Serious bragging rights

For those of you that have never played an instrument, this post will probably make no sense. I am a tuba player in my church orchestra and have played it for about 13 years; in another life, I was a music major, principal low brass. Anyway, there are two types of tuba players: great ones who have an unbelievable range and me. I play loud - bone jarring loud. My goal is simple - I want a conductor to tell me that I need to back off, that I'm playing too loud. Personally, I don't believe those are words that exist in a director's vocabulary.

So last night, I'm honking away towards the end of the performance at my church (One Incredible Moment by Tom Fettke and Max Lucado) when suddenly, I experience a loss of power. About 10 seconds later I realized that my tuning slide on my third valve had popped out. I blew out my tuning slide - not as good as being told to back down, but pretty darned close. :)