Any Late Starters who became great trumpeters?

[nvidal]

[Trumpet2003]

[jungledoc]

[Brent]

I believe Blue Mitchell didn't start playing trumpet until he was 17.
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Brent

[Trumpet2003]

[Dennis78]

I'm a comeback that only really started playing seriously in the past two years after barely touching the horn for 20 years! I'm hoping that when I'm 50 and the kids are teens and don't like their old man I can really dive in and become great, but two years into my comeback I'm not great but serviceable at least the community band I joind last year hasn't kicked me out, and we usually get a standing O at the end of our concerts so I feel that I'm part of something great
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a few different ones

[Trumpet2003]

Thanks everyone for all the interesting replies and all the very nice encouragement. I still hope to find (or better yet become!) an example of someone who started playing in their 40s or later, and became a very good professional trumpeter.

[HaveTrumpetWillTravel]

I'm impressed you've stopped back so many years later? Are you a professional yet? (joking)

Honestly, I am happy to be the voice of doom and pessimism. There are probably people who start after 50 and become "quite good." Maybe they can join a group and even make money and have a lot of fun and be a good player. But, the odds of making it into anything considered competitive (i.e .auditions with many competitors) is close to zero. I think asking this question is sort of like saying, "can you become a professional gymnast starting after age 50?" Um, maybe-sorta, but only if you define professional really broadly and recognize that you won't make many of the milestones that most true professionals made by age 16 or 18.

I hang out on the violin boards also and there it's even more grim. At one point people were comparing the odds of a middle school foot ball player making it to the NFL vs the odds of a middle school violinists making it to a major orchestra. It's unclear which is harder.

Honestly, many of the top trumpet players had something going for them very early (years of piano lessons, the child of professional musicians, trumpet lessons from the start, etc.). Even for a good player with some natural talent who starts in fifth or sixth grade, it's a relatively small number that can be truly competitive. ... So that's the pessimistic take.

On the other hand, there's a lot you can do with some talent and a few years of hard work. Don't ruin a very fun hobby. Most of us can make continuous progress our whole lives and be quite excellent in some areas. For me, that's enough

[Trumpet2003]

[Croquethed]

My wife and I recently went to hear one of our favorite soul/blues/rock acts. Front man plays guitar and the band consists of bass, keys, drums, two backup singers and a two-man horn section - trumpet and sax.

After the show, the trumpet player, who looks to be mid-40s to early 50s, and I were talking horns and stuff and he asked me if I was in a band. No, I said, I was just a I-IV-V Stax riff hack who plays for fun.

He said "10 years ago I coudn't have told you what a V-IV-I was. Now look at me."

I doubt he's getting wealthy but he is a member of a band that has a steady audience and tours on the regular. I'm sure he is the exception rather than the rule. A lot of making it as a pro, beyond chops, is timing, but that's true in anything.

Also, just for reference to the remark about middle schoolers making it to the NFL. A friend of mine made it all the way to major league baseball where he had a pretty solid 10-year career. I back-of-napkin'ed how many kids played in the town Little League over the years to produce 1 major leaguer...came up with about 10,000-to-1 odds.

[Trumpet2003]

[peanuts56]

Back in the mid 70's I was attending a community college that had a really fine music dept.
We had a guy sit in with the jazz ensemble rehearsals a few times. He was about 27-28 and started playing when he was around 22. He basically locked himself in a room with Claude Gordon's Systematic Book for 4-5 hours a day. He had a pretty decent double c. He wasn't very musical however. Pretty much spent all his practice time on technical exercises. Still, it was pretty impressive that he was able develop really strong chops in such a short time. After a few rehearsals we never saw him again.

[Trumpet2003]

[Mike Prestage]

I'd be very surprised if anyone could answer your question any way other than 'no'. That doesn't in any way imply that it's unrealistic for someone in your situation to take their playing to a profoundly different level though - it just reflects how competitive professional music is.

Motivation works differently for all of us of course, but the goal you're talking about strikes me as so extreme that's it's liable to become counter-productive. If you want to discover where you can eventually get to with your playing, IMO you'd do better by focusing on what progress you'd like to make in the not too distant future - maybe just a year ahead. If you thrive on that and can keep going in that mode for enough years, it will take you a very long way

Mike
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www.facebook.com/MikePrestageTrumpetTeacher

[Trumpet2003]

[rothman]

Less of a player than what occurs with aptitude, 'gift' for playing music, yet he overcame major obstacles to demonstrate unimaginable chop strength. Not widely admired, but very solid ability.



https://jeromecallet.com/our-story

[Trumpet2003]

[Jerry]

[rothman]

[Trumpet2003]