Harry Kim is based in Los Angeles where he actively performs and is currently on a short tour with Phil Collins and his band.

JN: Harry, get us up to speed. What's going on in your world?

HK: Well, if this is a secret, I can't tell anyone. (laughing)

I'm excited about this tour because we haven't toured since 2005. It's always fun, the music is terrific. Just been preparing for that and memorizing music. There's just nothing fun for me than performing really great music live.

JN: Is memorizing music a struggle for you?

HK: Yes. I happen to have one of those brains that deletes stuff when you don't need it. My partner Dan Fornero remembers stuff that I wrote 20 years ago. I don't have that kind of brain. It's not because I'm not interested, it's just that I'm ADD and I don't focus on certain things.

JN: This podcast is about peak performance for musicians, and obviously you've been around the block once or twice. So let's start out with what you consider to be one of your worst moments as a performer. A time when you expected to do well but fell short.

HK: I can think of a moment when I knew things were going to be bad. I had some dental problems in 1997. I was touring with Phil Collins and they were going to shoot a video. So I started out trying to play as well as I could, not playing scared, but knew it wasn't going to be great.

It ended up okay. It's all on video from one of Phil Collins' tour videos. I think it's called "Footloose in Paris" or something. I was cracking notes all over the place. The dental work hadn't gone as I thought and I didn't expect it to affect me as it did. I had to play purely by will. I had no feel for the trumpet. I put it up to my chops and it felt foreign.

 

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JN: What kind of dental work was it?

HK: When my wisdom teeth came in earlier in my life, the top ones came in sideways, pointing forward. They did some damage to the bone of the back molars. I ended up getting infections in the molars all the time. Long story short, in 97 I decided to have the molars pulled. After a few days, I tried to play trumpet and it didn't feel good. But I just thought it's because of the dental work, it would come back. But I never got a feel for the trumpet.

It took me about 3 years before I could play confidently, and about 7 years before I could perform well again.

So this video was right after the teeth were pulled. I wasn't confident playing within the staff, let alone high G's and what not. It was sheer will that I got the notes out. So there were a lot of cracked notes in there. It's one of those times in your life where you just have to do what you have to.

JN: It sounds to me like you thought you were taking care of a problem, but you were just creating more problems. 

HK: Yes. It took me awhile to realize what I was doing differently. I remember this happened around the fall of 97, then January 98 I started playing from scratch. What I realized is that when I play the trumpet, my tongue kind of expands sideways. It leans against my back teeth. So when those molars were taken out, my tongue moved forward to lean against the next teeth.

This was unconscious. I didn't detect it. It took several years to figure this out. Basically my tongue was so far forward it was cutting off the air, which caused a whole chain reaction of other variables.

When I discovered that was the problem, I needed to relearn where to put my tongue while...