[TED FURMAN PLAYING A YAMAHA EZ TP DIGITAL TRUMPET]

GRETCHEN HASSE: So, one of the things that you like about this as opposed to your handmade one --

TED FURMAN: Well, the fact that you don’t have to buzz into the instrument. It enables the player to play endlessly. I mean it gets tiring. The trumpet is one of the -- Any kind of brass instrument like that is one of the hardest instruments to play because it’s your lips just get tired. It’s like working a muscle continuously and evidently you have to take a break. With this instrument, you can just keep playing. You could be jamming. You could play it forever.

Duos, trios, a few quartets. I have a project going on with a percussionist and vibraphone/marimba pianist. With another couple of players, it enables me to turn down the sound of the horn and play more of the MIDI as backup or color while the other musicians solo or weave their things. And I would just weave, or it’s easier to weave around if it doesn’t sound like a horn and vice versa. The bell, you know, weave their color while I’m soloing.

Playing solo or with a percussionist, what I like to do is use both the audio in and the MIDI, the MIDI more as an accompaniment to myself, you know, so this look -- color going on in the background, textures going on in the background over thesound of te horn.

When I play, I go direct into -- it’s line level. When I record, I go direct into my DAW or any, you know, any board. When I play live, I’ll go direct into PA. When I bring my own amps, stereo mixing amps, I go direct into that. So, there really, being line level, there’s really no problems.

The only thing I have to worry about is the piezo pickup. That’s why I have to preamp and then that’s really, that’s really the only --

[TED FURMAN PLAYING A YAMAHA EZ TP DIGITAL TRUMPET]