Posts made by ROWUK

I do not consider scales to be evil or out of place. They are simply part of the low impact repetition toolbox that can give a student patterns for recall in many different contexts. They are an essential part of holistic development in my world. I use them for teaching just about every technical discipline that a trumpeter must develop: time, transposition, intonation, articulation, range. Naturally they are not the "only" things taught. We had a discussion about proportions during practice/ lessons at TrumpetMaster. I remember agreeing with several about approximately 1/3rd body use, 1/3rd technical studies and 1/3rd tunes/repertoire. We discussed the issues surrounding a "too rigid" structure and having the student in clear focus. During periods of high dedication, we the teachers can raise the bar at many levels - if we have a method to even define the bar..

My personal view is that we must feed our internal reward system. Measurable success changes the way that our central nervous system processes stimuli. Mosche Feldenkrais and several Yogis deal with this at an even higher level.

Proper use of scales makes the Haydn, Hummel, Neruda, Tartini, Verdi Requiem, Tschaikowsky 5 certainly "easier".

@administrator said in Mouthpiece issue:

A wider rim will likely lead to quicker fatigue. That's been my experience, at least.

Maybe you should try some mouthpieces from the baroque era. They are much larger than modern mouthpieces and have very large flat rims - but no shortage of high notes!

Pedal tones are the fundamental tones based on the length of the trumpet. They correspond to 1 wavelength. The next tone (2 wavelengths) in the partial series is an octave higher - on an open trumpet, low C. 3 wavelengths corresponds to a second line "g". 4 wavelengths is third space C., 5 is E, 6 is g on top of the staff, 7 is Bb above the staff and 8 wavelengths are C above the staff. Notice that every doubling of the wavelength is an octave higher for C 1, 2, 4 and 8. For G 3 and 6.

@barliman2001 Thank you Elmar!

In my world, range is not really a function of mouthpiece or embouchure, it is "mostly" the synergy between the blow and lip tension. I can play my highest notes when I am most relaxed. When I increase embouchure tension, I have to "blow harder" and that makes life more "difficult".

My "secret" for range is slowing down. Longtones with minimal (not zero) lip or mouthpiece pressure. Once the juices are flowing, then lots of EASY lipslurs. I use the Earl Irons Lip Flexibilities book.

Before we get to mechanics, we have to get our breathing under control. I use a visualisation called "the circle of breath". Envision a large circle. From 6:00 to 12:00 is inhale, from 12:00 to 6:00 is exhale. Please note that the transition from inhale to exhale is perfectly smooth - just like the circle. That means that your inhale is timed to be finished exactly at 12:00 and that you have not gone into "compression" - where you need to release tension to even exhale. At 6:00 the opposite happens.

I am talking about practice habits here to "organize" breathing/body use and playing. When performing, we can not always maintain "best practices" as the RESULTS justify the means. Our daily practice is to refine the bodies part of playing and generally less tension is more range, articulation, tone and endurance.

@administrator said in Traits that make a great sight reader?:

Hearing the intervals is the easy part. Making that instant connection to which note it is is much harder. Hearing harmonic changes is even harder than that.

I know too many players that site read very well but miss the musical message - even with more time. It is a question of the talent mix.

There are various traits that make for good site reading.

1. large collection of memorized patterns
2. ability to negotiate the diagonal (end of one line to the beginning of the next)
3. ability to “hear” intervals (different than #1)
4. well taken care of chops
5. an organised approach before playing a note - key signatures and accidentals, natural feel for phrasing/breathing
6. a lot of experience site reading

@_mark_ Well Hakan Hardenberger is in my view with a couple others, at the top of the heap.

@_mark_ Then all that is left is to be patient and remember that thousands of low impact repetitions build good habits. Getting in a hurry is pure poison. I have a glass of water near my practice chair. If things get congested (tonguing, breathing, chops, brain), it is amazing how much a sip of water helps.

@_mark_
It is (maybe not) funny, but I have NEVER had a beginner walk away from the first lesson with what you describe.
"Too much" pressure is NOT an issue for the first weeks/months of playing and if your face is capable of forming the letter "M" without nervous twitches, you are only a moderate breath away from a stable first note.
That first note can be practiced with just buzzing the lips, buzzing with the mouthpiece or buzzing with the mouthpiece and horn. We do not need to squeeze the lips together with high pressure, the normal letter "M" is enough for the first open tones - normally open G and low C. Resist the urge to mess around with the valves until your "M"-bouchure is steady.
The trumpet actually only needs a wisp of air to ignite the tone. A LOT of players exercise WAY TOO MUCH EFFORT in basic tone production. Do not try to hyperventilate after reading how much "air" the so called experts pump through the horn. Do not try and form a six pack in your face.
Trumpet playing is thousands of very low impact repetitions. There are no short cuts.
Slow down, find someone who plays reasonably well from a local band or school and get the beginnings in a decent direction.

@jessie, Technically EVERY valve ALWAYS does something - maybe not what we want, but something. This has nothing to do with being a beginner.

The lips are the tone generator. I will assume that you can play a low C, a second line G and a third space C reliably.

The ONLY choices are: the valves lower the pitch or they prevent air from going through/are VERY, VERY stuffy. If the horn is complete, there is no chance that they have no function.

On an open low C the pitch must change. On an open second line G, no valve and valves 1+3 CAN have the same pitch. On an open third space C, 2+3 can have the same pitch. On an open 4th space E, 3 or 1+2 can have the same pitch. For beginners, we do not need to even talk about higher notes.

If the beginner has no reliable pitch whatsoever (or just blows air through the horn), then the valve makes a difference, but the weak embouchure is not capable of sustaining any tone. In any case I suggest getting a lesson to get the hang of playing resonant tones - and getting the horn checked out. The lesson does not have to be from a virtuoso. A music teacher in school or one of the better brass players in a school or community band can speed up the learning process a lot.

It looks like a standard Bach to me. It has the finger ring, stop rod and double tuning slide brace.

I don't really think about what trumpet any artist plays, I only think about what they accomplished and with Alan, the list is long!

@oldschooleuph Even at the end of Mt. Vernon, the horns simply did not have the build quality of the "competition". That does not necessarily have anything to do with playing "well". Even a "bad" Bach had that magic core and adjusting to the playing characteristics was just something that we did back then.

The perception of the Mt. Vernons today is considerably different although the lacquer and valve issues are the two things normally necessary when refurbishing. Either the Bach lacquer was not so good or the horns were not prepped properly.

There is a swiss artisan Rene Spada that disassembles Bachs and rebuilds them with swiss precision. In my view, they are what Bach should have been all along. The Spada Bachs are simply that much better using only Bach parts. Even if I had a Mt. Vernon, I would have it disassembled, cleaned and put back together with Spadas precision and attitude. There are other artisans. I use one Rainer Jordan who has his shop close to Frankfurt.

I have had 3 Bach trumpets. A 180 B172* (new picked at Giardinellis in New York but rebuilt by Spada), a 180 B25 and a C229H (also bought from Giardinellis). I still have the 229 although in the mean time, it has been completely disassembled and rebuilt without tension as well as getting a tuning bell and a new leadpipe.

@oldschooleuph
And as fine of a horn as the Bach 180 Stradivarius is/was (when yours found you), the "build quality" in the 60s/70s/80s was worse than a student Ambassador or certainly a Schilke. Lacquer and silver plate usually developed blemishes within 3 years. For heavy players, the valves were worth refurbishing every 5 or 6 years to get compression back. Precision valve alignments had very noticable effects (sometimes even negative). Perhaps the valve wear could have been minimized with synthetic lubricants - or cleaning more often and repeated application of "Al Cass" per day. Standard for me was oiling when the horn complained or after the weekly bath.

Although there were hundreds to thousands of possibilities, Most everyone that I knew went to a store to pick one out of stock. I know of one single trumpeter that actually ordered a customized horn directly from Bach. In my opinion even today, Bach=play before you pay.

It is important to recognize context when talking about "quality". A students instrument can have a very high quality, but the focus is on different things!
A beginner handles their instrument more by "chance" than by "experience". This means that a student instrument must be very durable to insure good mechanical properties even when not regularly maintained. The next mark of a high quality student instrument is how easily it "speaks". It needs to resonate easily with good tone. The player has to hear themselves easily. The valves will not have as tight of a tolerance to prevent them from hanging when not regularly brushing teeth before playing!

I will leave out "intermediate" instruments as I personally really see no musical sense to them. We can move from a Yamaha 2xxx or 3xxx directly to the 8xxx series for instance.

Professional instruments are not "soldered or designed better" than the student instruments. The improvements are in the time it takes to manipulate the materials for a playing response more closely connected to the players intentions. Instead of "durability", materials are used that allow a greater choice of playing colors, perhaps more ease of playing extremely soft and loud. The ability for "articulation" to be heard. A more controllable transition from clear to brilliant in a crescendo. In many cases, professional instruments have considerably more manual labor in their construction and that costs money.

I certainly agree that buying a beginner a pro horn normally does no one a favor. we start on a bicycle with training wheels, not carbon fiber rims. As our use case matures, we have opportunities to offer more colorful playing. A professional instrument can help us tap those talents by giving our ears/brain less gaps to fill in. When our vocabulary and quality of musical speech warrant it, the pro horn lets us shine through more.

@_mark_
Hi Mark,
the biggest issue is simply giving yourself enough time to build the right habits the first time around. The trumpet is first and foremost a "wind instrument", and that should be your focus.

Most trumpeters go through various stages of development. We start with "whatever we can get" and advance to a level that is hard to break though. Then we figure something out (or get help) and the next step comes along. At one point in time, we all have a bit of proficiency BUT want more range and end up using pressure to get it. This is legitimate, as pressure works - up to a point. The problem is, if we build a pressure habit, we will have to break it to get to the next step. Habits are tough to break as any drinker/smoker can tell us.

When we are at this stage, we need to ask the questions - how much is improvement worth and when does it make sense to make any changes. Very often a decision is made in mid playing season and the player only ends up screwing up his own reputation.

We make changes out of playing season! We can lay the plans and make preparations but never ever take a risk during times when we can play in public!

As far as teeth go, mine are crooked and I played to the side for 30 years. Then I mage some changes in my routine (more lipslurs and longtones), and the embouchure wandered more or less to the middle where I have been playing for the last 25 years.

I had an accident 18 months ago and now have a full denture instead the bottom teeth (no choice). Thanks to the Corona season, I had time to adjust and my playing is about where it was before the accident. My Circle of Breath, Earl Irons lip flexibilities, long tones and a lot of hymnbook were the way back.

As far as a teacher goes, I really do recommend getting some lessons early to at least get the daily routine, body use and ones own expectations pointed in the right direction. After that, success is very dependent on the players motivations. Even after 55 years of playing at all levels, I still take occasional lessons - some trumpet, some body use. There is still a whole lot to learn.

Best regards and good luck,

Rowuk

My experience with Chinese instruments has been very good. We just have to understand that they do not decide on the quality, they just build to order.

When I last visited, I saw the production lines. If some customer wants a $50 trumpet, they will build it. For $51, you get some nickel silver trim, for $52, a bit thicker metal. $55 gets you a couple of mu more Monel on the valves... And so it goes up to their most expensive instruments that cost maybe $650 each (including mouthpiece, case and white gloves) when a container full is ordered. The realistically purchased instruments are VERY, VERY good!

The bad guy is not the manufacturer, rather the customer that is willing to pawn off cheap on their customers.

320kbps MP3. Respectable sound for a free download! I wonder if the original recording has better sound?

Thanks Dale for the link!

A tuner is often the worst thing that we can do to our playing. Drones, Stamp and simple duets (not recording one voice and then the next however - then only one voice "gives" - the second one!) are about the best.
The tuner is almost always wrong except for establishing a one note reference.

There are a couple of internal mechanisms for tuning, none are accessible from the intellectual level.
Drones teach us to relate with sum and difference beats
Stamp teaches to find the resonant center
Duets teach us give and take in the context of ensemble playing.

The consummate trumpeter needs it all. We need thousands of repetitions to claim "habit".

@masterwannabe Used trumpets are a buyers market - with very few exceptions. I would have no personal interest at all for me or my students. It would make a nice lamp - that is what I will do with my Monette Raja C when I retire from trumpet playing.

@masterwannabe This is, for western standards, at best an intermediate trumpet. It looks like a Bb/C instrument. It is not "rare" or "valuable" in my view.