WLR's presenters of "The Big Breakfast Blaa", Timmy Ryan and Karen Doyle are going to bring on the trumpets!
This is following on from the success of the RTÉ programme, Instrumental, where members of the public and celebrities take up an instrument for 4 months and aim to play with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.
I will be teaching Timmy & Karen to play the trumpet in a 'crash-course' style over one month to get them up to scratch and they will be on stage, performing live, before thousands.
No pressure then!!
Have you ever wished you could play a musical instrument?
Did you learn an instrument as a kid and regret giving it up?
RTE's new series 'Instrumental' proves it’s never too late to pick up an instrument… especially if the end goal is to play live on stage with the RTE Concert Orchestra.
Following on from the success of RTÉ’s programme ‘Instrumental’ WLRfm’s “The Big Breakfast Blaa” presenters Timmy Ryan and Karen Doyle are going to learn to play the trumpet.
Now, this being a local version of ‘Instrumental’ and me not having the same budget as RTÉ etc. the parameters are slightly different. Firstly, they’ll both be learning the trumpet, with me, and over a one month period, not four. The end goal on TV is to play with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra whereas Timmy & Karen will be working towards playing on stage with Brass & Co., hopefully at the launch of the WLRfm Lions Club Appeal in early December.
In many ways this presents more of a challenge than the TV programme does. The time-frame involved here makes it quite tough on Timmy & Karen as the amount of time they will have to practice the trumpet at home is very limited. Their schedule is tight at the best of times and the run up to the Christmas period is mayhem for all of us! For me, although teaching people to play the trumpet to an acceptable level is normally straightforward enough, all my pupils so far have actually ‘chosen’ to learn the trumpet, rather than accepted a challenge! So the pressure’s on all of us!
Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting here so you can follow the trials, tribulations and triumphs of Timmy & Karen as they take on the challenge of learning to play the trumpet. I’ll be keeping you up to date on their progress and we'll be looking forward to having them play with Brass & Co. during the run up to Christmas and perhaps get a few comments from the band and from their colleagues at WLRfm along the way.
WEEK 3
Well guys, it's been 3 weeks since the project began and progress has been steady and a huge amount of fun. We've laughed our way through each lesson and I'd like to thank Timmy & Karen for being such great sports.
I started, as Julie Andrews suggested, at the very beginning, with the embouchure (mouth positioning) and how to blow into the mouthpiece and really just getting a note out of the horn. Then we moved on to understanding how the trumpet works. This leads us to simple question no1..."How can it make so many sounds with only 3 buttons?"
Teaching Timmy & karen how to read music in 4 weeks along with learning to play the trumpet was going to be too tall a task so we stuck with a tune that they both know and I simply wrote in the fingering for each note. Simple question no2... "How do you play these two notes? They sound different but they both have the same fingers pressed down!"
Since both Timmy & Karen knew the tune, rhythm wasn't a problem. Using their tongue to start and end each note and make the rhythm proved, well...interesting! Getting the tongue and fingers to work at the same time was funny and we broke into fits of laughter on many occasions.
Timmy had a little break in the middle to take annual holidays but Karen soldiered on and soon the first few notes of the tune came together.
The main problem we faced was the lack of time the guys have to practice but they made a sterling effort and had a lot of fun along the way.
The instruments have certainly been a hit with the children back at home and I may end up with a few more pupils out of this! You never know!
Over all the two have made fabulous progress and I'm really looking forward to getting on stage next week to put it all together. Brass & Co. are due on stage at 1:30pm in John Roberts Square, Waterford and Timmy & Karen will be joining us at some stage during proceedings.
Please come along and join in the merry-making and make the most of Waterford's Winterval. http://www.winterval.ie/
If you are interested in learning to play the trumpet please contact me at: mitchcuss@gmail.com Follow me: @mitchcuss
Follow WLRfm: @wlrfm Follow the band: @brassandco Brass & Co. Big Breakfast Blaa