Posts made by Kehaulani

@Dr-GO said in How Does The Theory You've Learned Apply To Improvising?:

@Kehaulani said in How Does The Theory You've Learned Apply To Improvising?:

Not sure the above isn't a bit garbled, but if the question is how has the theory I've learned applied to improvising?, I probably run through a tune a few times to get the feel of it, then maybe d a little analysis; find out where the cadences are, then revisit the harmonic structure, not just to learn the tune, but to explore alternate scales and harmonies, too.

30+ pages? I don't think so.

How does theory relate to "playing by ear"? For me, the theory give me a structure to build on and alternate tonal options. Depending on what stage someone is, I recommend playin using your intuition until you really get hung up and then stop and clarify with theory analysis. First the ear and then the brain, not the reverse.

I use heory to clarify how a tune is organized, where the climaxes are and how to get to, and away, from them. Also, superimposing alternate tonalities over the obvious.

One word about forgetting what you've learned. I think this is metaphoric. One doesn't so much forget what one's learned as much as learned it so well, one has internalized the material so that it comes by second nature.

A great study on this subject is Paul Berliner's detailed opus, "Improvising Jazz".

@Dr-Mark said in A little humour:

@J-Jericho said in A little humour:

If you've never seen the Everglades . . It's so connected with the Atlantic that it's typical to find sharks along with American crocodiles and alligators. T

Yikes!

Just reacting like a lot of posts on this forum . . . out of context.
Didn't finish my morning espresso. Sorry.

Things I missed . . . Bette Midler was a schoolmate of mine . . . although she wasn't "Bette Midler", yet.

Seriously, and this isn't as self-serving as it may seem, but in reflection, I was actually better than I thought I was. In my family, excellence wasn't something one strived for, it was merely assumed. (I saw my father go from H.S. graduate to earning two master degrees, and my mother from H.S. to ABD at the doctorate level.)

Because of this, I just accepted a certain level of achievement was the norm. It wasn't.

(Sung) "Strangler in the Night."

I used to end a lot of dance jobs with this. Audience loved it . . I hated it. Musical whoredom. I'll do almost anything if it keeps the wolf from the door.

That painting is awesome. Bravo!

This is not funny, per sub-forum, but interesting about: Cassowaries :

https://mentalfloss.com/article/80394/10-facts-about-cassowaries

Straight mute, cup mute, harmon mute, George Dickel.

Here we go. Thanks to an anonymous donor:

p.s. Can we make this a sticky?

Circle of Breath
New
By popular demand: the circle of breath:

1. The first step is a prepared body. If our chest cavity is "collapsed", we have to inflate it with force. That is pretty stupid. When we are sitting or standing up straight but relaxed (yoga is VERY good for this), all we have to do is inhale. We can get a huge amount of air without having to pressurize the lungs by force. Learning to prepare the body for playing is easy with beginners and increasingly difficult for players with more experience as they have to break habits to make new ones! It is important to have this activity monitored.

2. Once the body is big and relaxed, we draw a big circle. The left side (moving clockwise) is inhale and the right side is exhale. Notice at the top and bottom of the circle that it is still round - no disturbances. Our transition from inhale to exhale and exhale to inhale must mirror that. We do not hold air in, it is either moving in or out. We have to practice getting BIG breaths without building up tension in the throat or upper body. We use the diaphragm to inhale, but subconsciously. We don't need to think about how those muscles work, we just give them the big, relaxed body and they know what to do!
   We do not need to "push" our air out, we just exhale. Generally students have a BIG problem getting a big breath and then just exhaling. There is so much "learned" tension present that they need weeks to get this down.

3. Once our breathing works (in my lessons that means when I am satisfied - not when the student thinks that they are done), then we replace exhale with play. We do not tongue notes, we just switch to exhale and what happens, happens. The goal here is to develop the breathing apparatus and lips so that we are so relaxed that sound comes at the peak of the circle with no kickstart by the tongue. A couple of weeks of long tones this way shows us a lot about everything that we have been doing wrong. Notice how Rashawn in the youtube just exhales a triple C? Completely free of hard work! This is how it has to work in every register. Just exhale the note.

4. When I am happy with this stage, the student exhales into lipslurs - same principle - no tongue! Just exhale! Another couple weeks goes by to "perfect" this (it is never perfect) and we have made a considerable step forward. Our tone is no longer dependent on the tongue to reliably speak - regardless of how high or low, loud or soft. Generally with no tongue applied, we can lip slur a fifth to an octave more than we had before. The range caves when making music because we are still missing too much stuff.

5. At this point I have very specific things to learn to add the tongue. Critical here is that we do not use the sledgehammer tonguing that we needed when we were using pressure, we have to develop infinitely small "T", "D", "K", "G", "L", "R" attacks that are only used to "articulate" the beginning of the tone that occurs at the peak of the Circle of Breath. The tonguing must occur EXACTLY at the point where we switch from in- to exhale. If we tongue too early or late, we screw up the transition. This means we are back to long tones and trained ears and eyes to insure that old habits don't screw up what we have now carefully built. Once long tones work, we can tongue the initial intro into the lip slur. If our tone without attack was clean, the articulation is only frosting on top of the cake!

6. Following this, the student gets easy tunes like from the hymnbook and we work on proper breathing and articulation of real music.

This Circle of Breath is as far as I am concerned the biggest deal in trumpet playing. Without being able to do this, the rest can't ever click. It is as simple as inhale/exhale. The problem is understanding what we have done to ourselves: how sloppy we sit, stand, walk. How crappy our posture is, how caved in our upper body is, how tense our neck and shoulders are because we hang our heads, how brutal our tonguing is to kickstart a screwed embouchure that uses excessive pressure to enable playing at all. In addition we have a learned unwillingness to accept very small steps of improvement because we have learned to download cheats and believe the idiots that claim to have silver bullets for problems. We do not even notice the small improvements and therefore get frustrated that we haven't experienced the "miracle". I won't even get into lifestyle and attitude.

The human state is a product of what we repeatedly do. We need challenges and successes. We need the wisdom to prepare ourselves adequately for the challenges any time that we can. That foundation can carry us a long way if it is solid.

I am very passionate about process and that is why people get angry with my "approach". I don't really care. They can put me on their ignore list, go somewhere else or rally enough people to drive me off. TrumpetMaster is for free and to be honest, I am here because what I do has helped quite a few. If the community changes for what I consider to be the worse, I have no financial or emotional ties.

Bump.

I thought I had a copy of this and I've searched mightily. It's a worthy piece for anyone and should really be a sticky. Can anyone post this? Thank you.

@Dr-GO said in Mental approach to practice and performance:

No SERIOUSLY, playing EVERY DAY is not a goal, it's a passion. The horn connects me to my emotions. It's my daily therapy . . Why would't someone want to be more in touch with their inner self? That is what trumpet playing brings to me... and to play in front of other's to share my joy and try to channel the audience... well then that is another level of pleasure.

I liken musical discovery to stubbing one's toes in the sand and digging up what you stumbled on, only to find out that, with continual uncovering, that little pointed thing you are uncovering becomes the tip of Cheops' pyramid. It just keeps getting bigger and more substantial. That's both the frustrating thing about musical discovery - it never ends - and the beautiful, never-ending challenge of it.

I would have a hard time responding to this because music and practicing have been a part of my life for over a half of a century. A retort that has stuck with me for decades was Dave Liebman's observation that, "Practicing isn't something you like or don't like. It's just something you do".

I practice, pretty much every day at the same rough time. Routine.
I just have goals and back up from them, so that everything I do moves towards that goal.

Good words.

@Richard-III said in What about non-trumpet Brass players:

Do you stay playing mediocre with the original instrument or excellence with the new one?

I think you should do what makes you happy, if you're an amateur. If not, you might want to do what's expedient. I knew a girl who was an excellent trumpet player, but she switched to Horn and wound up at The Royal School of Music (London).

I played trumpet in school and when I went to university, at the suggestion of my teacher, who was also the band director at the university, I switched to Horn. I, frankly, had great potential on Horn and wound up playing First Horn my first year at the university. I loved it, especially the chamber music (woodwind quintet).

But I just missed playing in big band and other jazz and pop, so I switched back to trumpet. My teacher was livid and threw me out. It saved my life, though, because I was getting drafted (Viet Nam) and the only opening, worldwide, was for Horn. I playedHorn for two years, then switched back to trumpet when there was an opening. Mercenary. (If I did it today, I'd just double but I wasn't that flexible, then.)

Since then, I've been a multi-instrumentalist. I say do what you love.

I don't think you're going to attract more members until you can provide a core of more helpful and applicable information for brass players of any walk. To me, this forum focuses more on non-musical things. It seems more of a glorified Lounge. It's a matter of proportion. I think people need a more tangible reason to frequent the site.

There's nothing that says members can't joke, post pictures, and other leisure things. It's just a matter of priorities. If I wasn't already a carry-over, I would have a hard time finding reasons to be a forum participant.

Keep on hangin' on!

@GeorgeB said in Embouchure Dystonia:

@Kehaulani
Yeah I am trying not to overthink it. There are no chop doctors nor are there any teachers in my neck of the woods, but there is a doctor member of the band who I will be seeing.

Check out John Mohan (Claude Gordon teacher). You can contact him through his account on Trumpet Herald under the Claude Gordon forum. He teaches by Skype.

(BTW, his wife is German, as is mine, so . . . extra points, )

Riffing off of that, when I lived in Germany the first time, my apartment had a large picture window that faced a hillside that was total forest. At fall, the view of the changing leaves was just stunning.

I, personally, wouldn't over-theorise/think it. It sounds to me like your chops are swollen. I'd give them a rest.

That's not to say that there may not be something fundamentally wrong that's the underlying cause. See a chop doctor.

@Niner said in A little humour:

@Dr-Mark The Muslims first invented the condom in the year 654 using a goat intestine. Christians expanded on this idea in 1364 by taking the intestine out of the goat first.

Man, what a slur on Islam.

@FranklinD said in A little humour:

It's a pity that this forum has no moderator to remove shit threads like this one and some more. But if the doctors are enjoying it.... I don't want to spoil their play, better for me to log out.

I agree this forum is more of a Lounge than a substantial trumpet technique forum, but this IS the Humor Thread.