Page 65 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

they were just a bit out of tune; I just tried to bend them with my lips a
bit and hope for the best.

On the rest of the album, I’m using my Bach C trumpet, which I love,

and it was just very straightforward. Especially for the Gershwin, I find
it a really virtuosic, peaceful instrument that I love. It just works for me,

and it’s a great tool. But I did use thousands of mutes!

I should mention there were a few other pieces that I attempted to put
on this album. But once we got to the editing stage, I found that they

didn’t work. I didn’t want to do that thing that I mentioned earlier; the

box-ticking of every possible American genre or piece. So I just

dumped them, which is quite controversial, especially if the label has
paid for that time and those extra instruments, but I do think it’s a

better album for being shorter and more precise. Some of those

pieces have loads of mutes in them as well!

Lastly, I want to give a big shout-out to the trumpet section, who are

experts in a lot of this music and have really thought about it all their

lives. They played so incredibly, and they really inspired me on the

sessions.

Audiences and musicians tend to discuss the philosophical

meanings of Ives’s Unanswered Question; what does it mean to you?

It reminds me of the thing we all talk about as musicians; we
instinctively know how important music is in one’s life. You don’t have

to become a professional musician for music to be really important

and make life worth living. I don’t think, as humans, we fully
understand the benefits of music. We know that there are so many

benefits of music, but we don’t fully understand how to apply all of

those benefits to the rest of our lives yet. Some of us do, but it’s

certainly not part of any government policy! And yet we know it’s a
fact. One thing that keeps returning to my mind is that music is like a