Last night I played trumpet for a dance for the first time. The Free Raisins are on tour and played Glen Echo last night. (We'll be playing there Sunday too, if you'll be in there area.) I've been playing around with the trumpet since late March, but really started working on it in earnest just a few weeks ago when I decided I wanted to get good enough at it to play it on this tour. I'm still only able to play for a few minutes, have some tone and articulation problems, and my range is about seven notes, but here I am:

Trumpet at Glen Echo (11 seconds, mp3)

I heard good things about it afterwards, some unsolicited, so I'm definitely going to be working on it more.

(It's amazing how much more the trumpet adds than something like pennywhistle. I've been playing whistle for about five years, and while I've played it at dances people don't seem to be enjoying it that much. Everything I can play on trumpet I can easily play on whistle, but it just sounds so much more danceable. I want to see curves for various instruments plotting how much fun it is to dance to them as a function of how long you've been learning. Trumpet has to have one of the most favorable ones.)