Tuning Slide 5.31- The "Greats" of Making Music

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

There are three characteristics of a great trumpet player:
1. Every time you play you have a great- not a good- sound.
2. You have great- not good- rhythm.
3. You have great- not good- ears to hear the sound.
— Bob Baca, Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop

n my music study a few months ago I came across an Internet post: 5 Music Theory Concepts Every Musician Should Know. The post had the following five concepts:

1 - Form
You can’t talk about the arrangement of a song without a solid understanding of form and the vocabulary to complement this understanding. I… You won’t get far as a working musician without a solid grip of form and its accompanying terminology.

2 - Functional Harmony
Knowledge of functional harmony will absolutely be the one thing that helps you learn material the fastest. Being aware of chord tendencies will help you predict what the next chord in a song will be, and will help you hone in on mistakes when one player isn’t in sync with everyone else.

3 - Consistent Rhythm
There is nothing more annoying than being saddled with a musician who is always pushing or pulling at the tempo. … It’s all well and good to be able to play in 7/8, but if you don’t have a solid internal clock while you’re doing it, nobody will care.

4 - Ear Training
Being able to hear a musical line, internalize what you think the notes are, then repeat it on your instrument is key to being a successful musician.

5 - Reading and Literacy
Can you be a musician without learning to read music? Sure, it’s possible. Will you be an even better musician if you do learn how to read music? Yes, it’s absolute.

I was reminded at that moment of the Three Greats from the above Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop quote: Sound, rhythm, ear.

◆ Sound
Music is organized sound.
— Edgard Varese

Sound is at the heart of music. Sound is things like tone, harmony, mood, loudness. I have worked hard over the past few years at getting a better sound. For me that meant not being “flat” or “dull” in my music. It included playing with “energy” so the music feels “alive.”

◆ Rhythm
Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.
— Igor Stravinsky

Now we are talking about the “beat” and the “tempo.” We have “melody” added along with the feel of the “movement” of the music, the “groove” and the “swing.” One quote I found said that music is arithmetic- we “count.”

◆ Ear/Listening
It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.
— Quincy Jones

When we have worked on our musical “ear”, we can begin to know what it is that the music is doing without sole reliance on printed music. Listening I think makes “sight-reading” easier since we can look at a piece of previously unseen music and know what it might sound like. But it is also the ability to play with others, “blending” the different parts into a complete whole.

◆ All Together
All well and good. Now I had three things that had their own individual areas. But music is not found in three independent boxes; music is the combining of all these and more into the complete music. To be a “great” musician, Mr. Baca was telling us, you have to have all three of those and they need to work together. They are in a relationship. You can’t be “great” with any of them alone.

So I put together this visual for myself and played around with it for a while. Instead of putting each of the three separately, I put them in a “relationship.” As I did some brainstorming (or “mind-mapping” as it is called) is put those other boxes in-between the three different “greats” to show what they had in common- the box between “sound” and “rhythm”; the box between “rhythm” and “ear” and the box between “ear” and “sound.” They all merge into what we call “music.”

I do not pretend that this is either exhaustive or even scientific. It is my idea of what I have been working within these three areas over the years. Again, it is to show that what we call music is a lot of different things that come together. What I plan to do, then, is to take a week on each of the three relationships. First I will explore the things that make up the duo of Sound and rhythm, then sound and ear, and then ear and rhythm. Finally, I will bring them all together into music. Again, not exhaustive, but rather a starting point for myself and hopefully for you to do some thinking, planning, practicing, and discovering what music is for you. The goal is to be a better musician and, I think, to be reminded that it is a very poor experience of reality to put everything into separate boxes and keep them from interacting.

I am sure I will miss some things in this series. It is what I have discovered. Each of us will look at music from a different perspective and see different relationships. That is more than just okay- that is what making music together is all about. Think about it in the next week and I will take on sound and rhythm next week.

Buddy's War #53- Capturing Trier

    •    Thursday, March 1, 1945

Got up at 10. Did not do anything. Went to club. Was awful tired when I came home. Received 3 letters from Buddy.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

On Wednesday, 28 February the assault on Trier has begun by the 10th Armored CC B. After capturing the hill east of the city they raced down the hill from the northeast. This night blitz, including the dismantling of a roadblock, was accomplished in  the quiet of darkness enabling the Tigers to maintain an element of surprise.

• March 1 (INS News report by Larry Newman)

Rampaging tank and infantry fighters of the U.S. Third Army’s 10th Armored Division crashed into the historic German city of Trier from three directions and swept ahead to cut off hundreds of Wehrmacht soldiers northeast of Saarburg.

By 0400 CC B was inside Trier. The entire northeast section of the city was deserted and by 0730 the northern section of the city was in the Allied hands.

The massive history available online The US Army in World War II, European Theater of Operations, has a section on The Last Offensive by Charles B. MacDonald. Here is part of the description of the taking of Trier.

In late afternoon, [of March 1] as both CCA's task force and CCB continued to run into trouble on the fringes of the city from pillboxes and 88-mm. antiaircraft pieces, Colonel Roberts, CCB's commander, ordered the commander of the 20th Armored Infantry Battalion, Lt. Col. Jack J. Richardson, to enter Trier along a secondary road between the other two attacking forces. Richardson was to head straight for the city's two Moselle bridges.

    The night was clear, the moon full, and visibility excellent as Task Force Richardson in early evening started toward Trier. Entering the city before midnight, the task force encountered a German company with four antitank guns, but the surprised Germans surrendered without firing. One of the prisoners revealed that he had been detailed as a runner to notify a demolition team at one of the bridges when the Americans arrived.

    Splitting his force, Richardson sent half toward each of the bridges. The northern team found its bridge blown, but the team moving to the ancient Kaiserbruecke, which had stood since the Roman occupation of Trier in the earliest days of the Christian era, reported its bridge intact. Rushing to the bridge himself in a tank, Colonel Richardson found his men under small arms fire from the far bank. Directing .50-caliber machine gun fire from his tank onto the far end of the bridge, Richardson ordered a platoon of infantry and a platoon of tanks to dash across. As the infantrymen complied, a German major and five men ran toward the bridge from the far side with detonating caps and an exploder.

    They were too late.

    It mattered not whether the delay in blowing the bridge was attributable to concern for the historic monument or to the fact that the German officer was drunk. What mattered was that the 10th Armored Division had a bridge across the Moselle.

[Sidenote: In Impact! Nichols adds to the story by reporting that the German major, in order to hide his failure, led the Tigers to seventeen other German officers who were revealing in another house. Hence the comment in the history report on what caused the delay in the blowing up of the bridge.]

    By the morning of March 2, contingents of Combat Commands A and B had swept into all parts of the city, and the prisoner bag increased as sleepy-eyed Germans awoke to find American tanks all about them. Task Force Richardson alone took 800 prisoners.

The Army Newspaper Stars and Stripes told the story of the capture of the Bridge this way:

A Nazi hero, who sat in a barroom while forces smashed toward the bridge he was to protect, fiddled just long enough with his glass to enable the Tenth Armored “Tiger” Division to capture intact the strategically located Romer Bridge… Before the drunken officer could give the order to blow the bridge… the Tenth had taken it— and him.

According to the 80th Medical Battalion’s end of the month After Action Report, well over 350 were admitted to the battalion’s clearing stations in those two days. Company C was following in support of CC B.

March 2: Division HQ is moved into Trier. They occupy one of the more modern buildings that had been the SS HQ.

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    3 March 1945

Left Beurig 1425. Traveled 16 miles via motor convoy to Trier, Germany. Arrived 1615. Established clearing station and billeted troops. Roads rough. (MR)

    •    Saturday, March 3, 1945

Got up at 11. Did not do much. Wrote to Ruth. Had a cold or something. Could not talk.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Trier was a city rich in history as the oldest city in Germany. It's capture was, Nichols says, "one of the most successful and spectacular battles of the war."

The Tenth Armored's combat performance in this operation was eminently successful. Detailed planning, high morale, and fighting ability all contributed to the significant victory in the Saar-Moselle Triangle and in the capture of Trier.  ... 

 In a signed statement at Nurnberg later German Field Marshals Goering and Jodl declared that the capture of Trier ranked with the Normandy invasion and the speedy crossing of the Rhine as one of the three most important phases of the war. (Nichols)

    •    Tuesday, March 6, 1945

Got up at 10. I guess I feel better. Had a letter from Buddy and Dora. Wrote to Buddy, Ruth, and Dora.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

7 March 1945: Patton comes to visit the 10th Armored HQ in Trier. To everyone’s apparent surprise, he brings along Eisenhower himself!

Nichols tells us that prior to this visit rumors had been circulating that Eisenhower had sent a directive to Patton that he should not enter Trier:

 Bypass Trier to the south… it will take four divisions to capture it.

Patton then immediately radioed Eisenhower to let him know he had just taken it with one armored division, adding:

What the hell do you want me to do… give it back to the bastards?

Nichols reports this as a “rumor” but relates it with all appropriate quotation marks and ellipses. So I asked myself, “Was it true?” It very well could have been since Patton really wanted to be the first to cross the Rhine- not Montgomery as was the official plan. He pushed and directed the Third Army and took advantage of every opportunity.- capturing Trier was one of those opportunities.

History Warfare Network reports that

By March 1, Patton’s troops had captured Prüm and Bitburg; Trier fell a day later. Ike’s headquarters had estimated that it would take four divisions to capture the former Roman provincial capital of Trier, but Patton was able to send a message saying, “Have taken Trier with two divisions. Do you want me to give it back?”

I would guess there may be more than a little bit of truth in the rumor. In addition, March 1 was supposed to be the day Patton released the 10th Armored from his Third Army. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. It well could be another example of Patton’s ability to circumvent official directives or convince them to be changed.

Another quote from Rick Atkinson (Guns at Last Light) about Patton:

Battlefield carnage always inflamed Patton’s imagination, and the Saar-Palatinate proved particularly vivifying. In Trier, for instance, twenty air raids and Third Army onslaughts had reduced the city to 730,000 cubic yards of rubble. “The desolation is frozen, as if the moment of combustion was suddenly arrested, and the air had lost its power to hold atoms together,” wrote Private First Class Lincoln Kirstein, who would soon found the New York City Ballet. “Hardly a whole thing is left.” The entrance to the old Roman amphitheater still stood and that, coupled with his nightly readings from Caesar’s Gallic Wars, sufficed for Patton to inform his diary in mid-March that he “could smell the sweat of the legions.” It was all there for him: gladiators grappling with wild beasts; legionnaires and centurions “marching down that same road” now carrying his own legions; Caesar himself mulling how best to bound across the Rhine.

Tuning Slide 5.30- Beyond Mediocre

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

If any of you have a desire to be mediocre,
you will probably find that you have already achieved your ambition.
― Hugh B. Brown

Fortunately, many people do not set out in their lives to become the most mediocre person that they can be. So the above quote lacks some reality. I have to admit though that I have met people who are completely satisfied with where they are at the moment and are making no plans to do anything about it. I guess that such individuals would qualify for planning for mediocrity. I guess it all depends on what amount of work you decide to put into it. The less you do, the more mediocre you become.

Another quote from the book Catch-22 is perhaps a better or a more realistic one.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity,
and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
― Joseph Heller

Mediocre can be defined as:    

• being of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate. (Link)

Blah. Boring. So-so.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many of us who can be good to great at everything, which means that in some things we do we will be, by definition, mediocre. I know how to swim, but I am poor at it, I’m a mediocre swimmer. I know how to play the guitar, but, at best, I am mediocre. But that does not mean that I have to be mediocre at everything I so or in all areas of my life. Some of this also changes with age. I used to have better eyesight than I do now; today it is mediocre.

On the blog of Music Think Tank, I found a good tongue-in-cheek set of “tips for the typical musician". The author is talking to those who want to get into the music business and many of his tips are business-related. I went through and picked out some of them that might fit most of us. He introduces them this way:

For those of us who embrace shades of mediocrity, here are some tips for becoming a typical musician. (Link)

◆ Practice
⁃ Practice one hour a day. However, feel free to skip practice if there is something more interesting going on.
⁃ Play the same piece over and over again. Never try to deconstruct the music and figure out how and why it works.
⁃ Convince yourself that taking music lessons is out of the question since all your favorite musicians were self-taught.
⁃ Use only tabs and chord charts to learn new songs. Never try to figure it out by ear, it’s simply too frustrating.

◆ Gigs
⁃ Allow your instruments to decay to the ultimate state of disrepair. Only replace broken parts after you have repeatedly cut out during several shows.
⁃ Never listen to fellow musicians on stage. Stay entirely focused on yourself.

◆ Personal
⁃ If you play with others, vaguely explain why you’re the most valuable member of the group and thus most group rules shouldn’t apply to you.
⁃ Get jealous of all fellow musicians who find their way to success before you do. Make sure to complain to anyone that will listen about how much they suck.
⁃ Convince yourself that if you just keep hanging on, another few months, or another year, you will make it. Never stop to take a critical look at your music or live show to see where you are going wrong, or how it can be improved.
⁃ Close your mind to other genres of music because, quite frankly, it sucks.
⁃ Always do the bare minimum required.

I would add one more to the personal- Know that you are the least valuable member of the group and have nothing new or important to offer. Like the quote at the top, if you do that you will turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In any case, the author, Mike Venti, ends the article by getting to his obvious point.

◆ Recognizing this type of destructive behavior is one of the first steps to getting rid of it. Never settle on being typical. Only by being atypical will you command the attention you truly deserve.

A couple of examples from my own journey come to mind. First is that changing my practice routine and mindset really did make a difference in my playing. I was a mediocre trumpet player for years- even when I was good at what I was doing. I remained mediocre in that I never got better. I had no plan, no direction, no idea in any way to change what I was doing. Until I got some direction- and challenge- nothing was about to change. I even remember after one Sunday morning worship when I had played a duet with the organ, I was grateful that I hadn’t made as many mistakes as usual- and I didn’t know why I was so good at making mistakes.

Another was not taking as good a care of my trumpet as I knew I should. Once in a while, I would take it in for a chemical cleaning, but anything more on my part, well, not so much. At one of the Shell Lake Trumpet Workshops, I remember one of the instructors taking the tuning slide out and looking down the lead pipe. I don’t remember the exact words he used to describe it, but they were basically that I would never get a good (i.e. Non-mediocre) sound out of that horn. I cleaned it that evening and have tried to remain better at that. If I don’t take care of my instrument, how can I expect it to play well?

One other step toward mediocrity is to expect it to happen overnight, or at least within a reasonable time, say three weeks to a month. I am now well into the sixth year of this renewed and revitalized trumpet journey. It was only at the end of five years that Mr. Baca basically said, now you’re ready to work on some new stuff. In fairness, Bob, that isn’t what you said. It is what I heard because I knew something had changed in my playing and I was at a different level. Originally it was when I heard myself playing on a video six or so years ago, that I realized how mediocre my playing was. Hearing that I was ready for something new to work on last summer was reaffirming what I had felt- I was making progress. Maybe I wasn’t typically mediocre anymore.

Buddy's War #52- A Busy Week

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    25 February 1945

Left Perl Germany at 1520. Traveled 9 miles via motor convoy to Kollesleuken, Germany. Set up Clearing station. Closed bivouac area 1620. (MR)

▪    25 February: Press Communique

The Tenth Armored completely cleared the Saar-Moselle Triangle in four days of slashing attacks, thus setting the stage for a new offensive east of the Saar.

It appears that Company C remained west of the Saar until the next day, no doubt due to casualties and evacuation of patients.

    •    Monday 26 February

Got up at 10.30. Mrs. B fixed my hair. Gee I am afraid we are going to have a flood.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    26 February 1945

Left Kollesleuken 1620. Traveled 6 miles via motor convoy to Serrig, Germany. Crossed Saar River 1745. Arrived 1800. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. 117 casualties treated and evacuated. (MR)

This is one of the few times that any casualty numbers are given in the Morning Report. I wonder if that was a way of noting that Company C had that number of evacuations on the same day as a company movement. The way it is written would seem to indicate that the evacuations occurred at Serrig after having arrived at 6:00 pm. In cross-referencing with the monthly After Action Report, the whole battalion reports 130 evacuations that day. It is possible that Company C moved when it did because its clearing station was needed. This would also be indicated by the apparent movement past Beurig where they will return the next day.

    ▪    27 February 1945
The 94th Infantry and its engineers had constructed heavy duty pontoon bridges at Saarburg. This gave one continuous bridgehead from Ockfen to Taben. (See map below)

According to Province’s timelines in Patton’s Third Army, all three of the Division’s Combat Commands were active during this period. By the 27th the 10th will be just 6 miles south  of Trier and by the 28th, within a mile.

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    27 February 1945

Departed Serrig at 1350. Traveled 3 miles to Beurig, Germany. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. (MR)

27 February- CC B was located on the heights overlooking Trier from the east. Their covering action appears to have been a life saver for many. Part of what CC B managed to do was, through the initiative of Colonel Roberts, "locate and make passable a cut-off that help speed up the attack." Originally the downhill route had to "navigate a sharp left turn and go uphill- all in the face of withering anti-tank fire…. Tiger vehicles, wrecked and burning, were mute testimony to enemy marksmanship." The cutoff with a sudden turn ended up fooling the Germans who were expecting the Division to continue on toward the Rhine. (Nichols)

  

  ▪    28 February: Press Communique

Tonight the Tenth Armored “Tiger” Division stands on the threshold of Trier- leading elements at a late hour were less than two miles from the city- with four task forces moving steadily along the high ground overlooking this important communications and supply center. Behind the imminent nature of Trier lies a story of bold tactical operation. Eight days ago the division was given the sole mission of clearing the Saar-Moselle Triangle- a mission that was accomplished in two days, catching the Germans so completely by surprise that orders were suddenly issued for the Tenth Armored to cross the Saar…  

Tonight… the entire division is now moving up the southern approaches within striking distance of Trier.

    •    Wednesday, February 28

Got up at 10. Went to the store. Received 3 letters from Buddy of Jan 27 and 28 and Feb 2. The ice went out of the river.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

~~~~~~~~~
End of the Month
While there are a few more days before Trier is captured, I will pause here to give a quick glance at the end of this month in 1945.

After over a month of waiting, February thrust the full 10th Armored/80th Medical back into war. The 80th Armored Medical Battalion’s end of the month After Action Report shows the change that occurred in battle at the end of February. From 1 February to 22 February the battalion’s clearing stations had 715 admissions with approximately a 40% return to duty. (This is only an approximation.) The last six days of the month saw 1019 admissions with only a 3% return to duty. As would be expected the largest number  of admissions were seen on the 27th and 28th of the month as the Tigers headed toward Trier after clearing the Saar-Moselle Triangle. Hence my comment above on the day Company C arrived at Serrig.

Of the troops of the 80th, three enlisted men were listed as wounded. I am not sure whether any of these were from Company C. The Morning Reports are a little bit unclear and might indicate one such battle casualty. There were no deaths. During the month the 80th received 19 reinforcements- one officer and eighteen enlisted men. Company C reports they received at least 11 of those reinforcements with 9 coming from the 94th Medical Gas Treatment Battalion. This was the battalion that ran the Army Air/Rail Medical Evacuation Holding Unit which was located near Thionville. My guess is that as the Bulge ended, the Allies held more territory, and the war became a more mobile action the ability to evacuate more quickly ended the need for this type of a holding unit.

The recommendations made in the AAR included a call for a “practical system of collecting bodies from the Division clearing stations.” An automated every other day collection by graves registration was suggested. There were 11 deaths in the clearing stations in February. That number would double in March.

Rick Atkinson in The Guns at Last Light, the third in his monumental trilogy of the Second World War, gives us the background of why this concern may have been raised.

As fresh reserves came forward, legions of dead men were removed to the rear. Each field army developed assembly lines to handle five hundred bodies a day; … Innovative techniques allowed fingerprints to be lifted from bodies long buried and for hidden laundry marks to be extracted from shredded uniforms… Reuniting a dead man and his name was the last great service that could be rendered a comrade gone west.

Interestingly one source connected with the Department of Defense says that currently there are about 73,000 still “missing in action” from World War II. That is about 19% of the over 400,000 killed in action. Another source, also using official DoD statistics, lists the number at 10,000 or 2.5% although that may not include those officially listed as “missing in action”, only those as unidentified. There are, for example, no unidentified soldiers from Vietnam and 150,000 from the Civil War in this source. But whether it is 73,000 or 10,000 the loss of life represented in just those numbers is staggering!

Each life is personal. It is hard to think in such large numbers. That “last great service” of Graves Registration can be overlooked in he great scheme of battles fought and wars waged, but to each family whose family member was identified, it allowed closure. Large numbers can numb us to the true nature of war deaths. It is only those we knew personally, or can identify with that bring him the nature of such conflict. That is as staggering for each person as it is in the overall numbers.

General Patton
The 10th was under the direction of the Third Army and therefore the controversial and very famous General Patton. He was either loved or hated! I remember my aunt, Buddy’s sister, speaking in almost reverent tones when she mentioned his name, even twenty years after the end of the war. Stephen Ambrose in Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany Jun 7, 1994-May 7, 1945 gives a picture of Patton’s almost monomaniacal approach using as an example this period of the Saar-Moselle Triangle and the attack on Trier.

THROUGH February, Patton attacked, whatever the conditions. He was at his zenith. His energy, his drive, his sense of history, his concentration on details while never losing sight of the larger picture combined to make him the preeminent American army commander of the war. …

Patton's worst enemy was the weather and what it did to the roads. The nightly freezes, the daily thaws, and the heavy traffic combined to make them impassable. Patton at one point in early February was forced to turn to packhorses to supply the front line. Still he said attack.

On February 26 elements of Third Army captured Bitburg. Patton entered the town from the south while the fighting was still going on at the northern edge of town. About this time Patton was spending six hours a day in an open jeep inspecting, urging, prodding, demanding. …

History was very much on his mind. In the evenings he was reading Caesar's Gallic Wars. He was especially interested in Trier, at the apex of the Saar Moselle triangle, on his northern flank. The historic city of the Treveri, according to Caesar, had contained the best cavalry in Gaul. Patton wanted Trier. He inveigled the 10th Armoured out of Bradley and sent it to take the city.

We come to the end of February, the re-initiation to battle for the Tigers of the Tenth Armored. They are on the edge of taking Trier and then moving across Germany to cross the Rhine. A great deal will happen in the next 60 days.

Tuning Slide 5.29- Experience the Music

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you,
following you right on up until you die.
— Paul Simon

I have talked before about the impact of music on musicians- or at least on this musician. It has been known to happen in a rehearsal that I get so caught up in allowing the music to flow around and through me that I lose my place. That happens especially in concert band music since there are more than a few times in any concert when the trumpets are resting and other interesting things are happening around the band.

One thought when playing a more famous and familiar piece from some well-known composer is the honor I am having by playing the piece. My part may be as simple as some moving accompaniment line that few will hear separate from the whole or it could be the wondrous melody line played by the whole section. It doesn’t matter- it is still participating in something that has been around for years or centuries and here I am in that same line of musicians privileged to be able to play it.

One particular concert I remember was one where the director chose a complete concert of numbers by George Gershwin. I have been in love with his music since 9th grade when in music appreciation class the teacher played the opening of "American in Paris". From the moment I heard the “traffic noise” and the mood of the crowds in the street, I was hooked. Over the years I have played a number of arrangements of his works. A whole concert with selections was almost more than I could bear.

“I am playing Gershwin,” would go through my mind as we rehearsed. “This is immortal music,” was my next thought. I was in awe and the music flowed. That concert was one of the more enduring memories I have of playing music. To be able to actually be part of making the music was in itself a significant life moment. I probably am still working from the store of endorphins from that one concert alone. It went far beyond just playing music, it was experiencing the music from within.

I love going to concerts as a listener. It can anywhere from bluegrass to blues, Mozart to Mahler. It can be ensembles or wind bands or brass bands. At one concert last week I was being moved by the music and, as I am often led to do, I closed my eyes. My wife thought I was falling asleep and nudged me. I later explained to her that when music like that is at work I will close my eyes so I can shut out the extraneous “noise” and sensory input from vision. I need to allow the music to do what only music an do. I describe it in four words.

• Music Moves.
Music is not static. It doesn’t just sit there. Even when I am practicing and playing long tones, no note ever remains still. I visualize it leaving me as I hold that “whisper G” and heading out the bell. Music is sound, of course, which means it is made up of waves, moving waves. The music is coming at you- or if I’m playing- moving away from me. When it doesn’t seem to move, when it might be blah or nondescript we can often say that the music didn’t “move me.” But most of the time there is, I believe, a sensory but unconscious awareness that music is movement. But it is, I believe, a special movement that our brains are made to pick up as unique and important.

• Music Flows.
What that movement is can be called “flow.” We use that word to describe a state of being that we can experience. We can be “in the flow” as psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called that special state of being energized and focused resulting in creativity, enhanced learning, peak performance, and life happiness. I believe there is a correlational and causal relationship between music and “flow” because it can often be a flowing movement. Some compositions naturally do not “flow”, or more to the point may actually interrupt flow for good reasons. But even a martial march often gives a flow to the movement forward. As a result of that movement of flow, I often sense that the music is surrounding me, moving past me, circling back and coming toward me again.
This may be why when a band is playing in a “dull” room where the sound is lost and never seems to come back, you lose the sense of flow. The music seems to leave the end of the horn and kind of drop somewhere out there. Sure it is still music and it can, I am sure, have an impact. But in the right place at the right time with the right movement, music is an unstoppable force.

• Music Infuses.
Simply put, this means that music gets inside us, into what I could call our psyche, our soul, our spirit. It is not just something outside of us, it becomes part of us. Even people who may be “tone deaf” or can’t carry a tune in a bucket can still have this happen. When the movement of music connects with the energy within us, they interact in either harmony or discord. Sometimes the music provides the discord, sometimes our lives produce it. But in that interaction, the music as waves become part of the energy of our lives. Some of that may be in the production of the hormone oxytocin- the feel-good hormone- that can help improve our sense of well-being. This is far beyond the limits of what I am talking about, but they are in some ways interconnected.

• Music Transforms.
Finally, through the movement, the flow, the infusing spirit and release of oxytocin, music transforms us. This may be why music is often seen and utilized by protest movements to energize their supporters and by the powers-that-be to combat such movements. The transformation of music as an expression of emotions, desires, anger, or hope is often irresistible. Musicologist Ted Gioia, famous for many great writings on jazz, has a recent book simply called Music that explores this from our primitive pre-historic music to contemporary movements.

I have discovered that when I play music these same things can happen to me. I am never the same when I am doing practicing. I am never the same when I am done playing a concert or another gig. When practicing I am learning to experience the movement and flow, the infusion and transformation in my own life and how to join with it in my playing. When I am rehearsing with a group, I am finding the ways that we as a group can move and flow and together, interacting with each other in some kind of synchronization so we can perform it for others. Finally, when I am performing I am taking what I have learned and experienced in the practice room and rehearsal hall and giving it as a gift from me to the audience.

So, my advice- pay attention whenever you are making music, even if the music is on the radio or coming from your computer speakers. Pay attention and, at times, you will discover that you are part of this amazing transformation that music provides.

Buddy's War #51- With Skill and Daring

    •    Monday 19 February

Got up at 9.30. Gee it is so lonesome. So I am not doing much. Wrote to Buddy and Dora.

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Field orders # 11 and 16 were now implemented. The 10th Armored and the 94th Infantry Divisions were set to make their coordinated attack. The 10th had been at Metz for nine days. The headquarters would not remain that long in any place again until the end of the war. By the 19th were in Apach, FR, just across the French/German border from Perl. They were to take the Saar-Moselle Triangle.

On Monday, 19 Feb 1945: In spite of some of their numbers on furlough in Paris, the advanced troops left at 1800 that evening and some raced as much as 75 miles to begin the attack the next morning at 0700. The 94th had already done its job and all was set for the 10th to roll through.

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    20 February 1945

Left Metz, France, at 0001 via motor convoy. Traveled 25 miles to Metrich, France. Arrived 045. Supporting CC B. Billeted troops (MR)

 This movement of Company C was overnight, six hours behind the first troops of the Tenth, in order to be in position. They would be 7 miles from Perl as the attack began at 0700 on 20 February- just shy of three hours after Company C arrived in Metrich.

Nichols in Impact! says:

Now the preliminary rounds were over. In the course of the next few days, the 10th Armored Tigers were to overrun the Saar-Moselle Triangle- one of the most heavily fortified areas in the world- and capture the important supply and communications center of Trier, oldest city in Germany. This battle operation was performed with skill and daring, and it brought praise to the Tigers from all quarters as General George S. Patton, in open admiration, termed this battle “one of the war’s most audacious operations.”

Company C was assigned to Combat Command B (CC B) at this point and much of the first attacks appear to have been made by CC A and CC R. Company C remained at Metrich on the 20th and then moved into Germany the next day.

    ✓    Company C Morning Report

    ✓    21 February 1945

Convoy departed Metrich 1015 and traveled 7 miles to Perl, Germany. Arrived 1325. Entered Germany 1320. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. Roads muddy. Weather clear. Morale of troops excellent. (MR)

Also on the 21st according to Nichols, General Patton visited the Division HQ. He studied the maps and the situation and ordered them to “cross the Saar and take Trier.” Nichols continued

When Patton returned to his Third Army Headquarters that night, he phoned SHAEF and got permission to do what he had already done, in committing the Tenth Armored Division across the Saar.

By the end of the day on 21 February, the Tenth had penetrated “northward almost to the junction of the Saar and Moselle.” The press communique, written originally by Nichols, goes on:

During the two days, the 10th Armored Division has captured 23 towns and approximately 1250 prisoners and has occupied approximately 85 square miles of German soil.

Resistance encountered in the second day of the 10th Armored’s drive consisted of mine, roadblocks, small arms fire, and craters in the road.

    •    Thursday, Feb 22

Got up at 10-. Did not do much. Wrote to Buddy. Ruth called. Baked a cherry pie.

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Province, in Patton’s Third Army, lists the work of the 10th during this time:

2/22 Reducing Moselle Triangle and destruction of German artillery
2/23 Expanded bridgeheads
2/24 Building bridges and increasing size

Both CC A and CC B managed a quick crossing at Taben, in essence bringing the Saar-Moselle Triangle to an end. In his communique on 25 February Nichols told the press:

The Tenth Armored completely cleared the Saar Moselle Triangle in four days of slashing attacks, thus setting the stage for new offensives east of the Saar.

Halted temporarily at Ayl, above Saarburg, where enemy fire repeatedly prevented construction of a pontoon bridge, the Tenth Armored nevertheless resumed its offensive. Elements of age Tenth were ferried across the Saar Thursday night [22 Feb], under heavy artillery, machine gun and sniper fire. … During the late afternoon and night on Saturday, [24 Feb] three armored infantry battalions of the Tenth had been transported across to the vicinity of Ockfen.

More action will occur as the Tenth heads to capture Trier over the next several days. The Tenth was in Germany and would remain there for the rest of the war.

    •    Saturday, Feb 24

Got up at 9.30. Went to the store. Did not do anything all day.

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Tuning Slide #5.28- Improvising- Need to Know

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

What all my years in improvisation have taught is that - if you’re going to grow as a performer - you have to try some new things. You’ve got to be willing to take a few risks.
— Jack McBrayer

Last week I riffed on my thoughts about improvisation. It is something that I have wrestled with for years and only recently have begun to feel some very amateurish progress. For me, improvising is how I face life- or more to the point- it is really how many of us live life. We face daily diversions and things that are not part of our plans. Wing it! Take it and improvise. As I often do when working on a subject I went Googling my way around the Internet and found a post by Eric on the web site Jazz Advice: Inspiration for Innovators. It was 20 Things Every Improviser Should Know. I went through and picked out the nine things that caught my attention. My thoughts are in italics.

◆ Keep going back to the fundamentals
When it comes to improvisation, your improvement stems from the basic building blocks of musicianship…. Start by building a solid foundation of technique, ear training, and language and go from there.

I am amazed at how much going back to the fundamentals of trumpet playing has helped me. They are part of my daily routine. It is easy to skip when I want to work on something new or different. I better not. It’s almost as unhealthy as skipping the day’s practice.

◆ Talent is great, but skill and perseverance win every time
A natural affinity or ability for something is great, but to succeed at improvisation you need to tirelessly develop your skills day in and day out.

Daily practice. What a concept. And what’s more, it actually works- if done with plans and goals and direction!

◆ The process of improvisation seems like magic
It looks like divine inspiration when people are on stage creating these amazing improvised solos out of thin air. The truth is, this is all just an illusion to the untrained eye (and ear)… When you hear a great solo, you’re really hearing the result of hours upon hours in the practice room…. Anyone that sounds great has definitely put in the time.

I still remember the first time I realized that all those great solos on all the great jazz recordings were improvised. Wow!!! Then to listen to a live performance recording of one of these great numbers and find that it is significantly longer with a different solo- Double Wow!!

◆ Improvisation can be as serious or fun as you want it to be
Take a look at your musical goals. If you want to be a great improviser then practicing, transcribing, and listening to music should be at the top of your daily priorities…. However, if you just want to get enjoyment out of being creative every now and then, practicing on weekends may satisfy you. It can be whatever you want it to be! Just make sure that your practice time and commitment reflects the goals you’re setting for yourself.

Again and again, have goals. Be intentional. Have a vision for your life in music!

◆ Practicing is about notes and rhythms, improvising is about life
The things you do in the practice room are important for your playing. These practice habits and acquired skills will give you technique and knowledge, but you still need to have something personal to say when you improvise. To do this, get out of the practice room and live. Experience everything that you can and then bring this into your playing, communicate this with your audience.

It has taken me a number of years to get out of the practice room with my improvising. I have been doing it in relatively safe ways- but I’m doing it and that means it will improve.

◆ There’s always room for improvement
The musicians that we love to listen to were always looking for ways to improve and evolve. It’s as if they were never quite satisfied with themselves musically…. find a way to improve your playing on a daily basis. This becomes hard once you’ve made some progress and begin to feel confident in your abilities; you become complacent and lose your drive, but don’t stop there. Every day, strive to get to that next level.

Perhaps the most obvious bit of information in this post. When I get complacent, it is almost as unhealthy as (1) not practicing and (2) skipping the fundamentals.

◆ Quality over quantity is the name of the game
Don’t rush through the elements of your practice routine. … Rushing through your practice will only leave you in the same place where you began.

Take the time and be focused- intentional- about what you do. If all I do is put in the time without it being quality time- I will never reach quality music.

◆ Keep an open mind
Your perspective can change in an instant, your ears are continually evolving, and your goals in music will inevitably shift. That player that you couldn’t make sense of may become your new favorite improviser after a little study. You never know what can happen so be open to new experiences and keep the door open to new musical possibilities.

I have been working on digging into some of the more difficult pieces from Miles Davis. ("Bitches Brew" comes to mind.) They are in a language I have difficulty understanding. Some of Coltrane’s "A Love Supreme" fits that as well. I keep listening and am finding it very helpful. They help new connections be made in my jazz brain which leads to a better understanding of the world around me. Not an exaggeration!

◆ You gotta love it
If you don’t love this music, you’re not going to be successful – plain and simple. Every time you hear your favorite records you should be reminded of why you do this. The sound should excite you, the swing should give you hope, and it all should give you the determination to continue pursuing the music you love.

I love music. I love jazz music. I love playing music. Even long tones and scales for twenty minutes can change the way my day is going. Why would I want to stop?

(The basis of this post’s information on the things improvisers need to know- 

Copyright ©2019 Jazzadvice)

Buddy's War #50- Back to the War

Since mid-January, the 10th had been in reserve in Third Army territory. The Third Army was made up of III, VIII, XII, and XX Corps. It was mostly in a “mopping up” role from the Bulge. Meanwhile, planning had been in progress to resume the drive toward the Rhine that had been stalled with the German attack in the Ardennes. Patton was worried that his Third Army might be left behind. Nathan Prefer in Patton’s Ghost Corps says that one thing Patton did not want to do was “follow any other Army into Germany.”

The XX Corps was the only one of the four corps of the Third Army that was not engaged. They were the corps who, prior to the Bulge, had been significant in clearing the way into the fortress city of Metz and gave Patton a much-needed boost of ego. It was during that time that they came to be known as “The Ghost Corps.” The name came from POW interrogations where the  German prisoners referred to them in that way. As Prefer reports it, they “moved so fast and so often that the Germans couldn’t keep track of them.”

Now in early 1945, the XX Corps was made up of the 90th and 95th Infantry Divisions and the unattached 10th Armored sitting in reserve for refitting and regrouping after their rough time in the Bulge. To use the 10th as part of the XX Corps, approval was needed from SHAEF, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces, i.e. Eisenhower. If they were to take the Saar-Moselle Triangle, much convincing would need to be done.

The Triangle was a small portion of the old German defensive line known as the Siegfried Line. A change was made in this area from Tier in the north down the triangle formed by the Saar and Moselle Rivers. The movement of war had formed the triangle and Patton needed to break it and capture Trier.

Throughout early February there were some skirmishes, attacks, and counter-attacks by other units. Due to being somewhat under-armed and understaffed, they were unable to bring the full resources to bear. Little significant progress was made. Nathan Prefer in Patton’s Ghost Corps says  “what gains were made was thanks to the skill and daring of the infantry, engineers, and artillerymen.

By mid-month decisions were being made both at SHAEF and in the Third Army. XX Corps would be going into action. The Tigers of the 10th Armored would be going with them. It was time to move back toward the war.

Company C of the 80th Medical will be assigned in support of CC B all month. They had been in Eschwiller since January 20. The Division had been in the territory of the Seventh Army. On 9 February they were ordered to move back to Patton, the Third Army and the XX Corps.

    •    Saturday February 10, 1945

Got up at 9.30. Went to the store. Did not feel so good. Came home and did not do anything

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    9-10 February 1945

9 Feb: Left Eschwiller at 1900. Traveled 39 miles via motor convoy enroute to Metz, France. Weather fair.
10 Feb: Convoy arrived Solgne, France at 0035 and billeted troops.
Departed Solgne and traveled 17 miles to Metz. Arrived 1250. Set up clearing station and billeted troops.

    •    Tuesday, February 13, 1945

Got up at 9.30. Did not do much. Called a taxi and went up and had my hair washed It is snowing.

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

This movement was meant to be a stealth move for the Division. Company C left Eschwiller at 7:00 in the evening, were billeted just after midnight and started out again about 12 hours after arriving. Nichols, in Impact! reports that the return to Metz was surrounded by secrecy to keep the Germans from being aware of the movement. They removed all ID from the tanks and troops. When the leading forces arrived in the city which they had helped conquer in November they found a French boy with a sign:

Welcome back to Metz 10th Armored Tigers. 

They were the only Division remaining from the first assault on the Saar-Moselle Triangle in November-December 1944. This time, Nichols says, they would “set a model for tank-infantry teamwork.”

Charles Province in Patton's Third Army: A Chronology Of The Third Army Advance In World War II, described this time for the Division as :

12 Feb 1945- The 10th closed into the area around Metz
15 Feb 1945- The 10th continued rehab and training
18 Feb 1945- The 10th began movement to near the front to an assembly area

Prefer reports in Patton’s Ghost Corps that the decision was made by 16 February that the Allies would bring their full strength against the Germans on the morning 19 February.  This was issued in Field Order # 11. The 10th Armored would be used together with the 94th Infantry Division (which had replaced the 95th Infantry Division) as ordered in

Field Order#16- Clear the triangle!

The 10th was ordered to move and assemble at Perl on the left flank along the Moselle River. They were given three different plans depending on such items as advances, weather, and the development of bridgeheads. Be there and ready by 20 February. Since the 10th had been resting for less than a week behind the lines, they actually had a number of their troops on leave in Paris. They had to be quickly rounded up to return.

They were about to go back to war.

    •    Sunday, February 18, 1945

Got up at 9.30. Got dinner. It was a nice day. Ruth and I had a nice time. She left at 6. Called at 9.00 from the station

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Buddy's War #49- Surprises in the Earlier Story

We are about to enter a very busy period in the activities of the 10th Armored Division and the 80th Medical Battalion. This post, though, is a momentary jump back to before they were in Europe and the uncovering of more mysteries from my dad's army years. I should have known there would be more. There are many skirmishes and battles in the whole of Buddy’s war.

Since I have been digging into things that happened before I was born to people who have been gone for over 55 years, there are more than enough unknowns to fill several volumes. I have no letters, one person’s diaries, hardly any pictures from the time before the war. There are a couple from my dad’s high school, a profile in a college yearbook, bits and pieces of the family story. But nothing else of any substance.

Even from the years I am covering through my grandmother’s diary there are so many blank spots, most big enough to drive a Sherman tank through. But as has been said, one does not know what one doesn’t know. Which is why I still dig, still keep looking for new information.

I did some of that through a researcher in St. Louis who was recommended to me from a mentor. I wondered what might be in the National Archive in St. Louis from back there in 1942-43 that I had not yet discovered. The unit Morning Reports for the companies of the 80th Armored Medical Battalion were out there. Was my dad in there somewhere?

I was shocked when some things were found. In these I found information that I hadn’t seen any hints of in Beula’s diary entries. Maybe I should have.

This series of events started at Christmas, 1942. Buddy was in Georgia with the 80th Medical. It was only a few months since he had been activated in August and assigned to the 10th Armored at Fort Benning, GA. Then that December Beula says in her diary that she was “looking for” him on Christmas Eve. Did he say he was coming home? Just that one little statement.

    •    Looking for Harold

The next day, Christmas Day, she reports that she

    •    Looked for Harold. I am disappointed.”

He didn’t show up. When I first read that a couple years ago I just assumed it was a mother wanting to see her son who was now in the Army- wishful thinking that he would come all the way from Georgia for Christmas. But with no advanced warning? It didn’t make sense because it didn’t say she missed him being home or that she wished he was there. There was action in it- she was looking. I passed it by.

In the information from St. Louis, however, I found something intriguing that may be connected. The morning report for 24 Dec 1942 from HQ Company, where he was assigned at that time, for T/5th Lehman:

    •    DY to Hosp. (Duty to hospital.)

What? It looks like he was one of five from the company who went from duty to hospital in a five day period that month.

Move forward to January 14 and Beula comments in her diary that she has received a letter from Harold and that he

    •    might be home soon.

Two weeks later, 28 January, the Morning Report records that

    •    T/5 Lehman hospital to DY.

Apparently he was in the hospital these entire five weeks.

Okay, he’s back to duty? But there's more.

Also on January 28, when he went from hospital to duty, Beula says in her diary that Harold is in Atlanta, which is two hours north of Fort Benning. She says that he is traveling home and

    •    Gee, I’m nervous.

On the 29th she says that he is
    •    delayed in Washington

and then on the 30th that he arrived home. I do not have the Morning Report pages for January 29-31 so I do not have confirmation of “duty to furlough” at this time. But on 12 February I find in the Morning Report that

    •    Tech 5th grade Lehman fur to DY.

That correlates with Beula’s diary from the day before,  February 11, that he left to return to Georgia.

Once again, he’s back on duty? Once again, it appears not to have been the whole story.

    •    MR for 13 Feb 43
Tech 5th grade Lehman duty to abs in hands of civil authorities.

Six weeks later:
    •    Beula’s diary entry for March 23 1943
Harold called. Gee, I was glad to hear from him and to hear everything was O.K.

Then, after about 40 days:
    •    MR for 25 Mar 43
T/5 Lehman fr conft in hands of C Auth to dy.

So here I am today, mere months from the end of the war in Europe and I am quickly transported back to Dad’s first six months in the battalion. In that period he has been promoted twice, from Private to Private First Class to Tech 5th Grade, a specialist rank equal to corporal. But he has also been in the hospital for over a month followed immediately by furlough for two weeks and then immediately absent into the hands of civil authorities, obviously for confinement for over six weeks.

Are there no end to the surprises?

To be clear, I do not have all the diary entries in front of me. All I have are the ones I entered into the timeline that at the time seemed different or out of the ordinary. I will have to wait to get home to look these dates up and see what else was around them. But let me do some reflecting and ask a whole set of questions, in addition to “What the hell is this all about?”

Here goes.

• Why was Beula “looking for Buddy” to come home on that Christmas Eve when I am aware of no indication that he had said he was? That needs to be verified, of course. That this is the day he goes to the hospital is interesting.

• Why was he in the hospital? That there were four other members of the company in the hospital at the same time may be an indication of some flu or other bug going around. Since I do not have all the morning report pages, just the ones that mention Buddy, I don’t know when the others went back to duty.

• He wrote to Beula, obviously, it seems, from the hospital, and she mentions it at almost exactly the half-way point in his hospital stay. No apparent mention in his letter about even being in the hospital.

• His return to duty from the hospital seems to be on the same day Beula gets a call from him in Atlanta. Was that where he was in the hospital?

• Was he delayed in Washington the very next day? He is most likely on furlough since he returns from furlough, according to the Morning Report, on February 12. It is unlikely that he was AWOL. I may just be missing the pages that might give some hint.

• One tiny bit of intrigue from his furlough at home was that there was one night when he didn’t come home. That was, of course, an old pattern of his as I have mentioned in earlier posts from that time period. Was this perhaps Buddy’s last “fling” before the next issue arises a few days later?

• But then the big surprise, his being in the hands of “civilian authorities” for what would later be called “conft”, confinement. It does not say where this confinement was. One assumes in nearby Columbus or further? No hints, no family lore, nothing to go by in anything I have or have ever heard. Beula seems relieved when she hears from him again in March a few days before he is returned to duty from civil authorities. She was “glad… that everything was ok.” What role might have this played in who Buddy became? It didn’t seem to have an impact on his status in the Army.

Maybe we can call them skeletons in the old closet, or maybe I have overlooked something, or maybe it is hidden in some now unavailable letter or report. Time will tell.

When one digs into the unknown, there are always things of interest that pop up.

Buddy's War #48- In the Greater War

While the 10th Armored and 80th Medical Battalion were refitting and recuperating from mid-January until mid-February, there were other events happening. Here are some of them. (Link)

75 Years Ago
January 1945

    19: Hitler orders that any retreats of divisions or larger units must be approved by him.
    20: The Red Army advances into East Prussia. Germans renew the retreat.
        : Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in for a fourth term as U.S. President; Harry Truman is sworn in as Vice President.
    25: The American navy bombards Iwo Jima in preparation for an invasion.
    30: The Malta Conference (1945) began with Winston Churchill meeting with the Combined Chiefs of Staff on the Island of Malta in the Mediterranean to plan the end of WWII in both Theaters, and to discuss the ramifications of the Soviets now controlling most of Eastern Europe. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would join the Conference for one day on 2 February 1945; both would fly to Yalta on 3 February for the Yalta Conference with Stalin.
    31: The Red Army crosses the Oder River into Germany and are now less than 50 miles from Berlin.
        : A second invasion on Luzon by Americans lands on the west coast.

75 Years Ago
February 1945

    1: Ecuador declares war on Germany and Japan.
    2: Naval docks at Singapore are destroyed by B-29 attacks.
    3: The Battle of Manila (1945) begins: Forces of the U.S. and Philippines enter Manila. The Manila massacre takes place during the fighting.
      : Heavy bombing of Berlin.
    4: The Yalta Conference of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin begins; the main subject of their discussions is postwar spheres of influence.
      : Belgium is now cleared of all German forces.
    9: The Colmar Pocket, the last German foothold west of the Rhine, is eliminated by the French 1st Army.
    13/14: The bombing of Dresden takes place; it is firebombed by Allied air forces and large parts of the historic city are destroyed. [Note: the future novelist Kurt Vonnegut was an American POW in Dresden at the time. His novel, Slaughterhouse Five was based on his experiences there during the bombing.]
    14: The 1945 Bombing of Prague: American planes bomb the wrong city.

Buddy's War #47- The Hardest Job?

In a hard war theirs may have been the hardest job of all. But together with Army doctors and Army nurses, [the medics] worked something very close to a miracle in the European theater.

— Stephen Ambrose

Stephen Ambrose in his book, Citizen Soldiers gives a whole chapter to the medical corps, "Medics, Nurses, and Doctors" Buddy was a surgical tech, which I assume meant he was not at the front but behind it in the field surgical hospitals, the forerunners of the M.A.S.H units. Overall, though, the work of all the medics was almost that of miracle workers. Here are some of the reflections from Ambrose.

It wasn’t any different getting killed in World War II than in the Civil War, but if the shrapnel, bullet, or tree limb wounded a GI without killing him, his experience as a casualty was infinitely better. The medical team, from the medics in the field to the nurses and doctors in the tent-city hospitals, compiled a remarkable record. More than 8 percent of the soldiers who underwent emergency operations in a mobile field or evacuation hospital survived. Fewer than 4 percent of all patients admitted to a field hospital died. In the Civil War, it had been more like 50 percent.

Wonder drugs and advanced surgical techniques made the improvements possible, but it was people who had to get the wounded into a hospital before it was too late for the nurses and the drugs and surgeons to do their work. Those people were the medics. (P. 311)

At least to some degree, there were soldiers assigned to the medical units because of a desire to be non-combatants, often “conscientious objectors,” usually for religious reasons. While this was obviously not a common occurrence since the Army had clearly recruited for the medical corps, it still had an impact on some of the impressions of the troops concerning the medics. While Buddy was not, to the best of my awareness, not a conscientious objector, he may have had to face some of this prior to the war. As a trained pharmacist, though not doing that work, he no doubt was assigned to the medical corps for his training. Ambrose addresses this.

The medics had gone through the same training as any infantryman, except for weapons. In training camp, they had been segregated into their own barracks and kept away from the men they were learning to save, apparently for fear of contaminating the real soldiers. The rifle-carrying enlisted men and the medics developed little mutual camaraderie. One lieutenant confessed that he and his platoon “mildly despised” the men of the Medical Corps for being conscientious objectors. Their mere presence cast a moral shadow over what the infantrymen were training to do. The nascent medics were ridiculed, called such names as Pill Pusher, and the tourniquets and bandages they put on imagined wounds in field exercises were joked about. So was their only real work, treating blisters and the like.

But once in combat they were loved. “Overseas,” the medic Buddy Gianelloni recalled, “it became different. They called you Medic, and before you know it, it was Doc. I was nineteen at the time.”

On countless occasions when I have asked a veteran during an interview if he remembered any medics, the old man would say something like “Bravest man I ever saw. Let me tell you about him.. . .” (P. 312)

 Something I had not known was mentioned by Ambrose. As non-combatants, there were certain limitations beyond not carrying any firearms.

To preserve their non-combatant status under the Geneva Convention, the War Department did not give any medics combat pay (ten dollars extra a month) or the right to wear the Combat Infantryman Badge. This was bitterly resented. In some divisions, riflemen collected money from their own pay to give their medics the combat bonus. As for their right to wear the badge, five enlisted medics in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) were awarded the Medal of Honor, and hundreds won Silver or Bronze Stars. (P. 313)

 Overall it seems very clear that the army was bound and determined to keep their GIs alive, even if they weren’t going back to battle.

The remarkable rate of recovery for wounded GIs was based on mass production assembly-line practices. How well it worked, from the medic to the aid station to the field hospital to England, can be judged by the reaction of the men of the front line, who were almost certain to get caught up in the process, with their lives depending on it. As one lieutenant put it, “We were convinced the Army had a regulation against dying in an aid station.” (P. 321)

While Ambrose is referring to the doctors at the end of the chapter, I would guess that the attitude, training, and support of the other medical personnel were as critical to the mental health “treatment” on and near the front lines.

The doctors had to be shrinks as well as surgeons. Some of the patients— as many as 25 percent when the fighting was heavy—were uninjured physically but were babbling, crying, shaking, or stunned, unable to hear or talk. These were the combat exhaustion casualties. It was the doctors’ job to get as many as possible back to normal—and back to the lines—as soon as possible.

In the field hospitals, the American doctors treated the men as temporarily disabled soldiers rather than mental patients, normally categorizing them with the diagnosis “exhaustion.” For the sake of both prevention and cure, the doctors tried to treat such patients as close to the line as possible. Typically the doctors at battalion level kept the exhaustion cases at their aid stations for twenty-four hours of rest, often under sedation. The men got hot food and a change of clothing. For as many as three-quarters of the cases, that was sufficient, and the soldier went back to his foxhole.

Good company commanders already knew that to be the case. Captain Winters of the 101st commented that he learned during the Bulge “the miracle that would occur with a man about to crack if you could just get him out of his fox hole and back to the CP [command post] for a few hours. Hot food, hot drink, a chance to warm up—that’s what he needed to keep going.”

Men who needed more than a quick visit to the CP or battalion aid station were sent back to division medical facilities, where the division psychiatrist operated an “exhaustion center” that could hold patients for three days of treatment. The bulk of these men also returned to the line. Those who had not recovered went on to the neuropsychiatric wards of general hospitals for seven days of therapy and reconditioning. The extreme cases were air-evacuated to the States.

The system worked. Ninety of every hundred men diagnosed as exhaustion cases in the ETO were restored to some form of duty—usually on the line. As they had done with the men wounded by bullets and shrapnel, so the medics, nurses, and docs did for the exhausted casualties: under the worst possible circumstances, superb medical care. (pp. 329-330)

All quotes from-
"Medics, Nurses, and Doctors." Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose (also online at American Heritage as Medic!)

Tuning Slide 5.27- Improvising on Improvisation

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Improvisation! That’s what I’m about to do. I know that improvisation is kind of like making it up as you go along. But it isn’t built on nothing. I was trying to explain that to a non-musician the other week and it was harder than I thought it would be. (By the way- I will not edit this when I get ready to post it. That would not be true improvisation.)

But improvisation IS based on several things, as I understand it.

• Background knowledge
• A structure of some type
• Personal experiences
• The mood of the moment.

Beyond that, I am convinced that most of life is improvisation based on those four building blocks. It doesn’t matter what your profession is or what you might happen to be doing at any moment- you make it up as you go along. Or- more formally- you don’t stop and plan every step of every action of everything you do every day. You what comes naturally to you.

As a preacher I built my knowledge on my educational background. From kindergarten on I learned the basics. In college, I learned to think critically. In seminary, I learned the specifics of the faith and the roles of a pastor. I then learned from those the structure of sermons, how to do worship, pastoral care, church administration, etc. Out I went into the world to play my pastoral role. Some sermons were good; others made my wife question my approach. I would sit in a board meeting and wonder what to do next. I would try new ideas and I learned how to think on my feet. I experienced the different moods of different times- one does not sing Christmas hymns during Lent and you don’t go bouncing and smiling at people at a funeral.

Okay- you see where I’m going, I hope. By the time I retired, I didn’t have to look up how to do things. I had a readily available storehouse of knowledge, structures, experiences, and hopefully, the wisdom of doing what fits the situation.

When I first tried improvising on my trumpet, well, it was worse than my early sermons. I knew next to nothing about the theory and practice of jazz music. Sure, I knew it when I heard it, but I had no idea what or how to get there. It took more s study and listening. I discovered the different ways a jazz solo can be built- chords, modes, melodies, chromatics, silence, rhythm. But whenever a chance came up to play an improvised solo, I smiled politely, shook my head, and declined.

Until I couldn’t do that any longer. Shell Lake Adult Big Band Camp pushed me to try it; iReal Pro gave me some structure; the big bands I play in gave me some opportunities; friends gave me suggestions. I stopped being terrified of it. Although still scared I decided to add more experiences, like playing in the praise band at a church during my winter in Alabama where the music is often just the chord changes. Soon I found it was making some sense. Finally.

What then IS improvisation? To sum it up for this post, it is how we live life. It is taking the raw materials of who we are and applying them to what’s in front of us at the moment. What we have done, what we have succeeded- and failed- at, what we are feeling at the moment. These we place on the structure of our days, relationships, and lives.

In the addiction recovery world, there is one of those sayings that is often quoted-

• Do the next right thing.

That, in a nutshell, is improvisation.

I wish it was as easy as it sounds. One just has to work it!

——— [End of writing improvisation] ———

[Note: The writing was improvised as I said. I did add the formatting I generally use in this blog. That was the structure.]

Next week I will present some of the ideas I found online to add to this general review. Since I was “improvising” in the above section, I didn’t start with a quote at the top. So here’s one to end with. It’s an oldie but goodie that I’ve used before, but if it works, don’t change it.

What we play is life.
— Louis Armstrong

Tuning Slide #5.26- What You May Not Know

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.

— Miles Davis

What you may never have known about the trumpet.

I needed a break from all that serious, professional stuff I’ve been writing about here. So I went digging for trumpet history and trivia. I found it at a couple different sites including 20 Facts about the Trumpet You Should Know and Top 10 Little Known Facts about the Trumpet. I did some editing and came up with these 12:

◆ The trumpet has been around since 1500 BC
The first metal trumpets were made around 1500 BC. Before that, silver and bronze trumpets (or trumpet-like instruments) existed and have been found all over the world, including places like Asia, Scandinavia, and South America. In fact, archeologists found bronze and silver trumpets in King Tut’s grave.

◆ Trumpets contain more than 6 feet of tubing!
Trombones, by the way, have 9 feet of tubing and tubas have between 12 and 16 feet of tubing. Originally, many primitive trumpets were made of wood or even conch shells.

◆ The longest trumpet fanfare line consisted of 91 trumpeters
Ninety-one trumpeters, all in military uniform, played the Wedding Fanfare in England during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. They could be heard all across the city.

◆ The oldest playable trumpet is over 3,000 years old
In 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter discovered a pair of trumpets from King Tut’s tomb. The trumpets are engraved with depictions of Egyptian gods and were made with silver and copper. In 1939, the trumpets were played live and broadcasted through BBC radio.

◆ There is a trumpet-playing robot!
In 2005, Toyota debuted a trumpet-playing robot – and it sounds better than you’d expect! There is also a robot that can play drums and violin.

◆ Trumpets are part of the aerophone family
Aerophones are a type of instrument that uses airflow to vibrate the instrument in order to make a sound. Aerophones are some of the most complex instruments and include trumpets, french horns, oboes, flutes, and other wind instruments.

◆ The trumpet’s cylindrical bore is what gives it its unique and vibrant sound
Essentially, this means that the diameter of the tubing stays the same width throughout its entirety until you get to the bell flare.

◆ A trumpet can play 45 different notes [or many more]
A trumpet might only have three valves, but it can play an impressive range of notes. A B-flat trumpet can play from F#3 to F#6, not counting pedal tones. Did Maynard go higher than that? Of course. According to Yamaha:

But there are ways to produce even higher notes. It’s actually not a question of the highest note that a trumpet can physically produce, but a matter of the highest note that can be played. In fact, performances by skilled musicians often extend up to two octaves higher than the instrument’s “highest” note.

◆ Trumpets are more than “just” musical instruments.
Trumpets are known for being used in bands and orchestras, but they also have a military component. Armies dating back to medieval times have used the trumpet as a signal device because of its loud, rich tone that can be heard over long distances.

◆ They have not always had valves.
The early precursors to the trumpet, cornetto and natural trumpet, didn’t have valves or keys.

◆ They are not the same as cornets or flugelhorns
Unlike the trumpet, cornets and flugelhorns have conical bores. The tubing diameter of these instruments gradually gets larger towards the end of the instrument.

◆ Famous people who (you might not know) played the trumpet
Richard Gere (Actor)
James Wood (Actor)
Steven Tyler (Aerosmith)
Samuel L Jackson (Actor)
Paul McCartney (The Beatles!)
Jayne Mansfield (Actress)
Clint Eastwood (well Flugelhorn anyway!)

Well, to expand my horizons after that, I looked for trivial facts about music and found some at Best Life online in 40 Facts About Music:

These include:
✓ In 2016, Mozart Sold More CDs than Beyoncé
✓ Finland Has the Most Metal Bands Per Capita
✓ The British Navy Uses Britney Spears Songs to Scare Off Pirates (Culture clash)
✓ Barry Manilow Didn't Write "I Write the Songs"
✓ Loud Music Causes You to Drink More in Less Time
✓ Cows Produce More Milk When Listening to Slow Music
✓ Heavy Metal and Classical Music Fans Have Similar Personality Traits (Creative, at ease with themselves, and introverted)
✓ Monaco's Army is Smaller Than Its Military Orchestra
✓ Prince Played 27 Instruments on His Debut Album

And a few from Music Radar just to round things out:
✓ In 1996, Ringo Starr appeared in a Japanese advertisement for apple sauce, which is what "Ringo" means in Japanese.
✓ Pete Townshend has smashed more than 90 guitars in his Who career, including at least 23 Fender Stratocasters, 12 Gibson Les Pauls, and 21 Gibson SGs.

And in case you think I have abandoned the trumpet altogether, a final trivia:

✓ The oldest artist to top the UK singles chart was Louis Armstrong (aged 66 years and 10 months) in 1968 with What A Wonderful World.

“So what?” you ask.
“Why not? I respond.

Here's why?

Trivia questions are very good for your memory. Trivia keeps us smart and engaged. Just like your body benefits from exercise, so does the brain. ... Trivia is great because you are trying to recall information from inside your brain that you don't use a lot.
— Being Better Humans

See you next week.