History:

TrumpetBoredom began in the summer of 2002. And as all good stories do, the story of the first TB session revolves around a girl... Byro was a little upset over a girl, so I told him that we were going to hang out with Joe and just chill. On a whim, we brought our horns... and started to play some songs up an octave. We busted out Joe's 4-track player and a blank tape, and began recording. Yes, that is how TB started. Over a broken heart, with 3 guys playing high notes until we couldn't see straight.
The next week, we met again. Joe brought in a friend from his dad's school, and he had written out some basic songs for us to play. We set up the 4-track player, and all four of us huddled around 1 stand. We had some good songs from that first session, and Joe and I got really excited about the whole idea. I decided to start up a website of the recordings. The original intent was to sell them ala the Tasteebros... but we decided no one would buy them, and we didn't want to just record stuff up an octave, for fear of being called "copy-cats." So we kept to our original idea: take popular songs and arrange them for 4 trumpets.
On our third recording session, the 4th guy couldn't show... so I called up this awesome friend of mine to play the basslines: Collin Watson! Well, turns out he filled out our sound REALLY well, and made us sound like more of a band. We decided to keep him as our bass voice, and I think it was the smartest thing we ever did.
From then on, the rest is pretty much history. We've recorded every summer and winter since, and have gone from transferring 1 gig a month in September 2002, to transferring upwards of 30 gigs a month as of January 2006. In 2005, we transferred over 270 gigs of our music, which is roughly 425 mp3 CDs worth of our music being played around the world.


We get a lot of Fanmail here at TrumpetBoredom.com. Here are some typical questions people ask, and the answers to them.

Question: I don't get it...?
Answer: I'll assume you just don't understand the concept of TB. Which is fine, I know people other than trumpet players visit this site. 99.5% of the trumpet players that visit this site get it... although, every now and then we'll get an e-mail from some lame guy who thinks we should be impressed because he played the first movement of the Hummel with his po-dunk 15 member high school orchestra in Backwater, Mississippi. For that guy, and the rest of you non-trumpet players, let me water it down. The site is something we do for fun and to relax. Most of us are serious musicians, practicing for many hours a day, and playing boring music most of the time. This site is what we do to relax and have fun. What better way to blow off some steam when you're working on some orchestral piece than to take it up an octave?
Our name was chosen as a joke, but it has kind of come to explain what we are: we get bored with 'real' music, so we play covers of pop songs and cartoon theme songs because we are so bored.
Do we take this seriously? We take music seriously, but this website and what we do on it is all in good fun.
And if you're complaining about our quality/intonation, etc... this is all I have to say: If you want to hear us sound good, pay to see us. Until then, you get what you pay for when you visit TB, okay? So take the stick out of your butt, and have fun.

Question: Why the low quality? You can sound better than that!
Answer: If we recorded 1 song a day, spent hours on it rehearsing it and so forth, it would sound brilliant for the final take. But it also wouldn't be very much FUN. We do this for fun.

Question: Why is it all for free?
Answer: I believe in the freedom of the internet. I hate going to a site and having to pay for whatever is on there. Especially when it is a group like ours, who are just doing it for fun. The only thing I would make you guys pay for is stuff you'd want to pay for: a high quality CD, a T-shirt, etc. As long as I am running the site, our 'live' stuff will always be free.

Question: When did you guys start Trumpetboredom?
Answer: We started the recording out of boredom in August of 2002. The website was created in September 2002.

Question: How often do you record?
Answer: As often as we can. We all go to different colleges, so getting us together is really a big hassle. Usually we only get a chance to record over the summers.

Question: Who does all of those arrangments?
Answer: All arrangments are done by Joe Ferruzzo. He does them all by ear and does not import an midi and arrange it. He does it the hard way like a man.

Question: How long does it typically take him?
Answer: It varies from song to song. Exodus took him 40 minutes to arrange, and Bohemian Rhapsody took him four hours. Usually it never takes him longer than 4 hours to arrange something.

Question: I want the music to _______!!!!!
:Answer As of right now, we don't give out our arrangments. We do this for legal, but mostly personal reasons. So don't ask.

Question: How long does the typical recording session go?
Answer: It depends on how much time we actually SPEND recording. Usually when we are recording we end up playing video games, playing poker, or watching movies.

Question: Who plays all of the high stuff?
Answer: If the notes are out of the staff, typically either Joe or Byron are hitting them.

Question: Why a Bari-Sax on TrumpetBoredom?
Answer: It all started on the 3rd recording session back in August of 2002. Our 4th trumpet couldn't make a recording session, and we needed someone to play. Collin happened to be available, so we had him play his tenor sax. He sounded awesome. We then realized how much better he made the group sound, and how much easier it is for him to play basslines than a 4th trumpet... so the next recording session we added him on in the music playing the basslines with a bari-sax. We believe that adding him to the group really changed our sound for the better and made what we do all that much more unique.

Question: Where do you live?
Answer: We live in California. Joe attends college at Northwestern University out in Chicago.

Question: Do you guys do gigs?
Answer: We've done two live shows, but we haven't decided if we will be doing live gigs or not. And, even if we do, we will only be able to do them in the summer months. If you're still interested, e-mail me.

Question: I have a song I wrote that I would like you to play, can you?
Answer: We only play our own arrangments of songs, sorry. However, if you want to request a song for us to record, drop me an E-mail and we'll try to record it.


Still have a question? Feel free to E-mail me and I will answer it.