My name was on the wrong chair…

Or so I thought when I walked into the first rehearsal of the Minnesota All-State band in the summer of 1993.

We had placement auditions earlier in the day – that being the first day of the camp.

And it turns out I did better than expected, as my name was placed squarely on the first chair of the trumpet section.

I stared at the music stand holding the card with my name in disbelief. What is my name doing there? I asked myself.

Truth be told, I didn’t have any expectations on what chair I would get. I was happy to be there. I did a live audition earlier in the year, and was elated when I learned I had made the cut a few weeks later.

The guy who was second chair was a better player than I was, but in the ears of one guy making the decisions, I played better than he did for the five minutes we were allowed to show off what we’ve got.

So he was the better player, and I played the solos in the concert.

Such is life.

And I nailed the solos by the way. In fact, I asked my seat partner on the drum corps the next summer if I sounded like a professional when I played him the cassette tape of the concert.

He laughed and said I didn’t.

What does a drummer know anyway?

What’s interesting is that experience was the highlight of my senior year as far as playing trumpet goes. I struggled mightily physically, and in hindsight I realize it’s because I was losing the game mentally.

I just recorded an interview with a baroque trumpeter that’s going live on the Trumpet Dynamics podcast soon, and he said essentially the same thing.

What goes on inside defines what comes out, be it from your mouth into a microphone, words typed on a blog, sound coming out of a trumpet, whatever the case may be.

Well, in 2017, I recorded a series of interviews with world-class musicians – most trumpeters – and coaxed out of them some gems as far as mastering the inner game of performance goes. At the time, I titled it Secrets of the Musical Mind, but have since changed the title to High Performance Masterclasses as I think the lessons embedded in the interviews apply to anyone, not just musicians.

They’re not available anywhere on the web, except for my mobile app. To gain access to the app, and start binging on the interviews, simply go to https://jamesnewcombontrumpet.com/app and follow the quick directions to register and download the app, and you’re in.

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