Blowing my own trumpet

I find it really hard to blow my own trumpet.  I fill my lungs and purse my lips and blow but it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I find it hard to make a note.

I can get a rich tone from a Boosey and Hawkes B flat clarinet and I can play a mean tune on the mouth organ.  I can even raise an ear-splitting reverberation on a vuvuzela and could amaze you with my Stylophone prowess but I find it very hard to blow my own trumpet.

Perhaps it’s a natural reserve, a feeling of modesty or some self-effacing quality that holds me back or perhaps it’s a nervousness that someone will round on me and shoot me down in flames.  ‘You may have done OK on that but what about all of the other things that have gone wrong?’

I’m proud of what we do and happy to publish good news but I don’t like to push it.  We have newsletters and catalogues and marketing material which paint us in a good light but I take it as read that everyone knows that we are doing a good job and that I don’t need to be in their faces all of the time.  After all, in ICT no news is good news.

But people tell me that I don’t blow my own trumpet enough.  They tell me that I should blow it hard and blow it loud because we really have achieved a lot and they would appreciate finding out but it’s not my style and I’m not really comfortable with all of the huffing and puffing, the aggrandisement and self bloating.

I know people who can blow trumpets.  I have friends and family who can blow them as well as a cornet and a French horn but not me.  Perhaps instead I could shake my own tambourine or chime my own triangle but blow my own trumpet – no, I find that really hard.