For a beginning brass player in their first training band, it’s a milestone - a real high five moment - the first time your musical director gives you the palm-down “less, please!” gesture.

It means you’re playing more confidently - projecting more - and are developing the necessary breath support and technique.

At church last Sunday morning the band was Phil leading singing and playing acoustic guitar, and myself. I played electric bass for the first three songs, which were in a contemporary style, and trumpet for the final hymn - “To God Be The Glory”.

The sound engineer for the morning, Keith, said that he found my trumpet playing to be too “dominating” - at least that’s the word I think he used. He also said that he found it hard to sing to.

I was quite taken aback to hear this. I’m always at pains to be a good ensemble player, listening to the rest of the ensemble and trying to either blend or contrast, lead or follow as seems best in the moment.

But though I thought my playing was nicely balanced, it’s quite possible I was just playing too loud. I was deliberately trying to achieve a triumphant fanfare kind of sound in the final chorus, and I was very conscious of needing the breath support to play clearly in the upper part of my range. All of which meant – ahem – a less restrained dynamic.

There was likely another factor which I wasn’t aware of, and is a useful lesson (with due credit to Google’s Gemini AI – or “stochastic parrot” – for the insight).

Phil is an excellent musician and a delight to work with. His singing voice is pretty quiet though, so he needs a lot of gain on his microphone to be properly balanced in the mix.

I was standing to one side and a little behind Phil, exactly in the field where Phil’s vocal microphone is most sensitive. It’s quite possible my trumpet was louder in Phil’s microphone than his voice, so when Keith tried to increase the level of the vocals in the mix to balance the trumpet, he just got even more trumpet!

That would certainly explain how I could think my playing was nicely balanced while Keith heard something like an angelic visitation. For the future, I’ll need to be more aware of where I’m standing and which way I’m facing in relation to the vocal mics, and of course I’ll need to continue working on my dynamic control.

In the meantime, though, I’m going to call it another high five milestone moment.

Playing without a mic, while the singer and guitarist are going through the main PA and nearly 100 people are singing enthusiastically, I was able to make my sound carry and soar through the room – to the point someone told me it was too loud!

Achievement unlocked! :-)

(ChatGPT and Gemini helped with proof reading and editing)