Posts made by Trumpetb

@Dr-GO
I understand and in the context of how you use the word buzz I agree, but a vibration of the lip double reed can also be called a buzz.

I think this is where the original issues sprang from.

If the lips move together and apart rapidly then the descriptive word for the sound that they create can be called a buzz.

What can we call it if not a buzz, a stuttering of air, a rasping, a flapping, a fluttering, a thrashing, a trembling, an oscillation, a quivering. When a student blows air into a mouthpiece and no sound comes out what do we do, give them a descriptive visual clue they can understand or simply say keep blowing, until they either get it or give up.

I have seen beginners blow and blow and blow and never get a sound, or they blow for 10 minutes and a raspy tone appears and then disappears and never reappears.

I would suggest that simply avoiding using the word buzz leaves us with "blow until your lips make a noise", and that is just plain unhelpful.

In Saxaphone circles buzzing of the mouthpiece is a well known and legitimate term and some players want to cultivate that sound and they use the word buzz to describe it, so why cant we use that term.

There are Sax pages named "That classic sax buzz"

And in describing Sax buzzing it is a legitimate way of playing and producing a Sax tone.

However we slice it a desirable musical tone in woodwind can be a buzz.

So in other instruments use of the word buzz is acceptable so why is any use of the word buzz unacceptable in Trumpet.

Maybe we should define the term buzz better rather than try to stop its use entirely.

I deeply suspect that because for many decades Trumpet teachers have been teaching students to buzz, the collective knowledge is that buzzing is good, and since some buzzing is known to be bad, I submit that we need to better define the term buzz and declare what is an acceptable buzz and what is not an acceptable buzz.

I am completely opposed to buzzing myself but I see buzzing as part of correct tone generation, and there are many advocates of buzzing possibly the majority of players and teachers see buzzing practice as essential.

In my case I see myself as buzzing as part of tone generation and I speak from experience here my tone has been complemented many times over the years as being very smooth so thinking of buzzing as part of tone generation does not have to mean we produce a bad tone.

If we cannot find a slightly better definition for teachers to use then they may just ignore the issue and continue to teach buzzing as they do now and students will continue to buzz badly and maybe students will make the same mistakes over and over again.

This perhaps is an opportunity to try to make a better future by describing to beginners better than at present how we generate tone and how buzzing fits in the picture.

I see two forms of buzz, the bad buzz that you correctly oppose as do I, and the buzzing that must happen when lips vibrate together.

When playing a low pedal for example what is sounded if not a buzz.

There must be a middle ground here.

I welcome your thoughts on this DR-GO.

@Kehaulani

I too did long ago buzz wrongly - big mistake

Since then I have buzzed correctly, if I may use that odd distinction.

In my opinion there is wrong buzzing and there is correct buzzing. I need to clarify this apparently odd and bizarre statement.

Wrong buzzing is for me the creation of a buzz between the lips that can start a standing wave in an instrument and this creates an annoying raucous noise.

Correct buzzing is not something we create in order to make a standing wave appear. It is instead the result of the lips naturally vibrating together when air is passed between them.

The distinction is critical and profound, and you are absolutely right when you say "the sound emanating from a vibrating column within the horn which, in turn, causes the lips to vibrate", that is the best description I have heard for what is really happening.

Because the lips vibrate as a result of correct technique it is way too tempting to decide that making the lips vibrate is the goal and will result in correct technique, and many have made that fundamental mistake.

As in a case of placing the cart before the horse, no progress can be made when you make the buzz the goal.

I think it is the US Army Field Band who teach correct sound creation for beginners by this method - "place a tiny straw between the lips and slip a mouthpiece along it to rest on the lips, then blow into the straw steadily, and then while blowing through the straw pull the straw out and a beautiful and steady tone will then appear.

They do not teach to buzz they teach instead correct embouchure chops and mouthpiece placement coupled with a tiny and relaxed opening between the lips.

This is the lips buzzing (or vibrating) correctly as a result of correct technique and it is not buzzing in the hopes of correct technique emerging.

The buzz exists but it is a consequence of and is a result of how we play and it should never be considered what we must do in order to play.

There is an additional concern. If we play into an instrument, we can hear and the audience can hear poor tones and beautiful tones. If we just buzz our lips or into a mouthpiece it is far more difficult to hear the difference between the two and work on improving our tone.

Our task as musicians is to make the tones we produce the most beautiful humanly possible and we do this by making improvements to embouchure chops air support etc, and these changes will modify the way the lips buzz together.

What we must aspire to then is a modified buzz developed by improvements to the way we play. The buzz will take care of itself if we take care of the tone.

@Kehaulani

you do indeed count six,

He often had up to eight in the five pennies, it being more a play on his name Nichols, there being five pennies in a nickel.

The members of the Five Pennies were often major players who went on to be major band leaders themselves

Players such as Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glen Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Pee Wee Russell, Miff Mole, Joe Venuti, and Eddie Lang.

The original Five Pennies were said to be Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Artie Schutt, and Dave Tough along with Red himself.

My first exposure to Red was watching the movie "The Five Pennies" which was a great movie but sadly with little reality or truth in it.

I am pretty sure that his Five Pennies had several incarnations and formed and reformed over the years as he searched for lasting success which eluded him until he gave up music and then much later resumed his career and reformed the Pennies.

As I understand it he died unexpectedly in 1965 of a heart attack in a hotel room while on the road, and his band played the gig the next day with his cornet sitting on a chair unplayed.

That describes me kehaulani

But then its all Rubato and if the player feels it is appropriate and in keeping with the sense of the work then it can work well and be satisfying as Jazz to an adult audience.

Nursery Rhymes where the beat is rushed can be loved as any jazz work is loved and while not to the standard of Miles or Chet can get people dancing and the fact it is at heart a childish childlike melody makes them love it all the more when played in fast paced Dixieland style.

@barliman2001

My information is slightly different, so I offer it.

He was baptised Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart

At its root, Amadeus comes from the third of his long line of middle names, Theophilus: a Greek name meaning ‘lover of God’ or ‘loved by God’. In its German form, it translates as ‘Gottlieb’ while in Latin, it becomes ‘Amadeus’.

During his lifetime, Mozart did sign some letters in mock Latin as ‘Wolfgangus Amadeus Mozartus’, adding ‘us’ to the end of each name that lacked it presumably to make all his names sound latin-ish. If we reject Mozartus as being a comic affectation of Mozart should we not also reject Amadeus as a comic affectation of Amade.

He also morphed his name it is said into Wolfgango Amadeo, which later became Wolfgang Amade from about 1777.

He signed his name ‘Wolfgang Amade Mozart on his marriage certificate so perhaps this is the more correct name - Amade, as you say.

It was deemed pretty normal to translate your name into other languages in Mozart’s day but I feel we really should use only the names appearing in official documents where possible, as we have seen it quickly becomes very messy if we dont, particularly if the man himself uses many alternates as Mozart appears to have done.

Later upon his death the magistrate registering his death in Vienna entered this into his records - Wolfgang Amadeus.

I suspect that the magistrate in Vienna did not have the benefit of knowing he was baptised Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, and lacked the inclination to research it, and perhaps saw no problem using the name often given to Mozart of Amadeus, and Mozart was not around to correct the magistrate and set the record straight.

And after that it all collapsed when Amadeus became the usual and accepted name for Mozart in society.

So which should we use, his Birth name, his name upon death entered into the documents of his passing, translations in other languages, his preferred name, or the name that society has decreed he be called.

I do not feel confident enough with all the confusion to disagree with your contention, you seem to have good sources, but I feel things are too confused to completely agree with you on this topic of what Mozart was really called given the time that has elapsed since his death and the confusion of history.

I guess all we can deduce is, his parents liked Theophilus, he himself liked both Amade and Amadeo, and the public liked Amadeus.

Perhaps then like so many things, when asked what his real name was, the only answer that can be correct is, - it depends.

And for me, if the viennese magistrate who registered his death did it wrongly as that of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus instead of his correct name of Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. then surely we can argue that Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart did not die, and he therefore lives on.

I have no issues with a Cafe calling itself Amadeus considering that Mozart was not officially called or named Amadeus, other than in after his death.

The name was simply a nickname that was used when discussing Mozart and it means loved by God.

Although I understand that Mozart himself did once call himself Amadeus.

I cant think of a better name for a Cafe than the Loved by God Cafe. Seems appropriate if you make really good food.

I applaud the thread and the attempts to understand jazz/swing but I question the wisdom of it.

I do not think that we can come to understand jazz by separating it into parts and analysing those parts any more than we can hope to understand a cat by separating it into its parts.

We will have its parts, a head, a body a tail, four legs and perhaps can understand those. But it will yield nothing of value of the entire cat. We wont see a cat anymore all we will see is a dead cat. Life will be missing.

As in walking we all know how to walk but if we try to examine walking as we do it, and then try to improve our walking by thinking of all the activities we do as we do them, shifting the weight swinging the leg placing the heel rolling the foot shifting the weight lifting the other foot, we end up stumbling and can no longer walk well. Life will be missing.

Paralysis through analysis means just that and I have heard enough jazz that has benefitted from analysis to know where problems appear when we base jazz upon analysis.

A series of well studied runs, a bunch of licks and short phrases borrowed from well known musical cliches sounds artificial and unmusical. Once more, life will be missing.

I would trust the words of kehaulani on jazz even if my life depended upon it, "jazz" as he so eloquently said "is an aural art" and I believe it can only be truly understood if studied as a whole all together and not analysed and studied in parts.

Scientists are very fond of analysis but not all things can be analysed with any hope of attaining understanding. We can analyse sunflowers by Van Gogh, we can come to understand the colours, the forms, the brush strokes, but the beauty of the work and how it is created eludes us.

We cannot understand beauty or life in art by studying the mechanical methods of its construction.

And so it is with Jazz.

Jazz can be copied emulated and duplicated, but none of these copies is at all convincing, there is life and soul present in jazz that is missing in these copies, and it is I think this life and soul that Miles tried so hard to capture in recordings through his career.

Louis Armstrong did not try to break jazz down into parts he understood I think that trying to analyse and describe jazz in parts is a tempting trap that can lead nowhere, and he refused to fall into that trap, his words ring loud in my ears. "Jazz, you will know it when you hear it".

Word

from rowuk

Pardon me for jumping in on the question of the difference between martin committee and martin deluxe committee instruments but I may have some valid comments.

Trent Austin of Austin Custom Brass who I regard as an authority on horns has said that the martin committee deluxe trumpet was produced with additional nickel parts that were not present on the committee trumpet.

The martin committee cornet was also produced in two variants plain brass committee cornet and brass with nickel elements on the committee deluxe cornet.

Trent has said that the addition of more nickel parts on instruments makes the horns play slightly brighter.

This is certainly true with the Olds Special trumpet the special was produced as an all brass instrument and later as an all nickel plated instrument. It is said that the nickel plated version played brighter than the all brass model.

As I understand it many players prefer the darker smoky sound of the all brass committee and this could perhaps explain the higher prices commanded by the original all brass martin committees over the deluxe models with nickel plated parts.

I have never played on any martins so dont roast me on this opinion.

@administrator your posts are very welcome and come from personal experience honestly stated.

I value your comments and they have as much merit as anyones.

I love this site because we all have our own experiences and we share them and our collective knowledge grows because of it.

Personally speaking I love to be disagreed with, I usually learn something new.

I would go so far as to say that your experiences and similar comments from others perhaps will contribute to better instrument design in the future that could result in better playing american cornets. I think it is important to make these experiences visible so the industry can act upon them.

I want to add this as well your experience of american cornets sounding too like trumpets and stuffiness and tuning issues are experienced is far too common amongst players for us to be dismissive of it and I am glad you stated that.

We cannot run from issues we must face them and your comments helped us face those issues.

long may you keep posting administrator.

@J-Jericho aint that the truth.

There is the additional element of driver that is critically important and the drivers mouthpiece choice is part of the mix and can defeat the whole enterprise or enhance it.

We talk of cornet and trumpet as though they are different and to some extent they are but I liken this to different cars

A station wagon is different to an offroader a daytona 500 racer is different to a drag racer and all are different to a formula1 but they are all cars and all require different driving styles.

Is a maybach an automobile and a bmw 500 series is a car, both do the same job but both drive differently.

It seems churlish to say if you want a car you have to buy a bmw because a maybach is not really a car.

Shepherds crook cornet players often say an american long cornet is not really a true cornet, so it must be a trumpet or a flugel or should we make up a new name for it.

As far as I am aware the civil war cornets did not play the same as shepherds crook cornets do today so it is reasonable to ask, if a civil war cornet is a real cornet how can it be claimed that a modern shepherds crook cornet is a real cornet.

Or are we going to claim that whatever we like is the real deal and in a few years when we prefer something else we will ditch the shepherds crook cornet as not being a real cornet after all.

I think the truth is many people claim that the instrument they like is the only authentic instrument and all the others are not. It is a kind of oneupmanship.

Should we invent a new name for peashooter trumpets because they are not real trumpets, and if we change the mouthpiece so the instrument plays differently must we change the name of the instrument, "I am not playing a trumpet I am now playing a mariachi mumpet"

I am all for simplifying things not making them more complex. all vehicles are cars, all trumpets are trumpets all cornets are cornets.

And the committee cornet is a fine instrument.

First of all there is no doubt that the members in here are all of a very high quality and any difference is not going to be due to any lack or otherwise of skills.

My own experience is that all instruments are different and that goes for differences between trumpets and trumpets between cornets and cornets and between cornets and trumpets.

They do play differently there is no doubt but it is subtle and can easily trip me up.

When I grab a cornet or a trumpet and begin to blow the instrument can easily say to me, whoa buddy just who do you think you are then it opposes me and squeeks at me. But if I blow sympathetically the instrument rewards me and plays beautifully. It can sometimes take a lot of work,

The venerable long cornet Conn 80a, sold 24,000 units over a 50 year period, you dont sell that many units if the instruments fundamentally are out of tune or stuffy. I would look elsewhere for the explanation of why.

I would suggest that maybe it is the approach of the player, the differences in air support, the embouchure, the blow, the tonal concept, the articulation, and a heap of other things that we bring to our performance that is where the main differences between the cornet and the trumpet lie.

What works on a trumpet does not always work on a cornet and vice versa.

Here are three players cutting a rug, Al Hirt on trumpet Pete Candoli on trumpet and Red Nichols on cornet.

I am not sure the instruments that Pete and AL played on in this clip but I believe Red played on his regular 1937 Olds Super L.A. cornet.

I dont see how trumpet players would have a problem with a cornet they have the same range and both have the same 3 valves that work in the same way.

Why should they be different as long as the mouthpiece for each is selected with care.

And on the topic of the thread, I believe there is no reason to believe the committee cornet to be in any way inferior to the committee trumpet

Yes it is a very good way of preventing workers from disappearing but it is also a very good way of tying workers to their employer preventing them from ever leaving and forcing them to stay without any pay rises forcing them to stay even if they never get paid at all for their work. This is bonded slavery in all but name.

It is open to abuse and is used in arabic countries to force americans who leave america looking for a good life to stay in a company without receiving any pay having been promised huge pay great conditions and a great lifestyle but when they get there they find their documents held permanently with no pay in poor conditions and it is illegal for them to leave their employer or the country, it is easy to say if americans dont like it they shouldnt have gone to work there but that is avoiding the issue. If the company had no intention of paying westerners for their work they should not have employed them and enticed them to leave their home country.

I dont wish to turn this into a political debate, but these things have to be faced, Japan is not perfect they can be restrictive and abusive toward foreigners and simply because one has not seen abuse while there does not mean it doesnt exist and it doesnt happen.

There is modern white slaving and slavery happening in my own home town in england one of the most developed nations in the west.

If there is a system however well intentioned, that can be used to abuse people, then evil people will use that system to abuse people. It happens in arabia it happens in england it happens in france it happens in germany it happens in america and it happens in japan, it doesnt just happen in the places we dont like.

It is usually hidden from public gaze and hidden from us so we dont even know it is happening.

And Japan mistreats its native japanese workers as well. There are thousands of unemployed and unemployable japanese who have worked but will never get a job and work again, the Japanese system is not constructed to help japanese people back into work it is never envisaged you will ever lose your job, and those who do and suffer are hidden from public gaze so foreign visitors never know they exist and never know it is happening.

I am not bashing Japan I am not making political points here, I am saying Japan has its problems as do the arabian states as does the west all nations have issues and problems and these can only be addressed and made better if we recognise they exist.

Wise words indeed kehaulani, generalising about people is usually unwise.

My own experience of japanese people is as a personal student of several japanese teachers who were sometimes stern sometimes aloof often very good natured and always respectful.

Also I have experience of working with japanese colleagues who were polite caring and very welcoming, I was invited to their homes and always observed correct ettiquette.

I am confronted however with the reported experience of others who have suffered a poor reception in Japan typically from youths who perhaps should know better but then youths will be youths.

I have also read an account authored by a distinguished korean who suffered prejudice when first visiting Japan.

My expectation is that the japanese mafia would be as unwelcoming to foreigners as are gangs in the west. I have direct experience of that myself in the west.

I should add that I have studied japanese history and culture and the gaijin prejudice was very real and still appears even today.

I will cite this extract from wikipedia as evidence of present day discrimination against foreigners.

"Non-Japanese individuals in Japan often face human rights violations that Japanese citizens may not. In recent years, non-Japanese media has reported that Japanese firms frequently confiscate the passports of guest workers in Japan, particularly unskilled laborers. Critics call this practice, which is legal and encouraged in Japan, coercive and a form of human trafficking."

Having said this I do like the japanese but we have to accept they have problems in society like we do.

Great insight kehaulani. The Mafia I am more familiar with is sardinian corsican and italian mafias.

japan was always an anachronism and remains so to this day.

We foreigners were the hated gaijin - outsider peoples who many native japanese despised and I suspect the yakuza didnt like much.

On the other hand I have had wonderful relations with normal japanese people they are very welcoming.

As for getting 15 dollars from a venue for an appearance I have never been paid anything by any venue in england.

They are all talk and no trousers.

people in the street are far more generous and more giving than venues in my experience. I only know 6 venues who will pay musicians any money at all and this is a huge city with 2.8 million residents.

One band I met a few months ago, an ensemble of 3 who were paid had driven 200 miles and paid their own expenses fuel etc, and they only received 25 english pounds between them for the day.

That 25 pounds would only take the van halfway or 100 miles so they operated at a monumental loss.

But it is no good wishing things were different it is what it is and it is up to us to find a way forward. I make enough to get by and that is all we can hope.

respect to you kehaulani sir.

I have seen gangland at work and have a little knowledge of how the mafia operated back in the day so this link between Armstrong and the mafia in no way alarms me.

Mafia were a family and worked by giving and calling in of favors much like a union.

I might ask a mafia boss to help me with a problem, getting paid for a gig for example, and then if he helped recover the debt I would owe the boss a favor. he might call this favor in by expecting me to play at his daughters wedding as a freebie.

Mafia involvement in working practices was a way of life especially as a musician working in mafia owned clubs or speakeasys. It was unavoidable, or you simply got no work.

Working with the Mafia but for non mafia clients was a way to ensure payment from the non mafia clients. And in return some form of dues would be demanded.

Gamblers sometimes worked with Mafia partners not because of Mafia threats but because the gambler knew that the Mafia would collect the gamblers winnings for him., and take the agreed cut. But the cut was less than the losses if the loser ran off as a bad debt and refused to pay.

Today musicians have huge problems with payment, I have experienced these myself.

Clients and venues expecting a musician to pay the client or venue to get the gig, or expecting the musician to buy 500 tickets in advance and then sell those tickets to raise some money for the gig when the venue should be paying its own costs its advertising and selling tickets. Pay for Play.

Venues telling musicians that there will be no fee at all for the gig it will be good exposure and help build the musicians career.

Venues agreeing to pay the musician and then after a successful gig where the venue make tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, no money appears. Or the venue cancels the gig at last minute with no compensation.

The Mafia acted honestly compared to these dishonest practices by so called honest people today.

I am not trying to justify the Mafia and their practices here but a musician could starve to death at the hands of honest folk.

It is said keep an artist hungry, and the starving artist is well known cliche, but the music industry seems to have taken the idea of the starving artist as their duty to make musicians starve.

After all there are plenty of young musicians just starting out who will work for nothing and be glad of getting the gig.

I deeply suspect that your conductor had no idea of your quality and that of your daily driver instrument.

Flugels I am led to believe can be somewhat skittish and variable. I must admit somewhat shamefully that I have never played on one.

Just having the name Bach or strad on an instrument is not an absolute guarantee of quality and beauty of tone even though the strad 135 is well respected, especially if the instrument is the worst for wear and has suffered a hard life.

It seems to me that if he knew about flugels he would have recognised your courtois 154r as one of the very best you can play. (going by reputation here).

I like that he reversed his decision when faced with the truth.

@administrator

Do not regret this purchase at all.

It is a magnificent instrument and beyond anything I have or could aspire to.

It will I am sure move you to a place in your playing and development where you and your audiences have huge satisfaction and enjoyment.

We all look back on our decisions and are tempted to question them but I firmly believe that we make the best decisions we can when we make them, this is therefore the best decision you could have made.

This is a great instrument and it can help you achieve greatness.

Thanks guys I shall ponder your words