Proud Papa at NAMM

The NAMM show is like a yearly re-union for all of us in the saxophone industry.  My buddy Paul Perez of Tower of Power came by and tooted on the GAIA for a bit…..yah, can you believe it, this hard core Berg guy actually liked a large chamber mouthpiece!?!?!?!? 

And yes, those are palm trees behind Paul…nice touch, yes!

We were in the very corner of the building.  We had hoped this would give us a little leeway with the Sound Police….no dice. Because it was a little quieter in the corner, we were also expected to be quieter.  That was hard as we often had upwards of seven sax players at a time trying out mouthpieces….youza!  Next year it’s back into the mix.  

The DURGA alto was our biggest new hit, followed by the DURGA tenor and DURGA baritone.  The universal response for the DURGA alto was “WOW, I had no idea a metal alto piece could sound like that!!!    It’s contemporary AND fat; not harsh or thin like other metal alto mouthpieces. It’s the best contemporary alto mouthpiece I’ve ever played.”  I was a proud Papa.  My goal really was to open a world of possibilities for alto players with this mouthpiece, and I think we succeeded.

The DURGA tenor has seemingly hit a ‘classic’ status already.  Nelson Rangell came by and blew us away with his sound on the DURGA.  He ended up playing it in his concert that night. 

What an incredible person and musician.

It still amazes me how the only hard part to selling the DURGA baritone mouthpiece is just getting people to try it.  Once they do, it’s all over.  And again… proud Papa.

We debuted our new hard rubber as well. Our hard rubber is the result of years of effort and is formulated and made like the classic rubber used in the Henry Chedeville, Meyer Bros, and Slant Sig links all from the 1940s and 50s.

People often think that the primary benefit of quality vintage hard rubber like ours is warmth to the sound, however, while it does have an incredible warm and dark sound its true benefit is in its resonance and vibrancy. Our AMMA and KALI hard rubber altos really showed that off well at the show. Proud Papa smiling again.

NAMM PRE SHOW ARRIVAL DAY

    Yup…we drove down from WA State with a U-haul. Didn’t everyone??? Pictures here are guys from NAMM helping us unload it.

There are definitely less booths here than last year as the entire row we were in last year now includes…. just us! Our booth last year jammed out with lots of hip sax players and was quite loud. It was almost like a permanent concert going on with the radio show, and guys playing together all the time. My guess is all the people around us weren’t too happy about the volume…sorry guys! End result…we’re alone in the corner of the show. I expect even more great sax players to come around this year, so it could be a good thing to have the privacy, we shall see.

    The people who share our back wall sell Karaoke machines…..really!?! They are nice people though! Mindy and I did sound testing with plywood, particle board and various foams at home depot to help isolate the sound around our booth more. It was very high tech testing – picture the two of us yelling at each other on opposite sides of a piece of 4 foot by 8 foot plywood and you’ll get the picture!

 

Everyone calls Tom and I’s mother Mimi…this pic is for you Mimi!

Mindy’s outfit of the day, by Theo.

OK, Mindy is a pretty hip dresser and she really likes to look her best at NAMM so for fun I thought I would post Mindy’s Outfit of the Day. Plus I just wear the same thing every day…except for my hat collection, and we can’t only talk about mouthpieces and spirituality here!

Mindy immediately nabbed the entire closet in the hotel room for all her dresses. Not sure why she needed it has most of her dresses don’t even cover her ass! Ha ha! Being set-up day I just took a cool picture of her in her shades entering NAMM to get our NAMM Badges.

Redefining Perfection

     My definition of perfection has changed over the years. For much of my life I have held strong ideas of what perfection looked like. I had a picture in my head of what something would look like when it was perfect. When something met that picture, perfection was achieved.

    For example, once I spend an entire year setting up a house to meet all my pictures of my perfect residence. It had a stream running alongside it that made those wonderful babbling brook sounds. My shop had ceiling high windows that overlooked the backyard which was like a Zen Garden. I remember the morning I had the thought, “Wow! The house is finally perfect.” 

That very same day my wife at the time and I decided to separate and we each decided to move out of the house to live individually. Doh!

    I also remember when I finally found THE perfect vintage saxophone for me, after years of playing different horns. Because the horn was so special to me I had a professional start an overhaul on it immediately. The next day I got the following message, “Theo I am so sorry but while wire brushing the neck of your horn, the tenon caught the wheel and tossed the entire neck across the room, buckled it over in half.”

    I have many examples like these in my life.

    Finally, one day I asked myself. Why do I create this? Why is it every time I experience getting something perfect (meeting my picture of perfect) does it almost immediately depart from my life? The answer I got was profound for me: to learn to experience the perfection inherent in every moment. That’s right, this moment right now; not just when life meets my pictures or ideas of what it should look like.

    I am slowly getting better at accepting things (and myself) exactly how they are. I now recognize it is only my desire for life to be different that has ever cut me from the feeling of perfection. Living in perfection in every moment is my, and everyone’s, birthright.

    I went to bed last night asking for a good example of this. In the middle of the night I awoke knowing I had to locate my cell phone right way. Instead of ignoring such an odd feeling I got up to look for it. I realized then I hadn’t seen it for over two days and really had no idea where it was. I picked up the home phone and called the number walking around the house listening for my cell phone ring. Nothing. Then I thought about checking the garage. I walked in the garage stuck my head in my car and heard the cell phone power off. Silence. I heard just enough to know where to look. I found my cell phone under the floor mat in the back seat. If I had waited until morning to look, instead of trusting my knowing to look then, I would have never found my phone.

Letting go of how I think things ’should’ be, and working with how things are allows me to experience the perfection of NOW! This means trusting what is happening around me, and trusting myself to act outside the confines of my mind. The more I do this the more I simply watch myself act, instead of control. And this is when the magic happens!

After now being single for awhile, I walked through my favorite park to sit at my favorite park bench. But a woman was already sitting there. Bummed, I kept walking. Then I had the feeling I needed to sit down at the bench anyway. I decided to trust my intuition so I turned around and sat down next to her. I talked to her for a bit wondering why my inner guidance had me sit next to her. Without an answer she soon got up and left. Inside myself I said to the universe. “If you want me to see this woman again it is up to you, I don’t have the energy right now to pursue anyone.” A month later I had an intuition to do a week trial of a specific online dating service. The first email I got was from a woman (with no picture) who asked, “Do you believe in coincidence”. I replied, “No, I believe in Interconnectedness.” She said, “Good, because I just now signed up for this service, you were the first match I got, and I am the woman you met on the park bench a month ago.”

    One night a couple weeks later I stayed up most of the night searching the internet for a children’s book I had once read. It was one of my all time favorite books, but I couldn’t exactly remember its name. That night I asked internally for a sign about the appropriateness of my new relationship. The next morning I got a call from my new girlfriend saying she had a present to give me but was a little embarrassed because it was a children’s book. She gave me the exact book I had spent the previous night searching for. It is a children’s book called, “All I see is part of me.”

    Four years later we are still together.

     I don’t know why anything in life really happens the way it exactly does. But in trusting life the way it is, and in trusting myself beyond my ideas of how things should be, I am finding perfection. Instead of chasing perfection, I practice allowing perfection. What if it really is this simple!?! I know my life is working better and better and I am accomplishing things I never previously dreamed possible.         

                                    Blessings, Theo Wanne