Competitive Trumpeting is A Young Man’s Game, and What REALLY Defines Success as a Musician with Scott Moore.

Moore 


[00:00:00] James Newcomb: My guest today has been the principal trumpet of the Memphis Symphony since 1988. A few stories to share from that time, I'm sure, but he's probably best known for his impeccable horse whinny, that you always hear at the end of Leroy Anderson's s Sleigh Ride. In fact, he was kind enough to allow me to play his tutorial on the podcast just a couple weeks ago, and now here we have him live and in the studio on the show for you, Mr. Scott Moore. Welcome 


[00:00:31] Scott Moore: Thanks 


[00:00:32] James Newcomb: So how is it that you got to be so good at the horse, Winnie? Because it was, it's probably the best I've ever heard 


[00:00:40] Scott Moore: Thanks. Interestingly I think it all started. In high school, I moved to my high school Pascagoula High School from another high school and in a different part of the state. This is in Mississippi. And I'd already been like Allstate Band and everything. And I moved down there and And we did our concerts, our Christmas concert, everything. 


And then this girl is bassoon player who sat in front of me in English class. We're talking about this guy who had been in the band the year before, and he had been an Allstate band too, but he was way down the section and no, I was like, second chair, whatever, as a. 10th grader. And so I was she was like, he was so much better than you. 


And I'm like, but I was second chair in Allstate kind of thing. And she goes his horse when he descended so much better. And ah, okay. So you know how kids are in high school and out of great pain and humiliation comes opportunity . I realize that, okay. 


Fair enough. I don't sound like a horse. I'm just putting my valve down halfway. Blowing and it just doesn't sound like a horse. And I think that's what most people do. They look at Leroy Anderson's instructions. He wasn't a trumpet player. He probably asked a friend of his, who sounded, who did a horse, Winnie, and he heard it and he said, Hey, how do you do that? 


And he goes, oh, just put my vows down halfway and do a shaker whatever again. And so he like, Writes bows down halfway and puts a little squiggly line. And but that, that squiggly line's like right on that d in the staff and that's, I think that's probably what I was doing in high school. I put my, all my vows down halfway and I just followed that squiggle on that d just ba that's not a horse. 


A horse goes pretty high looking and that, that's what you have to do, I think is forget what Lee Roy Anderson wrote. And just try to sound like a horse. Yeah. That's the bottom line. 


[00:02:43] James Newcomb: Because his I haven't looked at the music in years, but it starts like in the middle of the staff. 


[00:02:49] Scott Moore: Yeah. Yeah. It's a, but it's a note with an X head which is indefinite pitch. But it's on the line for a d and that's not what most people do. They start right there in the middle and they never go higher. The horses aren't restrained by 


[00:03:04] James Newcomb: pitch. Yeah. They're not looking at the music saying, oh, I gotta start on Exactly. 


concert. Exactly. the best horse that I've ever heard, and it's yours is in the conversation, but the best I ever heard was. His name is Mike what's his name? But I played, I lived in Hawaii and I played with the Royal Hawaiian Band as a sub, and I can't remember his name. It was Mike something, but he's passed away Rest in peace. 


But he did the best horse I'd ever heard in my life up to that point. And he and he said a lot of similar, what you just said is you start high and then I think it's like the second and third valve. It's halfway down. You leave the first I, I don't know the exact Yeah. Way to do it, but I think if you just visualize in your mind how it should sound, the mi the mind can teach you how to do it 


[00:04:03] Scott Moore: more or less that's right. 


And that's to be honest, that's how you play. Everything on the trumpet, isn't it? You have to have the sound in your head. Yeah. First. Exactly. Before you know you can have proper production. Cause if you concentrated, fixated on the technique or the process, then we lose the ultimate goal, which is to convey a musical message. 


It's funny cuz I was texting a buddy of mine from n e c the other day. I was in grad school with you on 30 years ago. And I says, yeah when I was at N E C I was like, Hey, I wanna be known as one of the greatest principal trumpet players in the country. And life was like, yeah, screw you. 


You get the horse 


[00:04:42] James Newcomb: winning . So you're the greatest principal trumpet in Memphis, Tennessee. There you go. We'll give you that. How did you get started on trumpet? 


[00:04:51] Scott Moore: At the time I was living in Greenville, Mississippi, and the junior high band came to elementary school and played a concert kind of recruiting deal. 


And so I signed up for band and I wanted to play flute cause my mom's friend played, had played flute. And I was like, okay, that'd be cool. And band director, mississippi band director, he's just, I don't only put girls on flute and okay, whatever, and then I wanna play drums. But I was like, the last one picked, I was the last one picked in dodge ball and everything. 


And even in band, I was the last one picked it was weird, , but I all the drum section was pretty full. Cause all the guys wanted to play drums of course, yeah, of course. And so I asked my best friend, Steve Gelson, what? What did you get? And he goes, I got trumpet. So I asked my band if I could play trumpet too. 


He's yeah, sure. And it's just like some flippant thing like that changed the course of my life. You never know when it's happening. Of course I took to it pretty quickly and I really wanted to play basketball, but me and I sucked and kids in seventh grade are very supportive when you're, It's sports , right? 


Oh, 


[00:05:57] James Newcomb: of course. Yeah. They, they always have your back, don't 


[00:05:59] Scott Moore: they? Yeah. I suffered just daily humiliation and scorn cause of my inability to get it in the hoop. I just started practicing trumpet and I got good at that I found my people band people, you. 


So we were the outcasts and then until I went to music school and then I was a brass player, which is kinda like being a jock at a regular school. It was funny, 


[00:06:25] James Newcomb: It's funny how our environment define 


[00:06:31] Scott Moore: us, isn't it? A hundred percent. Yeah. And then you get to be a grown up and you're the band geeks are not Yeah. 


In fear, professional band geek you're one of the cool kids more, more than you were when you're a kid anyway. For 


[00:06:43] James Newcomb: sure. I think I was just thinking about this yesterday or the other, just the other day. When you're in the band, in school you're, like you said, you're an outcast. 


You're just one of the band fags. Or the band geeks. That's right. Yeah. You're not, you're definitely not part of the cool kids. But like you, you play professional trumpet in the symphony no less. Yeah. And you're the creme de la creme of society in 


[00:07:07] Scott Moore: people's eyes. Yeah. It's it's quite a turnaround. 


It's That song skater boy real life kind of thing the girl who wouldn't give the guy attention any attention. In school. Now all of a sudden she's buying tickets to go hear his band play. People being people is never boring. How did you get end up at New England Conservatory? 


I auditioned, so I started college at Delta State University in Mississippi. It there was a great teacher there, Mike Ewald. And so I went to study with him and after my junior year, he took a job down at McNeese State in Lake Charles, Louisiana. So I followed him down there and finished my bachelor's down there. 


And that was great because Delta State was great because he was there and I made good friends and had lots of life experiences and so forth there but not a lot of opportunities other than what I got in the trumpet studio. And then we went down to Lake Charles, and so I was playing a second trumpet to him in the local orchestra, which is quite good for for a town that size. 


And. We did lots of big repertoire Mueller two and Rosen Cavalier, all these things I remember. So he had to play second trumpet to him. And then there were just like there's a Catholic church on every corner in southwest Louisiana. Everybody's Cajun French. Most of my friends there didn't start speaking English till they started grammar school. 


They spoke Cajun French at home. It's crazy. All these Catholic churches who are hiring. Every kind of feast day and festival day. So lots and lots of gigs like that. So I've got a lots in the Play Dixie Band and bras qu just overload. But anyway, after that I was like, man, this is going great. 


And I told Mikey Wall, I was like, no I think I kind stay here and work on my master's. He goes, no, you're not. He goes I've done pretty much all with you. I can. So we started looking at schools and as it turned out the son of the conductor of the Lake Charles Symphony the conductor was named William Kushner. 


He was a great guy. There was, I could talk about him all day, but his son, Eric Kushner was playing at that time in orchestra in De Mall, Germany. Now he's in the Vienna Symphony, not the Philharmonic, but in the Vienna Symphony. He went, he was principal there for a while. But anyway, he came home to visit their brother. 


His brother actually is Tony Kushner who did Angels in America and that type of stuff. So that's quite a family. Anyway, so Eric came home to visit and he had gone to N E C and he was telling me all about it. And Look, I grew up in Mississippi and our Allstate man went to my senior year we went to Montreal and then we went to New York City for a few days. 


And New York City in 1979 was rough it just scared the crap out of me. And of course the natural thing in the conversation is you think about going to Juilliard we'll Mississippi it, I'm not going to New York City. Boston sounded like a good alternative. Now. And I sent a tape, cassette tape and know, actually might have been real to real 


I think about it. It was that long ago hotel auditioned, so I didn't even go there. The first time I went into Boston was in a moving van, which if you know anything about Boston drivers was. Insanity. But boy, I loved it. I loved Boston. One of the first things I did we had an apartment on Westland Ave about a block from Symphony Hall. 


And so I just walked into Symphony Hall, filled out an application to be an usher. And so I was a substitute usher. And since I lived a block away, Somebody was always sick. So basically that meant I could work any concert I wanted to. Wow. I heard the Boston Symphony four times a week. I heard all the, oh man, great touring orchestras that came through so it was, that was just you, that experience you can't buy. 


And I was amazed at my colleagues at school. They gave out free tickets to Friday afternoon BSO concerts every Friday afternoon you gotta just sign up and you show up and you get your tickets that little old ladies turn in and but people, my colleagues would like, oh, I can't go today. 


I gotta practice. I'm like, what are you practicing for? Yeah. They're probably still in the practice room 30 years later cuz they're not working anywhere because you're not going to learn anything. We don't listen a lot, 


[00:11:47] James Newcomb: So you made the sublist for the US. 


At Symphony Hall in Boston. Yeah. Yeah. 


[00:11:52] Scott Moore: And yeah, first call sub first call stop. Like I say, I lived a block away somebody was always missing, so I worked whatever I wanted to. If I had something going on, no, I can't make it tonight. He'd call me in the next day, 


[00:12:04] James Newcomb: That's an example of just taking advantage of an opportunity that other people didn't recognize and 


[00:12:11] Scott Moore: the, along those lines, the other thing we. 


Is there were like nine trumpet players in the top orchestras, so we rotate, of course. So what we decided is there was a room down in the basement, a big room called the Syphon Room. We basically got together and we said, okay, if you're, so we're gonna get together here during orchestra rehearsals. 


I think they're like Tuesday and Thursday mornings, nine o'clock, something like that. And everybody will get together. And if you, if it's time for you to be on stage, go be on stage. If not, we're gonna be down here. We're gonna be playing excerpts for each other. We're gonna be playing section stuff together and we busted each other's balls and really it was probably the best learning experience of my life, honestly. 


And everybody in that room pretty much has. Has jobs now, still to this day. 


[00:12:58] James Newcomb: Okay, nice. So it's that, and then just that constant exposure to great music. Absolutely. It's just probably seared into your subconscious. Oh, a hundred percent. Okay. So you get your bachelor's at Delta State and McNeese State, and then your, is it like a master's degree or a performance certificate 


[00:13:18] Scott Moore: at Master's degree? 


Yeah. Oh, masters. Master's in trumpet performance at N E C Uhhuh . All right. Undergrad at Delta and then McNeese State. What are you thinking at that time as far as your career? Are you thinking 10 years from now I'm gonna be principal in Boston? What was your thought process at that 


time? Yeah, when I first started college, I wanted to be like a lead player. 


My dream was to go to Las Vegas and play in some of those show bands but those kind of fell apart. Pretty right about that same time so cuz they every hotel and casino used to hire full-time big bands and orchestras. I started getting into orchestra music and started working on excerpts just as part of my lessons. 


And then I was like, okay this sounds like something I wanted to do, and so I just started working. But we had no orchestra at Delta State I went to Allstate Orchestra my sophomore year. But in Mississippi, I think there were, at that time, there might have been two schools in the entire state that had a string program. 


Basically it was winds and brass with the Tupelo High School string section or whatever it was. It was bad we played we played persistent Final only from Firebird. That was cool but It was just not a fun experience, cause you know, anyway, so I never went back to Allstate Band. 


I was just Allstate Orchestra, I kept doing Allstate Band, oops, sorry. And the district bands and that kind of stuff, and I played in jazz band at school and that kind of stuff. It was just Marching band. I was real, I was under DCI and stuff. I never marched in core or anything, but I sure liked that stuff when I was a kid, so I like most kids too you don't get into playing trumpet cause you know you wanna play Mozart symphonies you get there cuz you wanna play high and loud stuff yeah. P and SMO doesn't appeal to you when you're 17? No. , 


but you learn quick when you get your first job at, that's that's how you're gonna get fired if you don't figure that shit out, yeah. That's how you, that you probably win it. The, I think the criteria for winning a job and keeping the job are vastly different, aren't they? 


I, I. Think that's very true. Yeah. Yeah. I do coaching some orchestral auditions from time to time and like I tell people, I always give them the caveat that I can teach you to be a runner up to every major orchestra in the country. 


But cuz that was my history I did very well at a lot of auditions, but never quite won the big one but but as I always. The skills for auditioning and the skills for playing in orchestra are different for sure. They're not mutually exclusive because what do you work on when you're working on an audition? 


You work on evenness of sound. You work on your rhythm, you work on stylistic accuracy, different tone, colors, all those things that you work on. Are beneficial to good ensemble playing. It's not like you're working on something that's not gonna be 


[00:16:17] James Newcomb: helpful but it's different to put your hyper focus on that one thing. 


And then and what was like for you to you win the job and then you ha what was like the adjustment like. From a very different skillset to surviving or coexisting in an orchestra. 


[00:16:38] Scott Moore: There are lots of things. I remember, yeah, my first orchestra job was in Chattanooga. The hardest thing for me was counting rests. 


It's, You work on the big licks you gotta be able to come in at the right time. Store studying the scores and so on helps with that too so you know when to come in you gotta stay focused in between the big licks and count your rests and do your stuff. 


Other big thing is you might be sitting next to the same people for the rest of your career and if you're in a marriage that's not working out you can take care of that. But if you have a colleague that's not working out, That they're not going anywhere and you need to work it out. 


My second trumpet player and I we always joke that she and I were each other's most successful long-term relationship , because we've been sitting next to each other for, since 94, I think. Wow. That's when she came. . Wow. I tell people all the time, they ask what my job is like, and I say when I say this to people who play in other orchestras, they say, what's it like in Memphis? 


And I say, I like the people who sit on both sides of me. And every single one of 'em goes, oh my God, that's huge. Because yeah I realize that's not the way it is everywhere. So if you have issues with somebody, you gotta work it out. You gotta figure it out. You have, sometimes you have to. Swallow your pride. 


Apologize even if you don't feel like you have to apologize, just like you within a successful relationship, any kind of relationship. 


[00:18:15] James Newcomb: Do you think the audition process is flawed? I guess what I'm asking is how much do they factor the personality and the ability to get along with others into the process of hiring a new musician? 


[00:18:28] Scott Moore: Yeah, they don't really, do they we have a we started in Memphis several years ago. We at least have. And I think a lot of orchestras probably do this but we have a interview we just sit and chat in the finals and we have our the few people we're looking at. 


But it's still nothing like a lot of people will have somebody in for trial and so forth and see how that works though, but still over the long term. Yeah it's hard to tell, and the audition process is based. Almost exclusively on how you're playing that day. 


Having American in Paris on the audition list does not guarantee that somebody's gonna be able to play a POPS concert because a pops concert. Is way different than American in Paris. You've gotta play, you gotta play lead trumpet sometimes. Sometimes you have to play jazz solos as an American trumpet player to not be able to do that stuff. 


Like I said earlier, we go, we wanna be trumpet player so we can play high and loud and on pop's concert you get to do it. Why would you not wanna do 


[00:19:34] James Newcomb: that? We've already talked a little bit about like the differences between auditioning for an orchestra and then the reality of life in an or. 


What was the biggest challenge for you to adjust to life in a professional orchestra? 


[00:19:48] Scott Moore: I'll be honest, I didn't have a lot of orchestral experience bef until I got a job. I knew the excerpts, I listened to orchestras and I played, sure, I played in N E C Orchestra, which played two or three times a year. 


And then I pick up orchestras around Boston. I played in that Lake Charles Symphony down in Louisiana. Yeah, I didn't have really a lot of experience. Playing in a, in an orchestra. So I learned as I went and I kind, I tried to stay open to it, but also as young and cocky and thought I knew how things should go. 


You are full of ideas from all your different teachers, from the things that they tell you. And you get there and you're like, okay, I'm gonna do it this way. And then it's everybody around you is not on board with that. They didn't get the same input. They're teachers that you got from your teachers. 


At some point you have to be your own teacher and leave behind all these preconceived notions and that's what being a musician is really it's about listening and adapting all the time. You can never be, as a principal trumpet player, you can never be. 


This is the way it is. No way are we doing it any other way. I'll lay it down, but if somebody else is applying something differently, And it's not a big deal to me then. Yeah, sure. Let's do that. I don't care. The bottom line is that we all do it together. The conductor asked us to do something differently, do it differently don't take on a conductor that's suicide. 


So those type of things. Yeah. I guess when I was younger I might have challenged conductors a little bit here and there, and that's just not 


[00:21:21] James Newcomb: smart. How did you challenge a conductor? Yeah. 


[00:21:23] Scott Moore: If we're asked to play so. Softer or loud or whatever, and I would just kinda make some snappy, passive aggressive kind of remark or something, which is childish. 


It's not a big deal. Nine times outta 10, if a conductor tells you're too loud, it's not because you're necessarily too loud, it's because you're playing with the wrong sound or the wrong style, and it doesn't fit what everyone else is doing. Trumpet players have a tendency ta tat all the time, and that's just not appropriate most of the time. 


You know you wanna be able to have a round. Attack and a warmer fuller sound that makes sense and blends with horns and trombones more. There's a big problem with a American triple plane, I think a lot is that we've got the trombones with big resonance sounds and then the horns of course pointed backwards and they're very conical instrument and then trumpet sitting on the top of it. 


Yeah. Very bright sound. It doesn't work, so I think however we can mitigate that discrepancy in our. And our sounds so that we put the music first and we put the sound of the ensemble above our own ego is the way we can be a better musician and a better team player. 


[00:22:36] James Newcomb: And like you said, like the conductor may say you're too loud, but maybe he means something else. 


It's like he doesn't necessarily want you to play softer. He wants you to play differently and That's right. That's right. It's incumbent on you as the player to know what he. . That's 


[00:22:52] Scott Moore: right. And nine times outta 10 when a conductor wants you. He, when he says play that shorter, he doesn't if you're point, 16th notes, you can't make 'em much shorter. 


What he really wants is more clarity in the articulation. So he wants more clarity, not necessarily shorter you have to learn what they really mean 


[00:23:09] James Newcomb: because they're in a rush. They have a few milliseconds to think of the right words. Necessarily say the right thing. 


Sure. And yeah, so interpretation of what they want versus what they actually say they want. Is there a more, like you, you already said that you get snarky or you get chippy with a conductor if they say something like that and that didn't work out. But is there a way to tactfully or respectfully suggest to a conductor maybe something else could work better? 


It 


[00:23:42] Scott Moore: depends on the situation. Depends on the conductor. I would say most of the time if there's something you really feel like you need to say to a conductor or ask a conductor, it's best to do. During a break or not in front of the whole orchestra, try to be deferential. Our music director right now Bob Moody is fantastic. 


Really great guy to, to work with and it's easy to talk to him about stuff and sometimes he'll say, Nope, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, you're the boss. I don. No skin off my nose. Kill your beauties, type 


[00:24:15] James Newcomb: of thing. What's that? Kill your beauties. I don't know if I think it was a Bob Dylan phrase. 


I think I probably butchered it. Oh, okay. But you just whatever is valuable to the, to you in that moment. Just, eh, five seconds later it's in the past and it really doesn't make that big of a difference anyway. Now, Memphis Symphony is not, doesn't come up in the, and I say this respectfully, but it doesn't come up. 


It's all good in the, in. when the conversation of. The premier orchestras of America. You have Chicago, you have Minnesota, New York, San Francisco, and then there's Memphis. Eh? I'm sure it's a nice town. I'm sure it's a fine orchestra, but ha, has the thought ever come to you to say, I would be happier? If I were in 


[00:25:05] Scott Moore: Chicago? 


The thought came to me many times. And I was a runner up for a job in Chicago. I was a runner up for a job in Boston, and I had several near escapes back when I was doing competitive trumpeting a job like that doesn't always bring happiness and you. 


There are plenty of people you can talk to who are in those orchestras or who have been in those orchestras and moved on to other orchestras. As I was saying earlier I like the people who sit on both sides of me and that's great. I have done enough subbing with major orchestras to know what I have that I feel lucky about. 


And I also see the things that, yeah, okay. If things have gone a little differently in a certain day, this could have been my life. Memphis is a great town and it's such a great town for music. All kinds of music. My god the musicians here in the blues and r and b and just the music that has come from here. 


People think of Elvis I mean you've got Sam and Dave and Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes, and. It goes on and on. All these greats who were born here, who've made music here it's a very special place. And our hall is amazing. 


It's really one of the most unsung best kept secrets and country, I think how amazing our hall is. It's. Great acoustically, and it's beautiful right down on the river and the orchestra we really punch above our weight. It, it is such a good band. 


It's, it guest conductors are always amazed and guest artists because we really we enjoy making music together. And it's a rare alchemy when that happens. I pledged with some orchestras. They get paid a whole lot more than we do. And man, the people are just unhappy and hate to be there. 


I'm like, if you're gonna hate your job hate your job for more money doing something else that's the way 


[00:27:20] James Newcomb: I look at it. I've spoken and I've heard stories about orchestral musicians who are, they're burned out and they're just flat out unhappy. I wonder what causes that. 


They, maybe they have certain ideals of how music should be, or the role that music should play in their life, and then they get into the reality of the orchestra and culture shock. and it's very vastly different from what they imagined is the reason that they pursued music in the first place. 


I used 


[00:27:51] Scott Moore: to go out when I was in, in Boston and I remember going out for drinks sometimes with the Boston Symphony some of the Boston Symphony musicians and listen to them bitch about Sergio Ozawa and then playing outta tune and all this other stuff so it's it's the same everywhere, people are gonna bitch and moan. And I'm not saying we don't have those people, but I am saying that by and large my second trumpet player and I I'm 61, she's maybe a couple years older. And we are still talking all the time about. Things we're figuring out it's a constant learning process and we're like little kids we're just, I love learning new things and figuring stuff out and changing mouthpieces around, seeing what this one do. Like Mike all used to say you spend your life looking for the magic mouthpiece and then you die. 


[00:28:53] James Newcomb: Does a magic mouthpiece actually, 


[00:28:57] Scott Moore: Who knows, probably not, but Magic mouthpiece. Yeah. We did a Cancer Blows concert here in September and it was fantastic and so I, I had to play principal in the orchestra. The first half we did Pines of Rome and all those guys were playing y'all stage parts, all of our guest guys. 


And I've played song of Hope with Yens and with Jose Shabba and then. We did this West Edge Story suite with Wayne Bergeron, which is amazing. And then I had to play lead in the big band on the second half so it was a big show for me, but anyway, not as big as for Wayne and Arturo and those guys, but I know we're sitting back there in the big band and it's so Wayne's up playing some stuff and then we see him just kinda reach in and he switches mouthpiece and I'm. Turned to the guy who was splitting lead book with me. I'm like, do you see that? And he goes, yeah, I saw that. And I'm like, so they do it too. 


See . So you know, you can switch mouth pieces out. No. Nobody's gonna get up and leave. . 


[00:29:57] James Newcomb: Yeah. Whatever gets the job done. A hundred percent. 


[00:29:59] Scott Moore: Yeah. 


[00:30:00] James Newcomb: So I don't think I got the name of your teacher at N E 


[00:30:05] Scott Moore: c. Oh yeah. So first year there I studied with Bob Nagle and the second year with Charlie Schluter. So two very opposite ends of the spectrum there. 


So I had Mikey Walds who grew up in la. He's west coast guy great sounds very compact sound, you might say and then Bob Nagle, old school, New York, Charlie Schluter just like wide, huge sound and so I had all those things running around my head and it was messing me up. 


I started going to see Arnold Jacobs after I got to Memphis. I'd go up in summers and take lessons from him and that was great. And he helped me put it all together and figure out who I wanted to be. You 


[00:30:48] James Newcomb: were describing that those scenes at the basement of the. I think the rehearsal hall at N E C, and it sounds to me like that those were more of your mentors than your teachers. 


Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe I'm misunderstanding. 


[00:31:02] Scott Moore: We we learned a lot from each other and we just, we didn't hold back that was what was great about it I think if every school could get that kind of camaraderie going among the students then I think it would be some so beneficial for everyone, but 


[00:31:22] James Newcomb: Yeah, and it sounds like it was safe, like you can criticize someone and not feel, and not be worried about hurting their feelings or, 


[00:31:30] Scott Moore: Yeah, we'd say, that sounds like shit. You need to do this and then we'll go drink beers. So it was, that was it. It was great. 


[00:31:37] James Newcomb: Just have a thick skin and don't take anything personally. 


That's right. Which 


[00:31:40] Scott Moore: is great training for being a principal trumpet player. Lemme tell you. Cuz you're going to you're going to screw up. Mightily in front of 2000 people often, and if that bothers you, then you're gonna keep screwing up the rest of that concert. You know it's gonna happen and it will happen again in the future. 


So you just have to roll with that. 


[00:32:00] James Newcomb: Scott Moore is our guest. On trumpet dynamics. We're winding down on time. I have two more questions for you and then Okay. We will both part ways as will our listeners now, you've been at this trumpet thing for a while. Yeah. You've been at this principle trumpet thing for a while. 


You definitely have the horse, Winnie down . But my question is, what piece of advice would you give to a Scott Moore today that's up and coming, looking, thinking about what he wants to do on trumpet 18, 20, 22 years old? What would you tell this young man or a woman? There will 


[00:32:39] Scott Moore: probably. tough episodes in your career where you have to reevaluate everything and it's important to to learn to figure out what, why you do what you do. 


I've been through a few times in my life where I've changed my arm, amateur, I've completely broken everything down and started all over. That was about 15 years ago when I almost quit playing why I did what I do. And a lot of people just go through this routine of, I do. My warmup, my hour and a half routine. 


And, but they don't know why they're doing it. So know why you're doing things and understand what you're doing. But yeah, always put the music first is my biggest piece of advice and everything else seems to follow after that. If you put the music first, you will put your relationship with your colleagues first. 


You will put your respect for the conductor first. You will put your ability to be a team player first, and you will be. Hard on yourself and keep striving to be a better musician all the time. If you put the music first, that's the 


[00:33:45] James Newcomb: bottom line. Yeah. Good stuff, man. That's great and fine. Final question. 


Now this is a bit theoretical and so it's gonna require you to think a little bit get creative, get imaginative, and maybe this scenario has already happened and you can just recall a happy memory. But this has to do with like your dream. Perfect. Gig. And the question is just paint a picture for us. 


You have just played the perfect gig. It is at the best possible venue. You have played the best possible music repertoire for the occasion. It's the end of the concert and the audience full house is on their feet standing ovation. They don't want anything more and they don't want anything less. What have you just done? 


[00:34:40] Scott Moore: It's happened a few times. It's great hall. And when the orchestra's really locked in and I get that solo bow. Our audience here are amazing. It's like being a rockstar, dude. I can't even tell you. They scream so loud. It's just great, but yeah the end of all our five, and I get the solo bow and I hold my horn up above my head like I'm. 


Like I'm a a basketball player or something and they just go nuts. That's as good as it gets. I've been to concerts in in lots of major cities with major orchestras where the audiences don't scream like they do hear. So I can't imagine wanting to do something, be somewhere else. 


You. So that's it. People, my big thing is people ask me Hey, how's it going? And my stock response is always living the dream, and but moments like that, I really am. That's as good as it gets right there. 


[00:35:44] James Newcomb: Ah, very nice. Very well said. And it's just opened my eyes to a lot of Memphis Symphony. 


That's, it's something that I haven't heard a whole lot about, 


[00:35:53] Scott Moore: but yeah, I wish we had some recordings out and so forth, but maybe in the future we can with there, there's been some talk about doing some things, but he knows 


[00:36:01] James Newcomb: Anytime I talk with you or I talk to a couple of guys in the Utah Symphony they like their jobs too. 


It makes me want to get out on the road. Just go visit. 


[00:36:11] Scott Moore: There's so many good orchestras that are under the radar. Yes. The major orchestra limelight and it's just, it's too bad. But that's just kinda the way it's, it is the 


[00:36:21] James Newcomb: way It's, Scott Moore has been our guest. Thank you sir, for sharing a little bit of your journey. 


[00:36:27] Scott Moore: You're very welcome.