Trumpeter on the balcony

This is my latest asset, a luxury I have always promised to allow myself once I had some extra money (to throw away). Thanks to Valentina's persistence and her volunteering to act as trumpet-bearer, I received my instrument two weeks ago.

Before we start, some clear facts so that you don't rush into erroneous conclusions. I have no idea about music, I consider myself extremely lazy and rather enthusiastic, a combination which most of the times leads me to take up a new task every week only to leave it aside the next one. This is exactly why I am still a mediocre climber, a rather sloppy skater and to my bosses' (both of them) disappointment I 'll go nowhere close to publishing my results in Nature. And that is only mentioning the activities I have undertaken while in Barcelona.

Nonetheless, I have great fun with all of the above and I intend to do the same with music. Filipe has assumed the difficult role of introducing me to some basics of musical theory and I can sense he's already getting frustrated with my lack of progress (which should not be qualified as such, since progress -or its absence- is only to be defined as in reference to a previously existing condition). The truth is that I still have a lot of trouble distinguishing a C from a D on a musical staff (which makes me appreciate so much the human mind at the age of 6 when "C" and "D" as letters should have seemed equally indistinguishable) and I have adopted a primitive way which includes counting with my fingers when I am asked to built the E-major scale. But despite all that, I am having a lot of fun when at it. It looks like I am learning a sort of arithmetics, starting all over again, although sadly lacking the special abilities of 6-year-old.

When it comes to practicing though, a major inconvenience suddenly rises. If you have ever tried to blow through a trumpet, you 'll probably know what I mean. After the first desperate attempts which lead to nothing more than a stream of air flowing through the pipes, you may manage (if you are lucky) to produce the low squeaky tune of an elephant farting. And only after a lot of effort will you make the instrument sound like something that remotely resembles a trumpet. In all cases though, be it an eerie, otherwordly voice or the natural sound of a dying animal, there is one common thing and that is that it is simply too loud! Hence the obvious inconvenience, when trying to practice in a flat, which you share with two more -non deaf- people and whose walls -although not exactly with the susceptibility of those of Jericho- are thin enough to test the neighbours' acoustical stamina.

This left me no option but my balcony. Last Saturday night, with my flatmates dining out, assuming that the neighbours were doing the same and hoping that the noise of the cars rushing down Passeig de Colom would cover my unbearable, hearing-damaging squeaks and tweets, I practiced playing the trumpet. Of course at my level -to which the word "beginner" would make absolutely no justice- this meant that I only managed to get only three consecutive notes right. And even though I went on for a good half hour the fourth note of the first measure of the "Autumn Leaves", an E-flat, for which my lips should stress more than my cheeks can handle, would only sound right one out of ten times.

Still, one out of ten times, it felt really good. I would then take a small pause, look at the people walking down the road from the hight of my third floor, hoping they had heard it right this time, and I thought that even if I was not exactly the "fiddler on the roof" I could one day become the "trumpeter on the balcony".

PS. The sleepless "eye" of my tutor (really "sleepless" since he posted a comment at 2.30 am) spotted one more mistake. Namely, that this E-flat is not the last note of the first measure. The piece starts off tune, therefore the hard E-flat is simply the first note of the second measure. Am I saying it right, master?