Play What You Love Is Advice for Hobbyists

The most repeated piece of music advice in the hobby world quietly fails the moment a check shows up. This episode asks what a working trumpet player actually does with a chart they never chose.

• Play what you love is right for the person playing after work on a Wednesday, when nobody is paying and the repertoire is theirs. It fails the instant someone hands you a check: the question becomes what the job requires and whether you can make it sound good.
• A working musician is hired to solve somebody else's musical problem. The bride, the church director, the conductor, and the funeral director are not auditing your artistic integrity. Someone needs a trumpet, and you said you had one.
• "Hobbyist" is not an insult. The International Trumpet Guild's Non-Pro Players program defines the non-pro as someone who does not earn most of their income performing or teaching, and adds they can still play at an extremely high level. Professional describes a relationship to the work, not a level of ability.
• The working player rarely picks the music: Friday a funk section, Saturday a wedding, Sunday church and a brass quintet, then a sub call, then a funeral. Berklee's session-player description lists technique, sight-reading, stylistic knowledge, versatility, and reliability. Only plays what he enjoys is not on that list.
• Weddings are where the romantic idea goes to die. Droste wrote The Ultimate Wedding Book for Trumpet because weddings are real work: processionals, organists you have never met, last-minute changes, and a sound that dies in a cornfield.
• The skill Droste values most is making every chart sound intentional. Four whole notes behind a choir, make them beautiful. A horn stab, sit the articulation where it belongs. Pachelbel's Canon again, play the wedding.
• Nobody can even see the pit player, and the job is to support the stage, not behave like a soloist. Local 802's guide for Broadway substitutes stresses preparedness and conscientiousness. Do not walk into somebody else's chair thinking this is how I would play it.
• Reliability is a musical skill, because it changes how the music sounds. A reliable player knows the chart, has the mutes, notices the D.S., and brings the right horn. Gigs are less won than inherited for one evening, because somebody trusted you with their reputation.
• Nobody cares how hard the chart was, and style is not an effect you smear on top of the notes. A quarter note does not mean the same thing in Bach, Basie, Broadway, a Sousa march, a worship chart, and a Motown horn section. Be known for something, but do not be defeated by everything else.
• Resources Mentioned in the podcast:
  • The Ultimate Warmup for Trumpet
  • The Ultimate Technical Study for Trumpet
  • The Ultimate Wedding Book for Trumpet

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