First time you used.notes above high D on paid gigs?

[Lionel]

You had to be scared. Hey its a major threshold to cross. Isnt it?

Me? I had been doing a college major thing before going out on the road. So I knew of the terror a high F or so creates for the young trumpet player the first few times in concert. By my second year of college I had blown many Basie, Kenton and Ellington charts. For a large university audience. All amateur sessions of course but was often required to blow up to high G. For some reason there was a dearth of music major trumpets with lead chops. So even as just a measly first year freshman? No one in the department could compete with my high note chops. And all I had was the G above high C.

Yet we'd had some excellent name soloists to back up. Most notably Max Roach. I took an improvisation class from Max and actually felt like we were becoming friends. Most memorable class in my life. He never bugged me about chord changes, wrong notes or even getting lost. His only concern was that I played with guts and from the heart.

Wish we had more profs like Max! Miss him. RIP.

But my very first paid gig requiring high notes wasnt until after my last semester in college. At a theater on the Cape. Pretty easy gig. Well easy for me now but not back when I was only 20 y/old.

There's a famous Broadway musical titled "Company". Again easy gig for me now but not so much back then. I was scared! At our first rehearsal I thumbed through my 1st trumpet book. Only to discover that near the end of the musical is an oddball female vocal scene titled "Ladies Who Lunch". And near the ending climax is an eighth note phrase starting at G top of staff. Which immediately rises to the third ledger line E natural. Or high E a third above high C. Continues in eighth notes down to high C, A and resting back down on the original G top of staff. You only need to play it up the octave once. Although you and the second trumpet play it down an octave a couple times before the solo lead pops out the higher line. Also the vocalist sings the phrase numerous times. So I had the thing pretty strong in my head. Knew how it would sound well in advance.

Easy for me now but at the time? Looked scary as Hell. In retrospect I could have played it down the octave and no one would have cared. As the music director was a bassoonist who hated high notes on the trumpet anyway. One of the most difficult conductors Ive ever worked with.

But this was how I got my feet wet. Fortunately I never missed the E during all fourteen shows we played. Nor flubbed any other part of the line. Just did as my previous teachers had taught me,

"Use you air Lionel! Put some guts behind those high notes. That's my boy"!!

Yep I truly had some really positive teachers back in the day. However it is up to every young man and that occassional woman to put himself on the line. Ya just gotta do it. Scary isnt it? Terrifying to me at the time. All that practice at home. Even repetitive rehearsal. Yet it still wasnt the same as public performance. But actually putting oneself out there on the line? Yeah and popping notes well into treble clef ledger lines is one heck of an initiation. Dont ya think?

That was my own initiation. Will be most glad to learn of yours.

PS: The more frightening gigs I ended up playing came a couple years later. These involved playing "Star Wars Theme" and Mangione's "Feel So Good". Neither even goes above the high D. But it needs a dominating performance. Those two were scary. More so even than Maynard's "Rocky" theme. That one was kinda easy for me oddly enough.

So? Have at it fellows! And congrats!
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[trickg]

The first notes I played above D on paid gigs were in a Latin band I played in during the late 1990s, and there really was no pressure. Hit, miss - it just didn't matter and I still got paid at the end of the night. It was an interesting test tube to help figure out what did and what didn't work.

I played 2nd in the band, but for a time, my friend who played the 1st book would just flat out blow himself out in the 1st or 2nd set, and he'd be passing me charts to play, or I'd bail him out on occasion and we'd just suddenly and simultaneously read off of each other's chart - sometimes there was no indication either - we just "knew" and we'd switch. He was a great guy to play with - it was almost a Zen thing how well we played together.

In any case, much of it was experimental. The highest notes I ever played on a paid gig - legitimately played and not just squealed - were A's above 2nd ledger C.

These days my highest notes are E's, and in two rare instances, F's.
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[Tpt_Guy]

Used to do a lot of work with a community theater group that actually paid its orchestra. We had some interesting times.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was an experience. The rental company messed up so the orchestra sight-read opening night. Wasn't expecting the High Eb that closed out the first half.

Later we did Jesus Christ Superstar - went up to High D in the overture and High E a number of times toward the end of the show.

Nothing that would make you sweat, I'm sure, but at the time it made me a bit nervous.
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[RandyTX]

I think the musical Gypsy, which went up to an Eb, maybe a F hit somewhere a few times. I think the last scene ends with you hanging out on an Eb for what seems like a long time by that point in the show.

A D really isn't all that 'high' anymore in commercial music. A Motown style horn/cover band I've been playing with recently has them everywhere, and E's and F's occasionally as well. The nice part is most of that style of playing is not the melody, just the horn licks, so you get the horn off your face quite a bit in between.
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[RandyTX]

[Lionel]

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

[Lionel]

[bnsd]

nope.. never missed a high note in my life and especially not when I'm getting paid for it... no sir.. not me

[cheiden]