Posts made by SSmith1226

This covers two current discussions:


@dale-proctor said in [Trumpet playing Christmas marathon is over!]

So, what have all of you been playing/rehearsing for the holidays?

From Dec 2-15, nine performances and multiple rehearsals. The longest performance was 2 hours, the shortest performance was 1 hr, and the rest were 90 minutes. Three were Christmas Big Band performances and six were Brass Choir Performances.

Holy Crap!!! The Bot’s “User Name” isn’t HAL 9000, is it?

@barliman2001 said in Looking for F trumpet:

To make quite clear why I am looking for an F Alto trumpet: Together with a few other people, I've founded an amateur original sound orchestra here in Vienna. We don't go for Baroque original sound - too expensive for amateurs - but rather for Classical and Romantic era music. Lots of the trumpet parts at this time were written for trumpet in F... so any hybrids or weirdos like Frumpets are out of the question.

Here is another “out of the question” “hybrid and Weirdo”, the Berkeley Double Bell Bb/F Trumpet. The F side plays through a single bell configuration. The video starts with Bb version and at 1:12 switches configuration and plays on the F Trumpet. Later, it switches bells, I believe back to Bb configuration using a piccolo trumpet bell, playing on a standard Bb length trumpet.
Never the less, since the F Trumpets are quirky at best, generally with intonation and accuracy problems, this should fit right in!

I would follow your Surgeon’s advice as far as when you can start playing, as well as Dr Go’s advice as far as how to start a playing routine. Remember, according to Claude Gordon, trumpet playing is no harder than breathing. If it were me, as a Surgeon and amateur trumpet player, when it is time to start playing, I would start, perhaps with Clarke’s 1 & 2, Chichowicz, and perhaps with long tone’s, all pianissimo as far as you could go without pain, light headedness, and stress. I would then expand my practice, as Dr. Go describes. Remember, if it hurts, don’t do it. While you are waiting to start playing the trumpet, perhaps now is a good time to start pencil exercises, without blowing. If you do this, or other non playing exeecises, please give us a report whether this helps.
Good luck with your recovery and stay healthy! Your trumpet playing is of secondary importance until you heal and regain your health.

@kehaulani said in How to Use Breath Support to Fatten Your Sound and Fix Intonation:

Fair enough. I will say, though, that whether performing on sax or trumpet, I was never conscious of my support being different.

I frankly never gave any thought to woodwind instrument air support before reading this article, but it makes perfect sense that they would be the same. The same hold true for vocal air support. It was interesting for me to read this individual’s experience as well as to hear your interpretation as well, being both a professional brass and woodwind player.
As far as George’s experience, getting lessons early in his exposure to trumpet, which included concepts of air support, he was very fortunate. I started playing the trumpet in 1957 and quit in 1972 or 1973. I took lessons, not only in school, but over the years, privately as well. I do not recall any discussion or instruction about air support. It was not until my comeback in 2016 that this concept became known to me, first on YouTube Videos and then multiple teachers and colleagues. Without exception, my current colleagues of my age range, who are comeback players had a similar experience of lack of exposure to these concepts in their earlier phase of playing.

@kehaulani said in How to Use Breath Support to Fatten Your Sound and Fix Intonation:

So, all of that text means . . what?

As I said in my introductory paragraph, the purpose of the posting of the information expressed, at least to me, was to open an updated non contentious discussion of “air support”, which is a universal important aspect of wind instrument and vocal performers, centered on the perspective of a woodwind performer. I realize that you are a professional who is proficient in multiple brass and woodwind instruments, so this discussion may not seem relevant to you, but perhaps it is relevant to others, or perhaps not.

I know that there have been multiple discussions in the past on “Air Support”, but today I stumbled on an informative article from a saxophone site, “thebestsaxophonewebsiteever.com”. Perhaps some of you may find the perspective of a saxophonist interesting. I am not trying to stir up a high energy contentious debate, but hopefully will stimulate a productive discussion, since air support is necessary not only for all wind instrumentalists, but for vocalists as well. The link to the full article is:
https://www.bestsaxophonewebsiteever.com/how-to-use-breath-support-to-fatten-your-sound-and-fix-intonation/

The main “meat” of the article is below:

DECEMBER 6, 2022
How to Use Breath Support to Fatten Your Sound and Fix Intonation
By Doron Orenstein

To anyone who’s ever played a wind instrument, the advice to use proper air support is not exactly “insider information”. We’ve all heard it before, many times.

Over the course of my years on the saxophone, I certainly have been advised to “support the air from the diaphragm” , but I have to admit – for a long time, I didn’t know the exact reason that breath support mattered so much.

A Game-Changing Revelation
Some time ago, I had the privilege of a private lesson with the great altoist, Will Vinson (here’s a link to an ancient interview I did with him many years ago). I told him that I was struggling with a thin and shrill quality in my upper register, to which he dryly replied, “you do realize you play the alto saxophone(?)“.

In addition to his reassuring and hilarious response to my admission of upper-register challenges, upon watching me play, he shed some light on my above-the-staff woes by pointing out that I wasn’t taking very big breaths in between phrases. And I’ve come to find out that the size of my breaths was at the heart of my problem.

The “Garden Hose Method” of Breath
To illustrate the importance of maximizing my breath support, Will offered me the best analogy I’ve heard on the topic to date, and it goes a little something like this…

Let’s say you have a hose with a weak flow of water that isn’t traveling very far. Now, one way to make that water shoot out farther would be to partially cover the opening at the end of the hose with your thumb – and that does get the water moving out a bit farther. But, although the water is indeed traveling farther, you’ll notice that the flow is also unfocused, since your thumb is causing it to splinter into two or more separate trajectories.

The better way to provide the desired water pressure is to, of course, simply have a stronger and more focused flow of water coming out of the pipes in the first place, so that you don’t need to compromise its power and accuracy using the thumb on the hose hack.

“Thanks for the gardening lesson, but how does this apply to my playing?“
And the answer to that question can be found in our tendency to pinch the mouthpiece more and more as we move up to those notes at the upper end of the horn’s register. So because those higher notes require more air power, our lower jaw is, in effect, acting like a thumb on the garden hose.

Don’t “Thumb Your Hose” at Proper Air Support
Just like the boosted water flow from the obstructed opening at the end of the hose, when we artificially boost the air pressure by clamping down on the mouthpiece, it’s as though our sound is getting splintered, resulting in a less focused tonal quality. On top of that, the added pressure from the jaw dampens the vibration in the reed, making for a “thinner” sound that’s devoid of the diverse array of overtones and partials that make for that big and rich saxophone sound we all strive for.

And if all of that wasn’t enough, adding to our unfortunate smorgasbord of tonal issues is poor intonation, as the tightened jaw for the upper register notes brings the pitch up excessively in proportion to the octave below.

Transferring Your Energy
One concept that’s been quite helpful to me has been thinking of taking any energy that I am using in my jaw to clamp down, and transferring that energy to my diaphragm/air flow. That might sound sort of odd, but thinking about it this way allows me to keep the jaw pressure for the upper register more or less the same as it would be for the octave below, with the main difference being the slight rolling in of the lip for the higher notes and vice versa for the lower.

The Result
Once you’re in the habit powering those high notes with air volume rather than air constriction, you’ll find that your sound in the upper register is:

bigger and “richer” as a result of the reed being freed up to allow for more overtones/upper partials
more in tune
more consistent in timbre to the lower register, giving you an added level of evenness of sound
On top of that, you’ll find that you are able to play for longer without your jaw muscles getting tired out.

“Three-Part Breathing” Explained and Demonstrated
One way to add air support is a technique known as “Three-Part Breathing”, and I’ll leave it to one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic of saxophone sound production to teach you that – none other than the legendary Dave Liebman.

The links below will take you to an intro as well as a demonstration of this method, which is a progression of simple exercises you can do with each practice session to increase the amount of available air behind your sound.

The following videos are taken from Liebman’s course, The Ultimate Guide to Saxophone Sound Production, which in my (totally unbiased but honest as the course’s publisher’s) opinion, is, literally, the best video course on the subject you will find anywhere.

Three-Part Breathing (the intro)
Three-Part Breathing (the exercises)
Conclusion
So by now, hopefully you have a better understanding of why it is that we’re told to “support from the diaphragm” and in watching the videos above, have a new technique for doing just that.

So I encourage you to take this information to heart, and to the shed, and see for yourself just how much you can “fatten” your sound and fix your intonation with killer air support!
Doron Orenstein
I've been playing the sax since the late 80's, but my musical journey has run quite the gamut. The musical rap sheet includes tours with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and reggae master Half Pint, center stage at the L.A. Music Center, cozy cafes, raucous night clubs, gear-drenched studios, and the pinnacle of any musician's career - playing weddings in New Jersey! (duh). There's a lot of other stuff too, but you should be reading these blog posts and leaving comments instead. Now off you go!
→ Doron Orenstein

The following is a link to a December 2, 2022 “Science Friday” discussion of this subject. It is worth taking 10 minutes to listen to it.

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/science-jazz-music-swing/

@bigdub said in Artist on BOARD:

My video which I posted on YouTube just 2 months ago has generated 933 views so far. I would love to reach that 1K plateau soon.
If you wouldn’t mind taking a look ( that’s all you have to do ), you don’t have to like or comment, just look. I may make it with your help!
Thanks for all the support! And a big thanks to Steve Snith for encouraging me to go for it!

If Jon Nagy could see this, he would both be proud and jealous of you!

“Breathe Again” = “Live Again”

After Covid, Playing Trumpet Taught Me How to Breathe Again

The benefits of group (music) therapy.

By Shea Tuttle
Nov. 29, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
Our director stepped onto the podium, and the auditorium stilled to an expectant silence. The black sequins on her conducting dress flared in the stage lights; the audience behind her was lost to the glare. With a glance and a whispered word, she gave us final instructions. As she raised her baton, we all breathed in time; on the downbeat, we exploded into sound. The song was “The Hounds of Spring,” by Alfred Reed, and I can still hear the opening bars. That concert, the entirety of which felt downright enchanted, propelled me into music college, where I studied music education, learning the basics of a dozen instruments so I could teach them someday. After a year, I turned in my loaner instruments, transferred to a new school and changed my major. At 18, I wanted to save the world, and I thought I could do it better some other way.

Two decades later, in November 2020, worn out by lockdown, I longed to use my mind for something other than worry, to fill my living room with a sound that wasn’t the tinny, competing voices of my children’s virtual school. I played the trumpet for only a couple of months during college, after working with woodwinds and strings in high school, and I imagined studying fingering charts again and summoning a sense memory of correct embouchure. I messaged my middle-school band director, a brass player, and we swapped listings until I sent her the model number of a solid, beginner-level trumpet for $70. Two minutes later, her reply: “Oh, yes! Grab it!” Reconnecting with the trumpet was a delight, but playing alone in my living room was a discipline I didn’t keep for long.

Covid caught up to me in May of this year. My symptoms were not dangerous, but they were persistent; I counted 12 days, 14, 16, and I still couldn’t eat normally or function for more than a few hours without exhaustion and physical pain. My mental-health symptoms, meanwhile, were devastating and worsened as the days passed. I couldn’t see the point of anything; I couldn’t stop crying; I couldn’t imagine a time when these things would change.

I left the house, in those days, only to go to my daughter’s softball games, a five-minute drive from home, where I could prop myself in a camp chair yards from anyone else, sip Gatorade and feel the sun on my back. If life is pointless, I thought, thank God for softball. And then I thought, OK — if life is pointless, then why not do some things just because they’re fun?

So I decided to relearn trumpet in a more committed way: by joining a community band. I found a no-audition ensemble near me and filled out the online interest form. I received a welcome text from my new section leader and a card in the mail, telling me how the band was sure to be better because I had joined. The first time I attended rehearsal, I played a single note, badly, then spent the rest of the 90 minutes listening. Throughout the following week, I practiced at home every day, switching on the metronome and playing long tones until my lips gave out. When the next Tuesday evening rolled around, I could play. Not well, but well enough. It felt astonishing, a revelation: Sometimes, things get better instead of worse.

The trumpet only has three keys, called valves, which are played in seven combinations to make all of the possible notes. Depressing the first valve, for instance, can produce a low B-flat, an F, a higher B-flat, a D and several other notes I can’t reach. The difference between one and another depends on the frequency of the lips’ buzz. It is equal parts science and art. And it’s more difficult than I remembered.

Nonetheless, on Tuesday nights, I grab my $70 trumpet and load my backpack with music, stand, mute, fingering chart, valve oil and slide grease, plus a towel to catch the mix of spit and condensation that brass players insist on calling “water.” I slip in the door, nodding to my fellow third trumpets as I set up and warm up. When the conductor — the volunteer director of this band for 42 years — raises his baton, I count like mad, leave out the notes I know full well I can’t hit and do my best on the others. I spend rehearsal listening, hard, to try to merge myself into the whole. Seventy of us — blue-collar workers and office administrators and retirees, woodwinds and brass and percussionists — count and breathe and quite literally vibrate together. We’re often out of tune or unpracticed. We sometimes dissolve into chaos, and then laughter. When time is up, I pack my bag, nod to my section mates again and slip back out the door into the night.

In the months following my Covid infection, the most severe depression of my life gave way to the most severe anxiety. Normal days were rife with triggers: the car, the office, meetings, therapy, food, the doctor, social engagements. Community-band rehearsal was no exception, but I went anyway.

I wasn’t always sure why. It was, as I had hoped, fun. But it was also more. Tracking the notes, counting the beats, linking the notes on the page to the correct fingering, frequency, breath and duration — it seems like a miracle that it ever works. Multiply that by 70 players, and it can feel like witnessing the impossible. Somehow community band did what I knew music could do when I enrolled in college, before I changed my mind about my future: It saved me. It drew me out — of my home, of my head. It taught me how to breathe again.

Shea Tuttle is the author of “Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers,” co-author with Michael G. Long of “Phyllis Frye and the Fight for Transgender Rights” and co-editor of two collections on faith and justice.

@dr-go said in What are you listening to?:

An amazing example of teamwork:

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1587756054984781

Another example of teamwork!

@dr-go said in What are you listening to?:

An amazing example of teamwork:

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1587756054984781

Try this one!

If you can’t find a “F Alto Trumpet”, condider the following:
I have seen “F Getzen Frumpets” on Ebay. I don’t know what mouthpiece they use.
F Mellophone is a possible option. Some, I believe accept a trumpet shank. Mellophones also take a dedicated Mellophone Mouthpiece or a French Horn Mouthpiece with an adapter.
Carol Brass makes a G / Bb Trumpet that uses a standard mouthpiece if you don’t mind transposing down a step.

Interesting analysis on why we forward jokes:

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead:

He remembered dying and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road.

It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.

When he was standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was close enough, he called out. "Excuse me, where are we?"

"This is Heaven sir." The man answered.

"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?"
The man asked.

Of course, sir. Come right in and I’ll have some ice water brought right up. The man gestured and the gate began to open.

"Can my friend?" Gesturing toward his dog, ’come in, too." The traveller asked.

"I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets."

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence.

As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

"Excuse me." He called to the man. "Do you have any water?"

"Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there, come on in."

"How about my friend here’ the traveller gestured to the dog?"

"There should be a bowl by the pump."

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.

The traveller filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.

"What do you call this place?" The traveller asked.

"This is Heaven." He answered.

"Well, that’s confusing." The traveller said. "The man down the road said that was Heaven, too."

"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That’s hell."

"Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?"

"No, we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind’.

Soooo...

Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding jokes to us without writing a word.
Maybe this will explain.

When you are very busy, but still want to keep in touch, guess what you do?
You forward jokes.

When you have nothing to say, but just want to keep in contact, you forward jokes.

When you have something to say, but don’t know what and don’t know how, you forward jokes.

Also to let you know that you are still remembered, you are still important, you are still loved, you are still cared for, guess what you get?

A forwarded joke.

So, next time if you get a joke, don’t think that you’ve been sent just another forwarded joke, but that you’ve been thought of today and your friend on the other end of your computer wanted to send you a smile.

You are welcome at my water bowl anytime!

@kehaulani said in Wynton Marsalis to help Michigan marching band ring in 125th Anniversary at halftime:

Damn. Wynton and the entire JLC Band imported? Wonder what that cost?

Probably “A drop in the bucket”. To put things into perspective, Jim Harbaugh, the University of Michigan Head Football Coach’s salary is reported to be $7.08 million this year. 100,000 people were in the stands representing millions of dollars of ticket sales this game alone, concessions, parking, sponsorship, as well as TV money involved. On top of that, “The University Musical Society, a nonprofit affiliated with the University of Michigan and one of the oldest performing arts presenters in the country, brought Marsalis and his orchestra to southeast Michigan for the residency. It includes a pair of concerts at the school’s Hill Auditorium as well as masterclasses and workshops, plus a performance for K-12 students and a visit to a federal prison.”

Wynton Marsalis, The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and the University of Michigan Marching Band “Hybrid Half Time Show”:

@kehaulani said in Wynton Marsalis to help Michigan marching band ring in 125th Anniversary at halftime:

I can't Find anything preceding 1900. Its precursors were Ragtime and the Blues, with a touch of Western Marching Band.

I by no means am a music, or music history scholar / authority. The following is a quote from the link below from the National Park Service. I suspect that this, or a similar source, is where the “M Live” author of the article I originally quoted got their information and came up with the 1895 date. If the government says it’s true, it must be true, or at least a matter of semantics.

”The early development of jazz in New Orleans is most associated with the popularity of bandleader Charles "Buddy" Bolden, an "uptown" cornetist whose charisma and musical power became legendary. After playing briefly with Charley Galloway’s string band in 1894, Bolden formed his own group in 1895. During the next decade he built a loyal following, entertaining dancers throughout the city (especially at Funky Butt Hall, which also doubled as a church, and at Johnson and Lincoln Parks). In 1906 he collapsed while performing in a street parade. The following year he was institutionalized at the state sanitarium at Jackson for the remainder of his life...”

https://www.nps.gov/jazz/learn/historyculture/jazz_history.htm

According to “M Live”, 

“Wynton Marsalis to help Michigan marching band ring in 125th Anniversary at halftime

ANN ARBOR, MI - Jazz and the University of Michigan Marching Band are around the same age.
Jazz historians say that while the genre evolved over the 19th century, a commonly accepted origin was in New Orleans around 1895, according to NewOrleans.com.
A year after that, Harry dePont gathered gathered around 30 musicians on UM’s campus in Ann Arbor to establish a student-run marching band, according to the band’s website. In the fall of 1897, band leader Lewellyn Renwick and his musicians accompanied the football team to Detroit to perform during a 14-0 victory by Michigan over Minnesota.
This fall marks the band’s 125th anniversary, and during halftime at this weekend’s football game, its history will merge with the legacy of American jazz in a show with one of the genre’s living icons.
Wynton Marsalis, a 9-time Grammy Award winner and the first jazz musician to win a Pulitzer Prize for composition -- along with his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra -- will collaborate with the marching band at halftime of Michigan’s home football game Saturday against Penn State.….”

To read the rest of the article, use the link below. Videos relative to this are below aa well.

 https://mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2022/10/wynton-marsalis-to-help-michigan-marching-band-ring-in-125th-anniversary.html