Blow your own Trumpet – City Eye Blog

trumpet
This one is for all the women engineers and entrepreneurs.

In all the noise and clatter today, visual jostling for our consumption , one thing will cut through and instantly claim our attention, The trumpet clarion call to arms, to gather the troops together.

As an entrepreneur, your sound needs to be clear, unique and powerful, and it speaks of you, your business, your talent. No one will do it for you. You must blow your own trumpet. We know that women traditionally are expected to be modest, down playing their achievements, and so few people know that Waterloo Bridge , was built 82 % by women engineers in 1945.

Rename it the Women’s Bridge?

Quiet and polite you should be, but the first sound anyone makes with a brass mouth piece is a raspberry. How very unladylike. So the brass section of an orchestra, the miners’ bands up north, the brass section of the Queens Regiments were all burly men. Women were not accepted or expected in the brass section.

Yet suddenly here we have Alison Balsom bursting up on the scene. Petite, blonde with a sweet sound which is truly “brilliant”, yet can be soft, seductive or mournful.

“The world of classical music was until very recently the preserve of white men…But over the past few decades, the classical music world has undergone a revolution.  Screens were erected between the committee and the auditioner, and as these new rules were put in place around the country, an extraordinary thing happened: orchestras began to hire women. In the last few years women brass players have gone up 5 fold.”

Blink, Malcolm Gladwell.

At the same time, arriving from Norway, Tina Thing Helseth, and her 10 female brass players. Whatever next! But in Norway strange things happen, they even accept 44% women directors on boards. However, no matter how brilliant your playing, trumpet concertos and solo pieces are far and few between, so it’s necessary, either to re write compositions for the trumpet, or commission new works written for you.

Or as Alison did , you can go to the Globe and ask them to write a piece of theatre. True entrepreneurial spirit.

trumpet1
The resulting, exciting, bawdy, story of the trumpet in Purcell’s time, shows historical documented incidents woven into the narrative, interspersed with sung, dance and played pieces. Queen Charlotte’s own singer actually married her a wife, to great scandal at court.
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/theatre/whats-on/globe-theatre/gabriel

In this age of Austerity, when many women are made redundant, or forced into part time or even zero hours (and men), it is a golden opportunity for entrepreneurs. Find your talent, find your market, do your planning. You have more talent than you know, more talent than is recognized.

Take a deep breath and blow, not the raspberry, but the loud clear sound which says follow me! Blow your own trumpet to success.

©2013 [email protected]

About the author

City Eye became interested in Overlooked and Overshadowed women, both in contemporary times and through out history. The former would include the women passed over for the Nobel in favour of their male colleagues. The later would be the wives of famous men, such as Mrs. Mandela. Her study of women written out of history, led her to interviews with interesting and inspirational women, (and some men). Extracts will be published in the articles. In no way is this men versus women, as to who is better. Simply that an overly macho, military, testosterone fueled environment, mainly men, needs the balancing attributes, often, though not exclusively, assigned to women: caring, conciliation, communication. Find out more: City Eye Blog ©christina ionthecity.wordpress.com
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