An Open Letter To Capt. Kirk

[TupeloCOTA]

Dear Capt. Kirk,
Over the past month or so the hostility and rhetoric surrounding you has increased a lot. I have stayed out of these discussions and really don’t mind your posts one way or the other, but last week I had a thread pulled after you posted so I feel compelled to say something about this and to all here on TH.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Russell and I’m a trumpet player. I am not a professional musician, I am not in the music industry in any way, shape or manner, and in fact I don’t even play in a single ensemble. Right now I’m just a guy who practices trumpet in his back bedroom when the wife isn’t around. A long time ago I was a fairly decent trumpet player, good enough to be a performance major in a good university program. I took a detour and ended up on another path, but last year I picked up my horn after almost 25 years and discovered that I have a tremendous passion for this thing. That’s why I am here on TH. I spent that 20 plus years in the military, so I have given and received plenty of criticism. Since I am new here I kind of see myself as an outsider and I hope that that makes me objective.

As far as my opinion of you Capt. Kirk, it’s mostly good. I think that you are an over-exuberant poster who doesn’t take time to really check your posts before you hit the submit button. I think you have a great passion for the trumpet and your enthusiasm gets out of hand, which is why people here have issue with you. Personally, I think if you were my neighbor I would invite you over on Friday nights to have a cold beer and mess around with horns, but I only interact with you here so I would like to lay some things out to you that might help you understand the hostility directed at you.

First, I come here to learn about trumpet related stuff. I come here to talk to pros and people with a common interest. I think of the people here in two categories. Category 1 are the professionals. These are folks who make a living on or around the trumpet. These are the symphony players, jazz pros, commercial and freelance players, military musicians, educators, university professors, private teachers and industry folks who manufacture horns, mouthpieces and related equipment. My experience with these people here has been overwhelmingly positive. I have had discussions with top pros who have been patient, encouraging, knowledgeable, and supportive. I can’t thank them enough for treating me on an equal footing even though I am a rank amateur. The second category of people are the amateurs, hobbyists, part-time pros and the like who just love trumpet playing and the horns. That’s you and me, and a majority of the people who post here.

The first problem I think people have with you, Capt. Kirk, is that you belong in Category 2, but you want to represent yourself like someone in the Category 1. I may be wrong here and if I am I apologize in advance, but you have said some things that cause people (mostly pros) take issue with your statement and when they take you to task and ask you to explain why you are qualified to make such a statement you either ignore the question or you obfuscate. Dizzy Dean said “it ain’t braggin if you can do it”, so if you do have some background that qualifies you to say some of this stuff please tell us. People make lots of bold statements here all of the time, but a lot also back it up with an explanation. When you avoid questions like “show us pictures of the horns you built” then you are inviting these negative comments and you are showing a total lack of credibility. In this respect you remind me of the person who started a thread in the classical forum asking about transposition. This person asked how to transpose something and received several good responses, 3 or 4 from professional symphony players. The OP then proceeded to stick a finger in the eye of Mr. Clean and tell him he was wrong in his answer. Think about this, someone who doesn’t understand basic transposition has the nerve to tell the Associate Principal of the LA Philharmonic that he doesn’t know his business. What the ^&%$^&$.......... and we wonder why pros abandon forums like this. You made a blanket statement on one thread along the lines of “orchestral players are overpaid guys in tuxedos”. I think that that was the gist of it. You offend a lot of people with stuff like this, did you really mean to say this???

Personally, this part doesn’t bother me that much. I just skip over your posts if they are long winded or headed in a different direction from the rest of the thread. I wish more people would just ignore things if they don’t like them, but it just doesn’t seem to work that way here.

The second problem with your posts, IMO, is that you tend to take over other peoples posts. I don’t think this is intentional, but it happens that way. I have read a lot of your posts and some are quite good. When you keep your statements relatively short and you make your point most people don’t have any problem with you. Go back and look at your posts and you will see this. Where you cause disruption is when you make these incredibly long posts, you say something that causes a reaction and takes the thread in a different direction or we have an argument break out over your statements. You tend to dilute, derail, and destroy other people’s threads. Like I said, I don’t think this is intentional, but whether you like it or not you are the cause or catalyst here.

You dilute threads with these overly long posts. I think that some folks that might have relevant posts avoid the thread rather than get drawn into your discussion. I have seen threads get derailed when you get a different line of thought going from the OP’s intent. For instance, I started a thread about some horns I was interested in and I said right up front “I am only interested in hearing from people that have played these particular horns”. You wrote a couple pages and started your comments with “while I have never played these horns myself……..”. This immediately drew a sharp reaction because didn’t read the original post. I actually defended you and asked your critic to back off because I thought their criticism of you was overly harsh. Let me be clear, I defended you because I don’t like personal attacks, not because you were right.

I think you would do well to really read the OP before jumping in. Last week I started an innocuous thread on Kanstul and vintage horns. I was specifically trolling for Brian the Shofarguy and others who are close to the people at Kanstul. Brian answered my question and I was having a nice discussion with him and I was pretty happy when Charles Hargett popped in, but I didn’t have time to converse with him. I saw where you jumped in with two really long posts that had nothing to do with my original question. You lectured me on marketing and how the company needs to setup manufacturing process and a bunch of other stuff totally off track with my OP. Brother, I have an MBA. I understood everything you said, but that wasn’t the point of the OP. I wanted someone near or in the Kanstul organization to chat with me about some ideas for horns I would love to see them build. I had to go away for a couple of hours to deal with real life and when I came back my thread was gone. I don’t know what happened, but I am guessing that a scrum broke out and the moderators pulled the plug. So I would like the take this opportunity to publicly thank you for destroying my thread.

I personally don’t have any major dislike for you, but I think that you need to understand that you are having a negative effect on others. I saw where Moshe Mizrachi, who is on your side, left the forum. Now others, who disagree with your posting methods, are talking about leaving. Whether it’s directly your fault or not you are the center of a lot of this hostility and disagreement and you can prevent a lot of this if you choose.

I think that this will come to a head one of three ways:

Option A: You continue to post the way you have in the past, ignoring others and the moderators allow this because, honestly I haven’t seen you violate any clearly defined rules. I believe that it is your privilege to post here like anyone else. The problem is that with freedom of speech comes responsibility for what we say and how we say it. END RESULT = YOU WIN, WE LOSE

Option B: Enough people complain about you that you get restricted or banned from TH. I am against this because I think this is a forum and as long as we don’t get personal we should be allowed to speak. I also think this option is unlikely. END RESULT = YOU LOSE (realistically no one wins here because that means we are all under restrictions, who decides what is acceptable?)

Option C: You moderate yourself. This is what I recommend. You can do this as follows:
• Take time to read the original post. Stay within the discussion set forth by the OP. Respect others and if you are in doubt, don’t post. I learned that we were given two ears and one mouth so that we understand that it is more important to listen than to talk
• If you feel the need to run a long post, to contradict the OP, to take the discussion in another direction, START YOUR OWN THREAD. Many here are happy to talk to you about on your own thread. Respect the OP.
• Finally, know what you say and say what you know. I teach classes for a living that often have subject matter experts in the class. I learned a long time ago to be careful on discussing things that are not my main expertise. Show some respect for people who are authorities on things here. A little humility and some deference will go a long way to helping people want to interact with you.


I hope that you will take this in the spirit that I intended. I see it as a friend putting their arm around you and pulling you aside to let you know how others see you, because I am quite sure that you don’t see it yourself.

For those of you that enjoy bashing Capt. Kirk I want you to understand that I think you are as much a part of the problem as he is. THIS THREAD IS NOT INTENDED TO BE AN EXCUSE TO BASH KIRK. I think that when people write posts directed at individuals in a negative light as was done to Kirk that the moderators should pull those threads. I did not watch the video or read the thread directed at Kirk, THAT’S NOT WHY I COME HERE!!!. You may have thought that it was just poking fun at Capt. Kirk, but he didn’t take it that way. Regardless of what you think of Kirk or anyone else, IMO if the person objects to the thread it should be pulled.

I hope that those of you who choose to express your thoughts here on this thread will keep it civil and respectful. I hope that some of you will help TH and Capt. Kirk come to terms with each other so that we can all continue to enjoy sharing a common interest and passion. This stuff is a terrible distraction to an otherwise great experience here on TrumetHerald.

[TupeloCOTA]

Kansas Trumpet wrote:

[Crazy Finn]

[TupeloCOTA]

[gbdeamer]

[mdiceman]

[swthiel]

I would also distinguish between a long initial post vs. a long post amid many shorter posts.
_________________
Steve Thiel

[tptfrbrains]

TupeloCOTA,
I'd like to thank you personally for a post that explained in a very nice way, what many of us are thinking. I hope it does some good.

r.

[supportlivejazz]

[TupeloCOTA]

Yes, it was a long post, but I felt it needed to be said.

Second, I'm not in the habit of doing this.

Third, I won't repeat it.

I hope that it helps, otherwise I hope the rest of you can come up with a solution because it seems to be getting worse.

Best Wishes to All
_________________
LA Benge 3X+
Conn Connquest 77B
Olds Ambassador Cornet
Chinese 3+1 Piccolo
Curry 1.5 C/DC

[DavesTrumpet]

It was a thoughtful post, but do you seriously think Capt.Kirk is going to read it? Since all subject headers under "Reveille" never appear on the home page of TH, the chance of him seeing your post is slim to none. You could try sending him a PM, but he tends to ignore them, even if they're in his favor. Probably your best possible bet would have been to post this under Horns so he would have a chance of seeing it. Then with the natural progression with things, it would have been moved here to Reveille.

I wouldn't expect a reply from him, however. Regardless of how civil you are with him, he's really only interested in his own comments, just from my observations over the past couple of years. Still, I applaud your effort.

Oh, and if your statement, "You may have thought that it was just poking fun at Capt. Kirk, but he didn’t take it that way. Regardless of what you think of Kirk or anyone else, IMO if the person objects to the thread it should be pulled." is directed at me and my cartoon video of Mr. Baumchen, as I have already stated previously, I gave John a head's up in PM about the cartoon before anyone on this site ever saw it. He actually replied and said it was OK and understood the humor. And while I feel it would be in bad etiquette to post here his entire PM message to me, just so you have some proof, here's a single, elucidating sentence from John in his PM to me after I gave him the link to the video: "Oh and just so you know I was not upset or offended this is why I did not turn anyone in or complain!" (Those are Capt.Kirk's words)

But, of course, we know exactly how he acted publicly on this list just following this PM to myself, calling what I did a 'hate crime' and my actions as 'bigoted' etc., while all I did was used a computer program to speak out his own words so I wouldn't have to read them, nothing more, nothing less. So you see, there are two sides to this Capt.Kirk character. Hopefully you'll only ever have to deal with the nice side of his personality.

Oh, back to your comment, "You may have thought that it was just poking fun at Capt. Kirk, but he didn’t take it that way. Regardless of what you think of Kirk or anyone else, IMO if the person objects to the thread it should be pulled." can we not use this same logic and apply it to Capt.Kirk? Meaning, when he's offended anyone who has ever played professionally with his comments about the C trumpet, or when he posts unsubstantiated and besmirching comments about DQ, Getzen, Ken Larson, Kanstul, etc....., can we not ask that those threads be pulled?
_________________
Dave M

www.electrotheremin.com/bach.html
www.soundcloud.com/davestrumpet
www.facebook.com/DavesTrumpet
www.youtube.com/DavesTrumpet

[TupeloCOTA]

[Getzen]

For what it's worth, I am not in favor of any thread being pulled unless it really pushes the boundaries of a civilized society. Even those posts that contain completely made up comments about Getzen. Without those threads I wouldn't have the chance to set the record straight by getting the facts out there to everyone else. Look at it this way, someone could post a thread saying they heard we use ground up unicorn horns mixed in with our lacquer. One hundred people could read that thread and believe it before I ever saw it. What if that thread was pulled before I had a chance to say that we used to use unicorns, but have recently switched to lepruchan bones? Those 100 early readers would go on without knowing the truth since the thread would have just disappeared.

Also, I think being able to look back on a poster's body of work gives some context to other things they say. A new member to TH might take the words someone posts as gospel if they don't have the ability to look back at some of the wild things that person has said in the past.

Just my thoughts.

Brett Getzen
_________________
Brett Getzen
President
Getzen Company

Follow Getzen on:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/getzencompany/

Twitter https://twitter.com/GetzenCompany

If you have a question please feel free to email me at brett@getzen.com.

[tom turner]

The problem with that Brett is that not everyone who read the erroneous comments will read your subsequent comments that you've switched from unicorn horns to lepruchan bones.

They'll just remember the false statement that you were using bull schiedt! There's no shortage of that around here sometimes when the Captn' is defecating . . . emm, I mean . . . pontificating!

[TupeloCOTA]

[James B. Quick]

[fraserhutch]

Very true. And another thing is the (presumed) weight of authority a poster is given through the sheer volume of his/her posts. It's as if they virtually out-shout others. The thing is, those who can are usually too busy doing to post as often as these individuals do, much less monitor and correct them.

[Getzen]

Very good points. Although, I would still rather have the ability to respond to any baseless comments rather than having them disappear before I see them. Which brings up another question. Who is to decide what is and what isn't over the line? In their infinite wisdom, the moderators don't know everything that is going on in the trumpet world. For all they know we don't use either unicorn horns or lepruchan bones. They could end up wiping out a thread that was indeed factual. Believe me, there are a lot of "dirty little secrets" in the industry.

Brett Getzen
_________________
Brett Getzen
President
Getzen Company

Follow Getzen on:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/getzencompany/

Twitter https://twitter.com/GetzenCompany

If you have a question please feel free to email me at brett@getzen.com.

[TupeloCOTA]

Paprika in the copper bells for color?

[Getzen]

Well your lesser brands use paprika. We use saffron.

Brett Getzen
_________________
Brett Getzen
President
Getzen Company

Follow Getzen on:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/getzencompany/

Twitter https://twitter.com/GetzenCompany

If you have a question please feel free to email me at brett@getzen.com.