The Loudest AND the Best!

Know what? Almost nobody in school plays loud enough! Good is nice, but good and loud is more impressive and memorable. Judicious and generous jolts of power win fame, money and applause. You must be able to play full out on a moment's notice yet be able to segue into a gorgeous pianissimo. Can you do it? Are you practicing for it?

Playing soft enough is the usual goal which none of us ever feel we have reached. But let's not focus so much on the soft dynamics that we forsake the ability to totally fill the hall with savage, fearless, amazing, shocking, voluptuous trumpet playing!!! Almost every major symphonic work calls for you to meet that demand. Are you preparing?

Where is that CCM player this year? Anyone ready? Warning: If it's going to be loud, it had better be very good and well controlled. Caution: You are entering the no-split zone. The mistakes stop here!

Running in Your Own Lane

"Look at that runner! No way I'm ever going to catch up! I'm not even close. But hey, look how far ahead I am of the runner at the back of the pack." Comparing with others breeds pride and inferiority, and is a distraction from our game plan. Just run.

Looking sideways or behind isn't the best strategy in running your race. Sure, learn from and be motivated by others, but avoid the trap of evaluating your worth by comparing with others. Your most difficult challenges will be with yourself, so don't be worrying about the next guy's strengths and weaknesses. We've got enough stress as it is. Run well in your own lane. Be consistent and diligent. Put on blinders and just go.

Darts, anyone?

Which best typifies your playing, a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, or Darts? Do you tend to stab blindly in the dark when you play, or are you working on the skill of directing each note to its target? Thankfully trumpeters, like dart players, don't wear blindfolds, so there is hope.

Too often instead of a poised, focused approach on the trumpet, we hurriedly grab a few sips of air and then proceed to lunge viciously in the general vicinity of the notes, hoping to fasten them to some target. Valiant attempts? Yes. Bulls-eyes? Not likely.

Here's the game: Your air stream must simply meet the phrase head on, and remain focused for each note. So, take a good appraisal of the phrase, breathe accordingly, and release your air directly onto its targets, not above or below. If the notes were candles, you want lights out with one breath. It's probably not going to happen with a blindfold on. If you're still thinking pinata, you're in the wrong game.

You want to impress your listeners, observers, and yourself with your accuracy and control. Again, your air must meet and support all of the notes. We're not talking over-thinking each entrance or analyzing ourselves into paralysis, just putting enough air on the notes, period.

As you prepare to toss that dart towards the center of your dartboard, observe your natural instincts, and do likewise when you have horn in hand. An unfriendly game of darts anyone?

Using Swan Air

Every brass player knows instinctively all about Shotgun, Fireworks and Spitfire style air techniques. Those are what we are famous for. But few have perfected the delicate skill of Swan Air. This breathing technique is needed big time in every audition, every slow movement solo, and for keeping day jobs. We're talking very slow and steady air movement. You are to exemplify the graceful, gliding swan. Ducky Duddle splashing and splattering won't get it done.

Want another picture? Consider a single burning candle. Now blow carefully at it without extinguishing the flame. It must flicker steadily for as long as you can keep it moving. Prize for the longest flickering. Can you do 15 seconds? The longer the better, but it has to be steady. No jerks allowed.

After mastering this very therapeutic and relaxing exhale exercise, you are good and ready for those deadly pianissimo excerpts: Schumann 2, Academic, Mahler 3 chorale, etc. Remember: very deep inhale followed by your very slow release. Swim gracefully and don't make waves.

Case Closed!

Due to the summertime heat advisory, all CCM trumpet cases should look like this until further notice. No practicing permitted. Don't even think about it. Case closed!!

Roller Coastering

"Step right up. You're next. Take your seat, please fasten your seat belt. Here we go. Hold on!"

You know what to expect. Fright happens on rides. That's part of the deal. Scary goes with the territory. Oh that the ups and downs of trumpet playing could be as much fun as a roller coaster ride, but that depends upon your perspective. The key is knowing what to expect and learning from your experiences.

Ever notice how much more traumatic that very first ride on the racer is? The next one is much easier as you learn to manage the bumps rather than just survive. If you quit at first fright, you never get to enjoy. Hey, next time, hands up, no fear!

Downward plummets happen in life too. Failures, coming in second, third, or not at all, is part of the adventure. Remember that today's winners were yesterdays losers. The wise losers hang around long enough to win the next time. Precious lessons are ready for the taking for those who look to ride again. Don't go home. Get back in line.

Stop Already!

"Stop or you'll blow your brains out, or worse yet, your chops!" Woodwind players can always buy more reeds, but brass players can't buy a new box of lips. Easy does it with those non-stop workouts.

You've certainly got a metronome, tuner, and maybe even a decibel meter in the practice room, but how about a timer? You need something that regularly signals that it's time to rest and come up for air. The chops need a break and some fresh blood circulation. Muscles are strengthened by resting as well as by exertion.

Mandatory resting might seem like advice for wimps. Hence, you rarely see a timer in a trumpet player's bag of goods. For us obsessive/compulsive types some sort of stopping device should be a must-have.

Andre is reported to practice many times a day in brief sessions. Vacchiano advised us to put the horn down while the embouchure still feels good. Strategic resting preserves chops while impatient blasting tends to destroy them quickly. Try practicing a little a lot rather than a lot a little.

When Soft Speaks Loudly

Keep this picture in mind as you practice this week. You do not want to be constantly seeing the maestro's shushing gesture or the palm of his left hand. His "softer, trumpets!" indications are not always this kind and gentle. You can keep him off your case and out of your face with a simple strategy.

Your strategy: a daily generous dose of playing softly! Warning: side effects may include lack of breathing and/or boring playing. If so, take a breath and sing normally. Low decibel work should not mean loss of support or interest. The softer you play, the more you must sustain air and line. The goal is not just being quiet, but playing quiet beautifully.

Develop the skill of controlling a quiet product. Train yourself to be comfortable in pianissimo dynamics.The benefits for you are confidence and favor with audition committees. The soft excerpts are often the deal-breakers in finals. Many wield the big stick, but few can also speak softly.

Enough Money in the Bank?

Your audition is in two days! Ready or not, you're off to the airport. You leave home allowing plenty of extra time only to learn that your travel agenda is going to be adjusted slightly. Your road to the audition/competition will now include all of the following unplanned obstacles:

1. Due to late departure, you will not be able to make your connecting flight in Chicago.
2. Your checked baggage will not be accompanying you.
3. You will be stranded at O'Hare as all remaining flights are now canceled/delayed due to severe weather.
4. You must search for a hotel for the night.
5. Precious funds are evaporating.
6. Congratulations. You're about to be sleepless in Chicago.
7. Jet lag is starting to kick in and you still have one more time zone to go.
8. Junk food normally avoided for auditions is becoming your only option for survival.
9. You're sensing a strong urge to bail. Why bother?
10. Once having landed in Cincinnati, you still have a two hour drive to Louisville!
11. More than a day later you finally arrive at the audition site with less than an hour to warm up!

Is this not the worst audition nightmare scenario imaginable? Probably, but consider this: by the end of the day, this competitor advanced to semis, then finals, and then won third prize in a nationwide guitar competition. Just think if there were no obstacles. He might have won the whole thing, you say, or he might not have even placed at all. Sometimes obstacles keep us from being too consumed, but that is another topic.

The point: He survived heroically because he had enough money in the bank. His reserve was still in tact regardless of the externals. A smaller account might have been overdrawn by any of the above distractions. You can usually plan on one or more of these audition scenarios to present themselves. You will have no control over any of these, but you can protect your musical treasure from robbery. If your message has been properly prepared, it will survive!

Tornadoes Zero. Jeremy Collins Won!!!

Off the Charts Loud!

Committee Comment:
"That was the loudest and most electrifying trumpet-playing we have ever heard! It was never forced or out of control. We must hire this person!"

Unbelievable Playing!

The Winner played
EXTREMELY SOFT
and BEAUTIFULLY

We Have a Winner!

Plays with:

RHYTHMIC FIRE &
AMAZING BEAUTY

'Tisn't the Season

"What, me work?!" That's the mindset that tends to accompany these warm weather months. Oh to have a conservatory in Iceland where the grass is browner, the snow is deeper, and the outdoor distractions aren't!

Productive practice should be unaffected by weather, moods, or environment. We function well when we can put aside the many external and internal issues that discourage daily work. Consider yourself a year-round practice robot who consistently does what is needed regardless of obstacles.

It would help if we were as dumb as the trumpet! (No comments needed). The trumpet scolds us: "Would you please just play without all of the drama! Blow, slur and tongue. How hard is that?"

Of course this is ideal and not real. A variety of interferences are daily in attack mode and seek to prevent us from performing our basic chores. It is encouraging to remind ourselves that basic maintenance is not dependent on feeling like it. Quality playing can still happen even when you're uninspired, tired, angry, depressed, or distracted. Consider each of these intrusions to be perfect training for life on the job. Conquer them now, or they will conquer you later.

Music Sets Your Agenda

Connecting practice to performance is the challenge. Knowing how to make very nice use of the precious time we have so as to yield great shows, that is the task! Some learn this early, some late, and most never get it. (I think I fell somewhere in the latter two groups.) Don't you love it when you see and hear someone who has grasped how to practice and play? Look around. They exist. Observe, listen and learn.

I doubt there are very many players who have not had to be painstaking learners of practice discipline. The naturals still need training and maturity, so be encouraged. They were where you are, but they have moved on.

The "never get it" group spins their wheels at great speeds while all the time basically stuck in the same ditch. They sometimes experience bursts of inspiration, but only to be followed by fits of frustration. Zeal-mustering eventually looses the battle. Hate when that happens, but learn from it.

Learning to organize your work comes after trial and error. In that sense, error can be a great teacher! Failings can be our greatest wake up call. Congratulations, you have just given yourself your personalized practice agenda! As a colleague once commented, "it should be obvious what to practice next."

Let the demands of the music set your practice agenda. Take Ravel's Piano Concerto in G for instance. What's needed? A thousand repetitions, maybe two thousand? No. You'll soon loathe the piece. How about first practicing clean single, double and triple tongue patterns on shortish Clarke-like etudes? Start with diatonic patterns and proceed to include gradually greater jumps. Be able to bust in with dead on accuracy. Don't play a lot sloppy. Play a little cleanly. Daily work is not as good as daily wise work. Pretend the greats are watching and listening as you are slugging away. Will they be impressed with your approach, or will they shake their heads and proceed to the next person?

Consider the Brahms Academic Festival Overture. We don't need loud bursts of bumps and bangs. Obviously required are smooth soft lines, in tune with pure tone and chorale-like direction. Got it? Now practice accordingly. Use slower than needed speeds for control, softer than needed dynamics for control, and higher than needed range for extra control. Set your own strategy, and play with impressive musicianship. It's not brain surgery, but it requires some modest daily brain work.

The Trumpet Shall Sound from Handel's Messiah presents different but similar challenges. Before attempting to scale the heights, you must first master the low range. What does the audience expect? Givens are a pure sound, unobjectionable intonation, clean starts to all notes, and a sense that you are in control of 100% of your product. Begin to build that kind of comfort range and grow it gradually. Only go as high as you are satisfied with your results. The piccolo trumpet cannot be tamed instantly, but must be carefully trained over time. Beware and approach with care. (Paste that on your pic case.)

Don't shove "the music" aside until you've mastered all technique. Instead use the demands of the music to motivate you to master a wise daily strategy. You can go from teacher to teacher with hat in hand, or you can come up with your own brilliant approach to each piece. Get guidance, but you must ultimately figure out your own way.

If you are not the "thinking" and "organizing" type of player, just think of this. Your very own Great-Note-Monitor has just now been attached to your bell, and it is activated. It is recording and processing all of the notes you are playing. Will you be proud of the readout?

Hanging With the Doctor

Seen the Doctor lately? Sounds like not! If your pulse is unstable, fluctuating, erratic, you are past due for a visit. Just as we don't ignore heart irregularities, so why allow bad rhythm, unsteady tempos, rushing and dragging to threaten our musical lives? Needed badly: a steady ticker!

Prescription: one Dr. Beat. His subdividing options were not available years ago. Remember having to balance that large wooden tic-toc triangle thing on a flat surface? The beat was never perfect, always sounding slightly peg-legged. Even the nifty plastic jobs were frustrating. Drop it once, and it forever limped.

Now with a simple click you can have the perfect Dr. Beat on your case and in your face right next to your ears as loud as you can stand him! The more obnoxious the better. That way the medicine might work and the beat might stick.

Another problem with elderly metronomes was that they could easily be drowned out by exuberant brass belting. In fact, considering the high decibel level required for so much of our demands today, it might be good if someone came out with a DR. BANG! Each click would sound like an empty garbage can being pummeled by a baseball bat! Hey, put it on a dotted quarter note = 120 in 12/8 with subdivided eighth notes and enjoy!

More Spikes!

Whatever jolts you to double down on improvement, go there and go often! Spikes in your playing need to happen regularly. Life is depressing when motivation disappears. What is it that produces in you an on-fire mindset? Is it attending a brass conference, hearing a great concert, an amazing recital, or listening to Strauss, Mahler, Gabrielli? Certainly you can't walk away empty after hearing great solo playing. Whatever works, do it. Your assignment is to search out greatness and camp out there.

Nothing particularly motivating you today? Take charge. In between spikes, why don't you get to work on bolstering up those dreadful downward spikes? Bring up your low levels so that nobody ever knows you're having a bad day. Daily lighten your load of guilt by chipping away at your nemeses. Then treat yourself with some challenging musical entertainment.

There will always be spikes, but you want them to be more frequent and less deep! Your output depends upon your input. Feed yourself.

Sirens and Songs

Imagine that you are a great artist stranded on a remote island with no horn, just your mouthpiece. Not to stress. You have all you need to get a whole lot accomplished before the next boat arrives with your trumpet. Wait till they hear what has happened to your sound! Here's a free and easy remedy for that grainy fuzzy tone. Who knows? After they hear the results of your having no trumpet, some remote island might become the site for the next worldwide brass convention!

Sorry, nothing profound here, just hopefully a couple of useful and helpful reminders for sound improvement. No need for the horn yet. Let's go first for sirens and songs.

Gently buzz siren-like glissandi, holding the mouthpiece with maximum of three fingers and very little pressure. Produce absolutely clear tones in a very soft dynamic without any fuzz whatsoever. Start in an easy register for comfortable ups and downs while always maintaining purity of tone. Fuzzy lack of center and ghost areas in your register mean you simply need to get better at this.

Increase your range only if you earn an all-clear to proceed. Carelessness with your buzzing guarantees notes without ring or focus, but a pure buzz will produce a pure trumpet tone every time.

When you get to the highest note of your siren, freeze briefly to make sure there is no straining or embouchure collapsing before you slide back down. Avoid pinching and squeezing for the upper sounds. Air speed ought to increase as you ascend. Rest frequently. Reenter on pitch and increase range gradually. Your goal is embouchure comfort and tone center. Keep adding higher and lower notes to your siren range insisting on quality and ease. Don't neglect full breaths.

Remember, less pressure, more tone. Just place mouthpiece and blow. Note response should resemble the piano which speaks as soon as it is touched.

Next you're ready for songs. Still using just the mouthpiece, minimal pressure, and a conservative dynamic, you may pick your tunes of the day. The simpler and the shorter the better. No modulating and no jamming mouthpiece into the embouchure permitted. Pure artistry and amazing effortlessness. Enjoy this. The next boat arrives shortly. Bummer.

Mr. Smoothy

It's the fifties in New Jersey and I knew what I was in for, another drive to visit my Uncle Bill! I'm like only 9 or 10 years old and just starting trumpet lessons, but I knew I'd have to sit in front of those enormous Fischer speakers and listen to ancient scratchy recordings of Charlie Spivak and His Orchestra! "Now Philip, I want you to sit here and listen to this!"

My brother and I badly wanted to go outside and play in the huge back yard that had a homemade wooden double bench swing that my grandfather built himself to occupy his mind while my dad was in the army during the War. We loved that old swing! But no. We sat obediently in my uncle's den as he played cut after cut of his beloved trumpet hero. He loved that smooth romantic playing, and he would watch me in vain hoping that he might ignite some spark of interest on my part. I'm certain he concluded that his trumpet-appreciation efforts were wasted. How's a kid that age going to appreciate record playing? All we wanted was to play space ship on Papa's swing, but he tried.

My great grandfather, I was told many times, played first trombone in Sousa'a band. With every visit to uncle Bill I would hear stories of his fabulous playing. Spivak and my great grandfather had similar styles so they said. He was quite the eccentric, my great grandfather, but his amazing playing excused his behavior, but that's another story. (See Spivak's "Hop, Skip and Jump.")

Anyway, here is a nice sample of what my brother and I failed to appreciate at the time. This one is entitled "Stardreams" by Charlie Spivak and His Orchestra. The music is from another era for sure, but his approach and expressive legato are still to be admired. I like his comfort in the upper register. Those weren't high notes. That was home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrZzBHyTGLw

What Rests Are For

Why are there rests in trumpet solos? Anybody know? They actually just make us uncomfortable as we stand there anticipating our entrance. Incidentally, the worst piece for this scenario has got to be the first movement of the Hummel Trumpet Concerto. It must be 25 minutes before we do anything, just standing there on display trying to look impressive! Sounding good is hard enough. Anyway, here are a bunch of possible purposes for rests. Any of these sound familiar?

Rests in trumpet solos are for . . .

• emptying your spit valve as many times as possible before you have to play again.

• tensing up and not moving a muscle.

• letting the audience know you are scared.

• trying to impress the audience that you are not scared.

• concentrating like mad.

• adjusting your glasses.

• rubbing your lips as if in great pain.

• loudly blubbering your lips as you try to get blood back into the embouchure.

• seeing if you can oil your sticky third valve before the next entrance.

• moving the tuning slide a thousandth of an inch with great concern.

• frowning with disapproval.

• turning away from the audience to violently empty the spit.

Probably none of these were intended by composers, so, any other suggestions, class? Sammy? "It's so we can like rest our chops, man!" Very good, Sammy. You are close. Jermaine? "They are so that we can sort of like feel the moods of the music?" Good, Jermaine, but there could be an even better reason. Sally Sue? "So I can look at my boy friend in the audience?" Well, I'm sure he's a good motivation for you. Any other ideas? Horace? "The resting portions of concertos function as further opportunities for the composer to use thematic material with varying instrumental colors, range contrasts and/or harmonic shifts, modulations, and transitions." Yes, yes, thank you, Horace. "You're welcome, professor."

All of these are right, class. But have you considered the rests as a chance to quickly refocus, to take a breath, and to restart with enough support to get through the next passage with no damage done to you or to the music? Think of the rests as service stations along the highway. You'll be more alert and rested if you make full use of them. Your ideas are all good, boys and girls, but the most important is to prepare yourself for what lies ahead.

Fueling Up

Imagine filling your car up with gas for a long road trip. You're off and running smoothly. Eventually your gas gauge approaches E, and you must pull over to refuel. For some unknown reason you hurriedly fill the tank only half way before continuing on your long drive.

In less than an hour you must stop again. This time you quickly pump only a couple of gallons. In mere miles you frantically pull off the road, this time adding a measly two pints of gas. At the next station it's just a few dribbles of precious fuel before plunging back into traffic. Soon your long journey is no longer any fun for you or for your engine which is now straining to run on the fumes.

My dad always warned not to let the gas gauge go below half. " Keep the tank full", he said. I took that as a breathing lesson. "The car does not run as well on the bottom of the tank", he would lecture. "It strains the engine." Likewise the brass player has to work much harder when only a small supply of air is used.

Say your long road trip is the off stage Post Horn Solo from the Mahler 3rd Symphony. After a very large intake of air you pull into traffic ever so stealthily, joining the onstage C in perfect harmony. Your good air supply is serving you very nicely, and you are in control and loving it. At the end of the very first phrase however you get a bit rattled as there is so little time to refuel. A hint of panic flashes across your mind as you know you did not get enough air for the next passage. That high A is approaching up ahead, and you only took a sip when you needed to guzzle!

This bad dream has only just begun, for the notes are coming at you faster than you can keep them filled with air. You've got another page and a half to go and already you are gasping! You look around, but there is no assistant in sight! You must learn to survive.

Arnold Jacobs maintained that brass playing is less about chops and more about wind. We don't have chop problems, we have air deficiencies. "Your embouchure is starved for air", he would say. A full intake of air must be followed by an efficient release of the air. There seemed to be nothing that couldn't be remedied by a good dose of wind and song. His first suggestion for my running-out-of-gas dilemma: "Phil, make sure all of your breaths are as full as the first one."

The trick is to learn to be comfortable taking full breaths even if they must be very fast. We will not always have the luxury of a full service rest stop. Mel Broiles used to remind us that the best players can take in the most amount of air in the least amount of time. It is about fuel and efficiency. The greater the fuel supply, the better will be the efficiency.