A Trip into the Mind of One whose Ego Knows no Bounds

I was contemplating what would make some decent blog material and then I realized: "¡Ay jesús! There's something I could write about!" Yes indeed. You get to hear about one whose ego knows no bounds. You thought that you him (they're always male), but think again because this sucker eclipses all.

There's this really weird tendency for lead trumpet players to be incredibly obnoxious, arrogant, and unpleasant. Remarkably, this holds true about 60% of the time. As for the other 40%, they're generally just normal people. But for some reason, the per capita level of unpleasantness of lead trumpet players is like 10 times higher than the general population. So anyway, there is this trumpet in PYJO II who is quite good. He is better than me in most respects, but he is always flaunting his abilities and is unbelievably insecure. Here's just a couple anecdotes from tonight.

First of all, we got "Black and Tan Fantasy" (it's awesome; Ellington is a genius, but you already knew that). I got the 3rd part because I have a painfully difficult 1st part on "The Queen Bee", and this guy got the 1st part. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less what part I get as long it isn't too easy or too hard: just difficult enough as to where I will be able to play it, but I'll have to work at it. As usual the first thing he did was to look over my shoulder and compare his music with mine. For a couple seconds he seemed baffled, and I soon realized what the cause was. It appeared that a line on my 3rd part was actually at a higher register than the 1st by a partial or so. This rarely happens, but is certainly not unheard of. Trumpet players tend to be irrationally proud of their range, and this clearly came as a major blow to him to have a lesser part with higher notes (it sounds so feudal!). So after he pointed this out to me, he quickly added: "I'm sure they meant this to be up an octave." Well, no moron! If they actually meant it to be an octave higher they would have written it an octave higher or written 8va, but did they? No. It was humorous indeed, especially watching him actually try to play the line an octave higher. I must give him credit though: he handled the consequences of his ego inflation with reletive ease.

Here's another humorous thing: if I ever miss a note because it's high, he always (without fail) asks if I really can handle the part (especially if I am playing I higher part than he), and if I want him to take over certain parts of it. After all, as his supposedly wonderful former teacher (who taught him scales, all types of scales! He told me once, "Yeah my old teacher and I did tons of scales. I know major, minor, modal, we did 'em all.") once said, "If you can't play something, why try?" According to this logic, I should never had started an instrument.

One of my new favorite things he now talks about is his band at school. At least 5 times (no joke!) he has mentioned how good they are and how his teacher is determined to take them to state and do well. Following his extensive explanations of their sectional practicing schedule, he always asks if my school going to state. And I tell him, as I always have told him, that I'm not in band at school because I take science classes instead. This really doesn't seem to compute with him, and always ends the discussion. Either that or he makes sure to add one more time that his school's symphonic band is really good, A) as if I cared, and B) as if I should some how feel intimidated. It's a band for god's sake, a band. Not even an orchestra, much less some giant juggernaut that I should feel obliged to care about. So I tell him good luck, and that's all he has to say.

The egos in trumpets really are pathetic. I mean, these people make squawky noises out of little brass tubes; who cares? I often ask myself that. But somehow there's more. It's an underlying cultural phenomenon. And like all culture, it makes absolutely no rational sense and is entirely inescapable.