Typical. Just Typical.

Everything always goes perfectly when before something important...and only gets screwed up when you need it to be perfect. Isn't that just so typical? Things get busted on the day you need them most?

Yeah.

So we have a band concert tonight. My first one of high school. :)

Everything's been pretty good, I know my parts, my trumpet's been in excellent working condition...

Of course that changes today.

I was sitting in band. I had done my extensive warmup, mouthpiece buzzes, lone tones, lip slurs, scales, chromatics, finished off by some tuning and I was feeling pretty good. Good chop day, nice clean sound, just what you want for concert day.

And then. things went funky. First, my sound went from bright, loud and clear, to airy, soft and scratchy. Which was odd because a couple minutes previously everything was fine.

Then I went to play a high B flat and ended up landing an octave below, though my face was set for the high note. I knew it wasn't fatigue because I'd just started playing, so I took a look at my horn.

Valves all the way in, facing the right direction. No block in the leadpipe. Slides functioning well. All the usual culprits were working fine. It was very odd.

And then I saw it. The tiniest of things, that yet made me not be able to play. Both spit valve pads were missing, letting air escape through other openings, and forcing my sound to be pretty darn awful.

How annoying. Of course, my band director didn't have any that he could put on, not even the normal cork ones (I have the better functioning less wearing out neoprene ones).

Thankfully my mom was able to rush it up to the music store to have it repaired before our concert later.

That was way too much trumpet drama than I really needed today....