Awaiting cue to sound “Taps”—click to enlarge and read Jumbotron screen. Photo by Ben Van Houten, Seattle Mariners photographer
Glenn Ledbetter, VFW Post 1040 Bugler, Lynnwood, sounds “Taps.” Photo by Ben Van Houten, Seattle Mariners photographer.
UW Joint Navy and Air Force ROTC Color Guard. Photo by Ben Van Houten, Seattle Mariners photographer.
The Seattle Mariners beat the Houston Astros, 3-2, at T-Mobile Park in downtown Seattle on Monday, 27 May. That was Memorial Day, and the Mariners’ pre-game activity was to “Remember and Honor” those military personnel who died in service to our country. The Joint Color Guard was comprised of University of Washington students who are in the Navy and Air Force ROTC programs. And one bugler was assigned to sound “Taps” after a moment of silence—me!
It was a dream come true! On 17 August 2014, I had sounded “To the Color” at a Mariners’ minor-league Aquasox game at the ballpark in Everett. And that inspired me to want to sound a bugle call at a Mariners game in Seattle. Ten years later, it happened, thanks to someone else. Unbeknownst to me, Monica McNeal, Gold Star Families of Washington, had referred me to the Mariners. Gold Star Mothers were also honored between certain innings of the game. Please see https://www.goldstarmoms.com. and my blog article of 2 November 2023.
I’ll be 84 next week. You’re never too old to have dreams and set goals—and if you need to, straighten your teeth!
Thus ends the “Lost Buzz Saga.” To read the whole story, please see my posts of 10, 12, and 21 June, plus this one, which is the climax. I invite your “Likes” and “Comments;” simply click on the links below this post.
The Mariners kindly recorded the pre-game activities. Here are the links for viewing the videos:
“Things Remembered” is the name of one of my favorite one-hour trumpet shows. But that show is not the remembrance that still bothers me. Instead, it’s the memory of those five days, 16 to 20 December just before Christmas. On the 16th, I performed two bugle calls at the Wreaths Across America ceremony in Seattle, which I wrote about in my previous post here. And on the 20th, I performed my trumpet show, “Things Remembered,” at The Bellettini,” in downtown Bellevue. I struggled to play my horns on both days, and afterwards, I did not touch them again for the first four and a half months this year. What happened? Let me tell you.
Suddenly, a few days before the 16th, my buzz into the mouthpiece went bad. My lips would not respond to the air flow unless I blew quite hard. But you can’t play every note of every bugle call or song at “FF” volume. I’d blow, and at first, only air would hiss through the horn before a note would suddenly burst out. It was sort of like stammering or stuttering, when the words just won’t come out of a person’s throat for a few seconds, followed by a shout. I’d lost the ability to fade out down to “pp” and softer. I’d lost some control of dynamics and the ability to express certain emotions through the horn.
At first, I thought it was simply stiff lips that had lost their flexibility from not enough practicing. I thought I could overcome it if I warmed up for at least 20 minutes. But no amount of warming up would eliminate it. On the 16th, my “Assembly” didn’t sound normal. I struggled a bit with “Echo Taps,” too. It didn’t help that I had to stand and play without my cane, hunched over from lower back pain.
So, should I cancel my show at The Bellettini? I love The Bellettini, the staff, and the residents. They had invited me back for the fifth time to present a new show which they had not yet heard.
I couldn’t bear the thought of canceling, even if I wouldn’t sound normal. I had three more practice days to improve. If I didn’t sound better, would they forgive me? Or would they walk out and never invite me back again?
Yamaha Allen Vizzutti, Bach 1.5C, 3C, 8C, and Getzen 3C, 7C trumpet mouthpieces
No amount of practicing changed things. I reached a certain level, and nothing improved beyond that. Then I hit on another idea: what about changing mouthpieces? Up to now, I’d been using only my favorite, the Allen Vizzutti mouthpiece by Yamaha. So, I broke out my entire (but small) collection of six trumpet mouthpieces and tried each one. I got the best results with my Bach 1.5C. Eureka!
I arrived quite early, set up, and went into a side room to warm up for a half hour. Then I came out and did the show—not normal. But no one walked out. They were very tolerant and forgiving, and besides, they were enjoying themselves. After all, we’re all in the same age group–we could be classmates!
Afterwards, numerous residents came up to thank me and say how much they enjoyed the two dozen songs from our era–such great songs with which they could sing along!
And then, a tall man came up, thanked me, and said in a kind voice, “It’s hard to play when the buzz won’t work right, isn’t it?” He said he used to play saxophone and luckily, with a reed mouthpiece, that problem can’t happen.
“Yes,” I said. “But they liked the music and had a good time.”
He agreed sympathetically and complimented me for doing my best on an off day. Was that really all it was—just an off day? I worried that my playing days might be over entirely. I might never play again in public. I simply knew that I would never let myself play like that again.
But the experience of those five days begged the question: what caused this problem? It had never happened to me since I began playing in fifth grade.
I thought, “It must be my two front teeth”—my central incisors in the upper jaw. You see, for those readers who are young, your teeth can start to migrate in old age. Mine had been slowing creeping toward the middle of my mouth for several years, so much so that the left front tooth had actually slid outside and over the right one. It was overlapping and pushing itself outward against my upper lip, and it was probably also pushing the right tooth backwards toward my tongue.
Is this TMI–“Too Much Information?” Well, how else will you know what to do when this happens to you? Keep reading…
I developed a new theory. The crooked front teeth were diverting the air flow, ruining my buzz. So, last January, I went to see my orthodontist, Dr. Zachton Lowe in Shoreline. He advised plastic aligners by Invisalign instead of metal braces. He said it would take about sixteen months to straighten all my teeth.
“Can I play ‘Taps’ on Memorial Day?” I asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
And so, I did! The Bellettini taught me a huge lesson. Please read all about my Memorial Day performances in two blog posts which are soon to be posted in a few days–but first, I’ll post next about the music on our spring trip to Italy and Paris.
He likes trumpet because of its sound—it’s “jazzy” to him. My 42nd trumpet student is 10 years old and a fourth grader at Bryant Elementary School, located in the Ravenna-Bryant neighborhood of northeast Seattle. When he first tried out several different instruments at the music orientation session at school, it was easy to make a sound on many of them, but not so the trumpet. Making notes by buzzing into the mouthpiece was a challenge, and he likes challenges. The fact that it has only three valves did not matter. Ten valves would have been ok. The trumpet’s jazzy sound is what he liked. And as soon as he’s old enough to attend nearby Eckstein Middle School, he wants to play in the school Jazz Band. Our private lessons will help him qualify. We held our first one on 2 May.
At Bryant Elementary, he attends a 30-minute music class once a week. There are about 10 trumpeters in this class, according to Elizabeth Harris Scruggs, the Instrumental Music teacher. “It’s a pull-out class,” she said, “meaning students miss 30 minutes of regular class to come to instrumental music.” There is no full 4th grade band—“just a few classes with either one or two different instrument types (for example, saxophone and clarinet). However, at the end of this year, they will all combine for the first time for a rehearsal and a concert to see what playing in a full band is like.” The Spring Concert will be on Wednesday, 6 June at 6:45 p.m. Fourth-graders will participate, along with the general music, instrumental music, and choir groups.
Next year, my student will be able to join the fifth-grade elementary school band. Neither of his parents play an instrument, but his older brother plays saxophone at Eckstein Middle School.
His other interests and activities include swimming, basketball, Frisbee, chess, and dance. He has taken lessons in ballet, tap, and hip-hop dancing since he was 4 years old. On 16 June, he will tap dance in a recital at Shorecrest High School in Shoreline.
Bryant Elementary opened in 1918—100 years ago—and was recently remodeled. The school and the neighborhood are named after William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), an American poet, journalist and editor whose most notable work is Thanatopsis.
Every one of my trumpet students is serious about playing trumpet—after all, they’re paying for private lessons. But some are more serious than others, and my 27th student is one of those. She started in fifth grade band but due to circumstances beyond her control, she had to drop out for two years. Now in the eighth grade, she has moved to downtown Edmonds from Des Moines, Washington, and is now in the trumpet section of the Wind Ensemble at College Place Middle School.
She likes the fact that the trumpet has only three keys. That, and its light weight and smaller size compared to a tuba, for instance, are what first attracted her (and me) to the trumpet when we were in the fifth grade. It looks deceptively simple, compared to a bassoon, flute, saxophone, or clarinet, where you must use all fingers on both hands. Then the band teacher starts using the French word, “embouchure,” and suddenly, it’s not so simple any more. You find out you must hold your lips just right to buzz into the mouthpiece correctly, and every note has its own unique slot, and to sound different notes, your facial muscles must be set just right, and the aperture must be just the right size for a given note, and your lips must be flexible to make a good, solid tone, and if you aren’t doing all this just right, your tone will be out of tune (sharp or flat), and you must breathe out of the sides of your mouth using your diaphragm, and to play the different notes in a song, you must learn the music alphabet and symbols so that you can read the music language, and there are a bunch of Italian words you must learn, and to play a song, you must change your fingering and your embouchure precisely at the same instant, and to play fast, you must have trained your fingers and embouchure so well that they can change correctly and quickly on sight, automatically, without thought, and to play high notes softly is not easy, and you must simultaneously watch the conductor, read the music, listen to the other musicians, and play, all the time, and it’s hard to play solo under all that pressure because you and the conductor and the audience want you to play perfectly and beautifully…and so forth.
So, although anyone can learn to play trumpet, you have to get serious about it sometime in order to reach your full potential and “Become Your Best!” Fortunately, my 27th trumpet student is serious. Seeing that quality in her daughter, her mom is very happy to support her with private lessons. And seeing the same in her, I am very happy she chose me as her trumpet tutor. She wants to be ready for high school band at Edmonds-Woodway next fall. Our first lesson was on 6 February. We’re starting to plow into the exercise book, I Recommend (1985) by James D. Ployhar. Here we go!
Every one of my trumpet students is serious about playing trumpet—after all, they’re paying for private lessons. But some are more serious than others, and my 27th student is one of those. She started in fifth grade band but due to circumstances beyond her control, she had to drop out for two years. Now in the eighth grade, she has moved to downtown Edmonds from Des Moines, Washington, and is now in the trumpet section of the Wind Ensemble at College Place Middle School.
Glenn's Trumpet Notes 