Got way too much free time on my hands, and am basically in the market for a new hobby.
So I’m entertaining the idea of taking up the trumpet. I remember fooling around with one when I was a teen once. But other than that one off expirience, I’ve never really played.
So thoughts? Advice?
And don’t hesitate to be completely honest. I’m fully prepared to have my dreams crushed. 
What is your goal for playing trumpet? Just to play trumpet by yourself?
Cuz in my experience trumpet players are a dime a dozen. But bands are always looking for French horns, baritones and tubas.
You’re not really going to get in to any jazz bands playing those instruments but if you tried as a trumpet player you’d have to be quite good and quite well versed.
If you’re looking to start a ska band or a jazz rock band then ok trumpet works.
Don’t have any advice on playing tho. My best friend is a trumpet player and from what I know of trumpet players they are all pretty stuck up 
I played in high school. Got fairly good at it. I could play the easy half of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass songbook.
The single most wonderful thing about the trumpet is there are only three valves, for a total of eight combinations. EASY to memorize. And they repeat; every octave is the same as every other octave. The difference is how you blow.
Do you have close neighbors? Even with a mute, the trumpet is a loud instrument.
I hope you have decades and decades of joy from it!
Don’t fuss with your spit-valve.
The small western town of Spitvalve, where B-Flat Bart faced down the locals in a showdown called…Hornsmoke.
I played French horn in high school and college, partly because I didn’t like the shallow feel of their mouthpieces; French horn mouth pieces are more conical. I played trumpet while marching (the valve fingering is almost the same), and hated it. Try a trumpet, a trombone, or even a baritone or tuba. Everyone loves tuba players!
Do you suffer from cold sores? Playing a trumpet with one is agonizing.
IANATrumpet Player, but have worked with grown-ups who want to take up guitar.
First off: Have you got any musical sense? Decent melodic sense - can sing/hum along with stuff? That helps.
Second off: “getting a good sound” out of your trumpet mouthpiece is an up-front investment of time. Just like learning to play chords or strum with a guitar. If that sounds fun and cool for you, yay.
My only point is that You know what type of work You enjoy and are willing to put in. Therefore, you might think about the stages of learning for that particular instrument. If you like them, cool. If you are not married to the trumpet and the stages of practice sound not-fun*, then you might consider other instruments, too.
Just thinking out loud.
*I had a trumpeter friend who would work on rapid note-tonguing exercises while walking around. He would sub-vocalize rapid-fire patterns, saying “TUT-uh-ca, TUT-uh-ca, TUT-uh-ca” and stuff like that so he could play triplet patterns. Standing next to him could sound interesting.
I live next to an apartment block in which a trumpeter lives and can attest to this (he/she is playing as I type).
Thanks for the replies guys.
Yeah, I watched a couple of YouTube lesson videos. I wasn’t very good at the lip humming thing. Sorta’ took the wind out of my sails. I’m getting the sense I might not have the chops for it.
Oh well, it was a nice thought.
Hold on, Cowboy!
I was NOT trying to dump cold water on your idea. There are LOTS of instruments you can play that do not require the same up-front investment to start sounding good. Heck, try a Melodica - those keyboard/harmonica type things. The amazing Jon Batiste plays one regularly on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.
Making music is fun, joyous, and a deeply rewarding experience (escape from the day to day). I strongly recommend it and encourage you to keep thinking about what could be a good fit for you.
How about Ukulele? Really fun.
Oh no, it wasn’t you that took the wind out of my sails.
Just watching the videos gave me second thoughts. Thank you for the suggestions.
[nitpick]Not quite, although they are similar.[/nitpick]
Yes, but I am not one of them.
Sorry
I play the simpler version of a trumpet, the bugle!
A thousand years ago, when I was a Boy Scout, our Scoutmaster asked if anyone played an instrument. When I raised my hand and told him that I played the saxophone, he handed me a bugle and said “Congratulations, you’re our new bugler!”
I picked it up pretty quickly, and then forgot all about it. Last year, my grandfather-in-law passed away and the VFW guys that showed up to his funeral as an honor guard played ‘Taps’ from a cassette tape on a boom box. I asked them about it and they said buglers are nearly impossible to find.
So I bought a bugle from eBay last December and have been playing ‘Taps’ at veteran’s funerals whenever my schedule allows for it since May. I don’t get to do it often because I travel and I’m busy, but I figure every little bit helps.
Everybody loves a tuba player but even a beat-up secondhand tuba will cost you a couple thousand bucks. It ain’t a cheap hobby.
Tuba be darned, I want a full on Sousaphone!
Some years ago, one of my neighbors actually started playing the bagpipes. The first few weeks were horrible…but after a while, he was starting to get fairly good.
I also had a neighbor who played extremely complex Chopin works…but since she was not an expert player, she would play them at about 1/2 or 1/3 speed. Really fast glissandos were drawn out. This was nifty, because I could hear, clearly, the individual notes that, in a professional or concert performance, all sort of blur together. It “dissected” the music, so it could better be understood.
My sister once dated a tuba player. Very nice guy. Drove to an audition in our part of the country, about a thousand miles from where he lived, and stayed with us for a few days around the audition.
The first day, he said he would need to practice, and which way was the basement.
Oh, don’t worry about it, we said, you can practice up here on the first floor. You play well, no one is going to mind.
He reiterated his preference for the basement. Okay, no problem.
Later that day, our next door neighbor stopped by and relayed that their son, age four at the time, had asked exactly when it was that our family had gotten an elephant, and could they get one too?
Wow. What a lovely thing to do.
Speaking of bugles…
When I was in the first week of Army basic training, the troops were asked if anyone played the trumpet, as they wanted to have some music as we marched to the field. Volunteering for things in the Army is usually a bad idea, but this one didn’t seem to be all that dangerous, so I raised my hand. The sergeant said they had a trumpet in the supply room, where they handed me a bugle, and I played a few bugle calls for him. He didn’t seem all that impressed.
Then he asked me to play some top-40 tunes, and I realized he thought the instrument was a trumpet, and I had to tell him that wasn’t possible without valves.
We compromised on my playing a flute and another guy pounding on the drums when we marched to the field for training.