A few years ago, I had a major milestone birthday, and I decided to celebrate with the purchase of a new trumpet. Prior to this date, I had been exclusively playing the same Bach 37 Stradivarius that I've had since I was a teenager.

The last time I attempted to buy a new trumpet was back in 2004. At that time, I did an in-home trial of a few horns from major brands (Conn, Getzen, Yamaha), but I ended up returning all of them in favor of my Bach. This time around, I wanted something with more character than a major brand, so I went to J. Landress Brass in Midtown Manhattan, to try horns from some of today's top boutique trumpet makers.

I tried over a dozen trumpets, but I kept returning to an Adams A9, which is Adams' version of a Martin Committee trumpet. Martin Committee trumpets were famously played by Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Dizzy Gillespie (to name a few), so the A9 was a chance to play a modern version of that classic horn. In my play tests, I also really liked a used Del Quadro (I don't remember which model), and a 2024 Bach 190S43. Since I had always wanted to own a Martin Committee, the A9 won in the end.

After a few days of playing the A9 at home, I began to think I had made a mistake. The valves felt too big and bouncy, and the 3rd valve ring kept moving around, despite my attempts to tighten the screw. I wasn't ready to return it, but I already knew that it wouldn't become my primary trumpet.

Hoping to re-test the Bach and Del Quadro trumpets, I returned to the music store. The Del Quadro had sold already, but they still had that 2024 Bach. The new Bach sounded better than my old Bach, so I bought that as well.

Despite my goal of buying a "boutique" horn, I ended up with two trumpets from large manufacturers. For the next year, the 2024 Bach became my primary horn, but I still yearned for something else.

Every year, I travel to Portland, Oregon, to visit family. And every year, on the drive from the airport into the city, I pass by the industrial park where the world's most famous boutique trumpet maker, David Monette, has his trumpet shop. While I've been tempted to stop by the Monette shop during previous visits, I never felt that I was a good enough player to justify such an expensive high-end trumpet. I still feel that way, but after my milestone birthday, I was reminded of the immortal words of Miles Davis, who said, "So What."

No, I didn't get a Monette. I contacted Monette via their website, but they never replied to my request for a visit. Feeling a bit defeated, I searched for other trumpet vendors in the Portland area, and I found the Thane Trumpet website.

Thane Trumpets are made by Logan Brown, a former Monette employee, who started making his own trumpets in 2019. Monette makes all of their parts from scratch, a fact that is reflected in their high prices. At Thane Trumpets, Logan makes trumpets with parts sourced from other manufacturers, but during the assembly process, he uses the techniques that he learned while working at Monette. The result is an excellent custom trumpet, at a fairly affordable price point.

After getting in touch with Logan, he invited me to his Portland shop, where I tested a few of his different models. Within a few minutes of playing, I knew that I had finally found my "boutique" trumpet.

As of this writing, I've had my Thane trumpet for 8 months. I absolutely love this horn. It's the most expressive horn that I've ever played. I imagine that the 5" bell has a lot to do with that. It's also a beautiful horn, with the mottled patina of its raw brass finish.

Happy with my Thane, I ended up selling that newer Bach and the Adams A9. I also had my old Bach restored, with a valve replating and third slide tube replacement (to fix compression issues). I now use my old Bach for warmups, and the Thane trumpet for my end of the day jazz improvisation sessions. I'd use the Thane for everything, but my Bach is a little quieter to play, so it's easier on my ears.

MY NEW TRAVEL HORN

Several years ago, I was traveling extensively, and I wanted a trumpet that I could fit in a backpack. Since that time, I have owned three different pocket trumpets: Charles Colin, Carol Brass, and Kanstul. The Charles Colin was definitely the worst of the three (I sold it years ago). The Carol Brass and Kanstul pocket are much better instruments, but they also suffer from a stuffy sound and poor intonation in the lower register. I was especially disappointed with the Kanstul, since it shares the same lineage as the Benge pocket trumpet, and I've always heard that the Benge was the best pocket trumpet ever made. To be clear, both the Carol Brass and Kanstul pocket trumpets are decent horns, but I wanted something that rivaled the intonation and clarity of a full-size trumpet, and neither of those horns come close.

Having struck out with pocket trumpets, I expanded my search to cornets. Specifically, cornets with a shepherd crook, since they are more compact. I began with a cheap Manchester Brass cornet (same factory as Carol Brass). That cornet had better intonation than my pocket trumpets, but it sounded even stuffier. About a year after that purchase, I tried a new Yamaha Neo cornet, which I really liked. At $4,000, that was double my budget for a travel horn, so I waited until I found a used Yamaha Zeno cornet on eBay. I had hoped that the Neo and Zeno cornets would sound more or less the same, but the Zeno sounded almost as bad as the Manchester Brass cornet.

About a year later, during a routine trip to J. Landress Brass, I noticed that they had a 1967 Bach 181 long cornet for sale (longer than a shepherd crook cornet, but shorter than a full-size trumpet). I had never played a Bach cornet, but I figured it was worth a shot. A few notes later, I knew that I had finally found a compact horn that plays as well as a full-size trumpet. And at a sub-$2,000 price, I couldn't resist. I've only taken this horn on one trip so far, but it was an absolute joy to play, with a trumpet-like tone and great intonation.

Also worth mentioning is the custom case that I built with felt tiles from FeltRight. The rigid felt tiles are easy to cut with a utility knife and straight edge. Using short screws and some glue, I connected the tiles to each other, making a cornet-shaped box that I can put into a backpack along with a laptop and other small items (I'm using a camera backpack: Lowepro Trekker Lite BP 250 AW). This custom cornet case is surprisingly strong and lightweight, offering sufficient protection for a carry-on bag.

This site first went online in 2003. Back then, it was hard to find information on the internet about ear training, jazz improvisation, and trumpet technique. I wasn't an expert on any of those topics, but when I learned about something that seemed useful to others, I'd share it on this site.

Years later, as YouTube and today's social media sites came online, my voice become less and less important. For example, why would anyone want to read my thoughts about jazz improvisation when they could watch a professional masterclass on YouTube? As a result, I lost interest in writing new posts, knowing that other people were creating newer and better content.

With over twenty years of old posts, and so few new posts, this site felt increasingly stale and irrelevant. I even stopped telling people about this site, because I didn't want them to read any of my old "blog" articles. Do people even say "blog" anymore?

Anyway, after several years of wondering what I should do about this site's old posts, I finally decided to go ahead and delete them.

This site's focus is now almost entirely on my ear training tools. I'm still very proud of my online ear trainer. I think it's the best tool of its kind and, to my knowledge, it's the only ear trainer that lets you create your own exercises. My simple song randomizer isn't anything special, but it gets to enjoy the spotlight as well.

As for Play by Ear, my 2010 iPhone ear training app (the first ear training app with pitch detection!)... the end is near. For it to function well, I need to be more diligent about maintenance, but I can't really justify the time. Especially when my online ear trainer is more powerful and easier to update. The current version or Play by Ear barely works as it is, so it probably won't be missed.

In addition to the ear training tools, I will likely continue to share newer information that I think is relevant, like my jazz improvisation lessons with Garry Dial. But there probably won't be too many of those posts. I've also decided to keep some of my jazz improvisation recordings.

I've go to say... it feels liberating to start (mostly) from scratch.

In 2004, I started sharing my jazz improvisation recordings on this site. My objective was to document and share my progress over the years. Before you listen, keep in mind that I am just an amateur trumpet player. I don't expect that I'll ever become a "great" player, but I am always curious to hear how much better I can get with practice.

In addition to a selection of older recordings, you'll find newer ones that I recorded since I started taking jazz improvisation lessons with Garry Dial, in 2019. One difference that you can't hear in the old recordings is my poor consistency. In the past, I would record myself many times, hoping to play something worth sharing. Often nothing was good enough. Now, however, I'm much more consistent, and most of my recording attempts would qualify as "sharable."

July 16, 2026

iwasdoingallright - audio clip Backing track: Aebersold #44, Autumn Leaves. Since "Autumn Leaves" is one of the first tunes that people encounter in their lessons with Garry Dial, I thought I needed a quick recording.

March 3, 2024

iwasdoingallright - audio clip Backing track: MrSunnybass, Giant Steps. "Giant Steps" is one of the Charlie Banacos courses that Garry Dial teaches (supplemented by Garry's own material). This recording is the result of about eight months of those "Giant Steps" lessons.

January 25, 2024

iwasdoingallright - audio clip Aebersold #25, Have You Met Miss Jones. There are things that I prefer from the 2008 recording (see below), but as mentioned in the intro paragraph, the biggest difference between 2008 and now, is what you can't hear (i.e. consistency). That 2008 recording probably took dozens of takes, over the span of a few days, before I managed to play that single chorus. In contrast, this 2024 recording was my second attempt, and it was good enough (for me) to share two choruses.

APRIL 16, 2022

iwasdoingallright - audio clip Backing track: Aebersold #22, Soon. This is the first recording that I shared since I began taking jazz improvisation lessons with Garry Dial.

JULY 3, 2016

iwasdoingallright - audio clip Backing track: Aebersold #44, Autumn Leaves

AUGUST 30, 2015

iwasdoingallright - audio clip Backing track: Aebersold #34, There Is No Greater Love

AUGUST 4, 2012

iwasdoingallright - audio clip Backing track: Aebersold #108, Recorda-Me

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

iwasdoingallright - audio clip Backing track: Aebersold #25, Have You Met Miss Jones

JULY 7, 2007

iwasdoingallright - audio clip - Backing track: Aebersold #34, Just Friends

In 2019, decided to study music full time. Since ear training had been a focus of this site for so many years, I knew that I wanted a dedicated ear training teacher.

Back in 2007, I received an email asking me to add a starting cadence to my online ear trainer. The person explained that a cadence was needed in order to practice an ear training exercise that they had learned from Charlie Banacos. I had never heard of Banacos before, but since the cadence sounded like a good idea, I went ahead and added it to the ear trainer.

Over the next decade, I'd receive several more ear trainer requests from former students of the legendary jazz educator, Charlie Banacos. I now know that Banacos taught much more than ear training, but since he was always mentioned to me in the context of ear training, he was the first person I thought of when I began my search for an ear training teacher.

Charlie Banacos passed away in 2009, so my plan was to contact one of Banacos' former students for lessons. After a Google search on "Charlie Banacos," I ended up at the official Charlie Banacos website, which led me to Banacos' daughter, who then put me in touch with Garry Dial.

When I first contacted Garry Dial via email, I told him that I was a trumpet player looking for ear training lessons. I also mentioned that I was learning piano. Garry wrote back and asked if I wanted piano lessons as well. I responded, "I'm primarily interested in ear training, but perhaps we could add piano lessons at some point in the future." Basically, I wanted to "try him out" with ear training, prior to committing to anything else. In my defense, I knew nothing about Garry Dial at the time, but my lukewarm response to the piano lessons is hilarious to me now -- especially since that's been one of the most rewarding parts of my lessons.

As I'd later learn, Garry Dial first studied with Charlie Banacos in the 1970s, when Garry was a student at Berklee College of Music. After Berklee, Garry went on to play with a variety of bands, including ten years with trumpeters Red Rodney and Ira Sullivan. In 1990, Garry joined the faculty of Manhattan School of Music, where he developed their six-year jazz curriculum and taught for nearly 30 years. Up until Banacos' passing in 2009, Garry remained a student of Banacos' and was specifically chosen by Banacos to continue his teachings.

Although I initially thought Garry Dial would just be my ear training teacher, he ended up becoming my ear training, jazz improvisation, and piano teacher. And thank goodness I found him. I've been studying with him for two and a half years now, and he is without a doubt, the most knowledgeable, demanding, and supportive teacher that I've ever had.

Since Garry teaches me so many different topics, I thought I'd give a brief breakdown of each discipline, as it pertains to my lessons. Before I do, I should mention that I'm not allowed to discuss any specifics regarding the Charlie Banacos exercises. In fact, I had to sign an NDA when I first contacted Banacos' daughter.

JAZZ IMPROVISATION

The jazz improvisation part of my lessons is done on the trumpet, primarily using exercises created by Charlie Banacos. So far, the focus has been various bebop concepts, with each concept lasting about 3 months. For example, when I worked on approach notes, I'd receive a separate exercise each week, as I worked my way through eleven chord types in all twelve keys. The lessons are thorough, and they tend to be rather challenging. The lessons are also transformative. For the electrical engineers in the crowd, I'd liken the lessons to a schematic diagram. With practice, they seem to rewire my brain to adopt a specific approach.

In addition to a Banacos exercise, the jazz improvisation portion of my lessons will often include a solo transcription that's impossibly difficult for me to play. For example, early on, Garry wanted me to play Freddie Hubbard's "Birdlike" solo AT FULL SPEED! I didn't even come close on that one, but it gives you an idea of the high bar that Garry can set in the lessons.

From time to time, Garry will also have me compose a written trumpet solo that incorporates all of the material that we have covered thus far.

JAZZ PIANO

In my two years of piano lessons with Garry, I have learned four different voicing types, which I can now use to comp and solo on any tune (slowly). And thanks to my ear training, I can now pre-hear the next notes in my head before I play them. Interestingly, I can pre-hear notes better on the piano than the trumpet, yet I never took the piano seriously until two years ago. I think that's due to the visual aspect of the piano, and my ability to see all of the notes and their relationship to each other.

As fun as it is to play through jazz tunes on the piano, I've also enjoyed how deeply the piano has broadened my understanding of jazz theory. Jazz theory, which was previously taught to me solely as a concept to memorize, has now become a living entity, as I play chord voicings, alter chord tones, and play through chord progressions. Knowing what I know now, I don't think schools should bother teaching music theory at all, unless it's done on the piano.

In case it isn't already obvious, I absolutely love playing the piano. Even if I never make things happen on trumpet, the piano is enough.

Speaking of the trumpet, I have finally reached a point in my playing where I actually want to play jazz with other people. This is a big deal for me, because in the past, whenever I played with others, it was always with a sense of obligation and dread. I knew that I *should* be playing with others to improve, but I also knew that I wasn't really prepared. Now, however, I do feel prepared. And I'm happy to say that, as of a few months ago, I've been playing every week with a piano and bass player (I pay them to come over and play). They are both a lot better than I am, but I'm able to mostly keep up.

EAR TRAINING

I've already had a couple of requests from people about the ear training portion of my lessons, so this section is a bit more detailed.

During my first year of ear training with Garry, almost all of my ear training assignments revolved around singing. One of the benefits of singing is that it requires a greater degree of precision than simply identifying something by ear. For example, when I started my lessons, I could easily identify a minor triad by its sound, but I couldn't accurately sight-sing each note of a minor triad against a reference pitch. When I tried, at least one of the notes would be a little sharp or flat and it wouldn't have the correct "minor" sound. Now that I've used singing to fine-tune my ear training, I have a much stronger grasp of the sound of each interval, chord, etc., than I ever had before.

After my first year or so of singing exercises with Garry, he gave me some very challenging listening exercises. In part, they were challenging because the exercises had me listening to piano voicings with root notes in the octaves below middle C. In all the years that I had been doing ear training on my own, I typically focused on notes above middle C (the primary range of the trumpet). Since I neglected the lower pitches, my ability to hear them was much worse than my ability to hear notes in the staff. Similarly, I wasn't very good with notes above my playable trumpet range. All of that is stuff that I'm working on now, though, by incorporating higher and lower octaves when I use my online ear trainer (you can change octaves with the ear trainer's Key Center option).

Some of you may be aware of Charlie Banacos' exercise of a cadence followed by a single note. I had actually learned about that exercise long before my lessons with Garry, and long before I signed the NDA. It's mentioned on several other web sites and ear training methods, so it definitely isn't a secret anymore. Although I have become very accurate with that exercise, I still use it each day as a warmup before moving on to more challenging ear training exercises. It's an exercise that I'd recommend, especially to anyone who has trouble identifying interval sounds. I even turned it into a sample exercise for my online ear trainer (Sample Exercise: Intervals: Cadence + Note).

I'd say the most important lesson I've learned about ear training is in regard to practice time. Obviously, ear training has been a major focus of mine for many years. I built the first version of my ear trainer back in 2004, and have practiced ear training ever since. I was often so busy with work, though, that I was lucky if I could sneak in five or ten minutes of ear training practice each day. While that was better than nothing, it just wasn't enough time to get significant results.

Since studying with Garry, I spend at least an hour on ear training every day. I break that up into three sessions. The first session is all listening, which occurs while I do yoga and other activities. That session will include hands-free ear training exercises, like the cadence followed by a note, which I mentioned earlier. Other exercises include singing notes over a chord progression (similar to sample exercise: Outline Chord Tones: Single Key). In my exercises, however, I practice singing non-chord tones as well. For example, while listening to a C-7 chord, I'll sing a major third (E natural), as well as all of the other intervals.

My second ear training practice session of the day is all sight-singing. When I started with Garry, we focused on singing intervals by relating them to a C reference pitch. From there I moved on to chords. I still practice some of that each day, but now I also sing a wider variety of things like four-part Bach chorales (a suggestion given to me by Dave Douglas), as well as jazz chord progressions (I take a page of the Real Book each day, sing the melody, outline the chord progressions, sing a solo, etc). I originally used solfege in my sight-singing, but since all of my exercises at that time used C as the root, my solfege became fixed to a C key center. To break myself of that, I started using "ba" or "da" for all of the syllables. As of a couple of weeks ago, Garry has had me return to solfege, but this time I'm using moveable "Do," as I sing the melodies of jazz standards.

My third ear training session of the day is done on the trumpet (and sometimes piano). Most of that uses custom exercises that I created, based on the Charlie Banacos material in my lessons. I can't share those exercises, but I can recommend things like playing jazz licks and random melodies on your instrument by ear around the circle of 4ths/5ths (Sample Exercise: Melodies: Play by Ear in 12 Keys). You can also try to outline chord progressions by ear, after you've established a key center and/or listened to a reference pitch (again, Sample Exercise: Outline Chord Tones: Single Key). I also practice playing jazz licks over random chord changes by ear. For example, if the lick starts on the 3rd of a chord, I listen for the 3rd of each random chord and start with that note.

To my amazement, I'm now at the point where I can wake up each day, go to my ear trainer, and sight-sing 10 random notes (using an exercise like this). I don't use a reference pitch and I'm correct nearly 100% of the time. Note, there's nothing wrong with using a reference pitch. After all, reference pitches are the backbone of "relative pitch." I just don't seem to need them when I get up each morning. I do, however, use reference pitches throughout the remainder of the day. That way I can check myself and make sure I don't get thrown off, especially if I've been working in a specific key for a while.

My ability to play the trumpet by ear has also improved a lot, but not quite to the level of my sight-singing. That's partly due to my old habit of doubting myself as I play. In the past, I'd occasionally hear a pitch and I'd think it's one note, then wonder if maybe it's a different note, then change my mind again and get the note wrong. That process has become so ingrained into my trumpet playing, that it's hard to break free and actually trust myself. The good news is that, more often than not, my initial belief is now correct. Hopefully it's just a matter of time before I can build confidence and trust my ability to play by ear on the trumpet.

THE LESSON PROCESS

If you're thinking of studying with Garry Dial, you might like to know a little about the lesson process.

Initially, my lessons with Garry took place at his apartment in NYC. At the end of each lesson, Garry would give me a written assignment, which I would then practice and demonstrate at the following lesson.

At the onset of COVID, my lessons with Garry shifted entirely to a correspondence format. For the correspondence lessons, I pay for four lessons up-front. Each lesson comes via email, and a week later I respond by sending him recordings of myself doing the various exercises. Garry then reviews my recordings and sends me the next lesson within a few days. Several of Charlie Banacos' students took lessons via this same correspondence method -- although back then they used handwritten instructions and cassette tapes. I don't mind the correspondence format, but I can see how some people might prefer in-person instruction.