Downgrade Downgrade

[windshieldbug]

Even though I know better, I played a gig on trumpet...

[MikeMason]

I dropped my mute off the riser in rehearsal.boom!

[bort]

I overslept today, woke up at 12:30pm. I didn't go to bed until 4 am, but still... Whoops!

[windshieldbug]

I just agreed to buff bloke jr's drum set's cymbals in exchange for him hauling a trailer-load of already-cut firewood out of the woods.

- He doesn't need his cymbals buffed.
- I don't need the firewood.

Compromise then; you buff the wood, have him haul a load of cymbals out of the woods...

[sousaphone68]

3 years ago I bought a DW mute for my tuba as a test piece required muted tubas.
Cost me €200 brought it down to rehearsal and before I could even put it in my bell the conductor vetoed it's use.
I brought down again today to rehearsal as we have a muted pause in Music for a festival.
I dropped it on the pavement while unloading my car.
My pristine hardly used mute has now been downgraded to used and dented

[MartyNeilan]

My wife wanted to watch her Kentucky Wildcats play in the final four. She couldn't find what channel they were on - turns out it was only on cable this year!
We tuned into a local sports radio station and she listened to the game old-school. I thought basketball a little too fast paced for radio, which seems to lend itself better to baseball games. She was able to catch everything going on, though. I believe the championship game will be on broadcast TV this year.

(I guess "watching" a basketball game on the radio counts as a downgrade.)

[Ol'Tubazar]

In a rush for a gig, I grabbed Conn 20J bell and King 2341 tuba. Get the picture! Well, call tunes in B natural boys I'll tune it up or down as we go.

[Dan Schultz]

In a rush for a gig, I grabbed Conn 20J tuba and King 2341 bell. Get the picture! Well, call tunes in B natural boys I'll tune it up or down as we go.

I learned a hard lesson a few years back when I arrived for a Dixieland gig missing the third valve slide on a King. Now... I always check the equipment just before rolling out of the driveway.

[MartyNeilan]

I wonder how soon he jumps to another school just before more scandals are uncovered and title forfeitures are carried out.

Two words about last night:
Free Throws.
The b-ball players equivalent to scales.
(Yes, it is save to say 13 out of 24 last night was a downgrade.)

[bort]

True, but if Kentucky was better at free throws, UConn would have been more careful about fouling, and wouldn't have put them on the line as much. You can't opt-out of pieces in the key of F# though.

The real "downgrade" though is the rioting by UConn students after the win. Takes me back to my days at Maryland about 12 years ago...

[bort]

Yup. When I was at Maryland, there were quite a few sports "riots" after big wins (and losses). They were all ridiculous, but the most ridiculous was the first one (in 2000, I think). After a big win at a basketball game (an away game, no less), students broke into the football stadium, tore down the goalposts, carried them over a mile through campus and down a 4-lane to frat row, and then made an enormous bonfire to burn the goalposts, couches, and anything else they could find.

[Biggs]

College towns (even higher concentrations of "progressives" than large cities...and more testosterone, alcohol, and other mind-altering substances per capita) are powder kegs.

That must be why Provo, UT and Evanston, IL are so dangerous.

[Biggs]

Ah, yes. Los Angeles. Classic college town.

Is that really the best example you've got?

[TexTuba]

Had a bloke situation yesterday...didn't realize I was out of TP.....

Definite downgrade

[Dan Schultz]

The girl. How much for the girl?

[windshieldbug]

The girl. How much for the girl?

I didn't know that you spoke foreign languages!?

[Dan Schultz]

The girl. How much for the girl?

I didn't know that you spoke foreign languages!?

I speak fluent 'Belushi' and 'Aykroyd'... AND a little bit of English.

[Uncle Buck]

cult

I try to take things lightly on the board, but really?

[Chuck Jackson]

...and I really do not believe that Christ is particularly happy that 'denominations' exist."

I just have a question: Does anyone think that JC was having a very good Friday? According to popular belief he was thrashed to within an inch of his life, made to carry a big ol cross around town, and to add insult to injury, was nailed to the stoooopid thing. That really doesn't sound like a very good day at all.


Just sayin'

Chuck

[Chuck Jackson]

He handled it OK.

So the story goes. Still, you got to wonder

Am I seeing things wrong, or have there been a bunch of models of tubas brought to the marketplace in the last decade or two that offer no-better-intonation than some of the older models, resonate a bit harshly, but "feel" great to their operators?

We eat with our eyes. If it looks like a certain horn, then it must be good. We have diefied the horn (sorry for the parallel reference to my above statement) and not the man behind it, who if I'm not mistaken, could have made a sewer pipe sing. How many of these bright shiny objects are going to be for sale when the owners figure out that it isn't the horn that gets them where they need to be.

And I posit: Level the playing field for the next CSO audition. Give everyone a 186-5U and two mouthpieces of their choice and may the best MUSICIAN win.

Chuck