toward the shrill side just by virtue of what kind of horn it is), but doesn't have the really high range usually necessary for 1st chair in Jazz. Her high F is just now starting to come in and she can hit the E loud and clear. Although maybe it's possible she finally took my advice and used a pea-shooter for the Jazz audition. Either her Schilke 14A4A (which is a large mouthpiece but the shallow cup helps the upper range) or maybe even my Bach 11EW, which is useless in the low range, but really helps the upper end.
She usually insists on playing her 3C, which is just an awfully big mouthpiece, especially for Jazz, especially on such a free-flowing horn. For the non-trumpeters out there, back-pressure from the mouthpiece and horn really facilitate higher notes. As does a smaller rim on the mouthpiece. 3C is in the very upper end as far as rim size goes (1C being the biggest) and the cup on that mouthpiece is pretty deep, so little back pressure. Personally, I use a 1E Megatone, which is the biggest rim so I can play low and to darken the tone, a shallow cup so I can also play high, and the greatly increased mass of the Megatone darkens the tone even further.
We're trying to find a local shop that stocks the Holton MF Horn with matching mouthpiece (basically, Maynard Ferguson's equipment) so she can try it out and perhaps get it as a second horn for jazz and marching band. Currently she uses my Yamaha (but an acrylic version of her mouthpiece) for marching band because its smaller bore helps since she has to play so high for so long in marching band. And, I strongly suspect, she's far less worried about damage to my very old Yamaha compared to her still new-condition Strad.
I think I might've mentioned earlier that her performance at this year's spring concert was quite impressive. I couldn't see her well during the performance (I was VERY busy at the piano), but couldn't believe what I was seeing on tape. Very relaxed, moving around, even getting drinks of water during her breaks. The only standing ovation of the evening. One of those terribly busy songs where even non-musicians could be impressed. ("Gawrsh, she's playing an awful lot of notes.") Played a piece that's typically the domain of college upper classmen.
