It's like I've always said...

MannyLaureano · Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 5:38 am Post subject:

Okay, so there I am, listening to this year's Youth Symphony auditions and it's brass day and I'm listening to the trumpets.

My habit is to begin writing comments such as what they're playing, what movement, just before they start to play. I do that so they don't have the awkward sense that I'm suddenly reacting to something they've played by grabbing a pencil and scrawling in the middle of their performance.

One young player began playing and I kept writing for quite a while as he sounded very well. Big sound, confident, technic all together, happy playing; just what I love hearing in a young person. Eventually I looked up after about 30 seconds and here's this kid with an embouchure that quite literally had the mouthpiece almost under the left nostril!

I smiled broadly and said to myself "Wait until I tell the THers about this...".

Ya gotta love it. It's about clarity and the happy sound not about anything else. He's new to the program and if he accepts the assigned orchestra position I look forward to watching him grow musically over the next few years.

Incidentally, just to let you know a little about the Minnesota Youth Symphonies program we have three symphonic orchestras and one young string orchestra. I conduct the top orchestra and our repertoire for this year includes, "Blurrr" which is a piece the MO premiered last year. Capriccio Espagnol, Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche, and the Second Suite from Daphnis and Chloe. There'll be more tunes to be decided.

Since we have so many groups that perform on the same concert I'm not always able to program complete large symphonies which is too bad. But I have usually about 40 minutes of programming I can do. We've done opera acts and movements of Mahler symphonies such as the 3rd and 2nd to name a few.

I'm proud of the program because about 17 years ago it was dying and that's when we got the co-directorship, my wife and I. It's been a labor of love rebuilding it and the students are magnificent, they really are. Such great kids.

Cheers, and stop looking at embouchures! : )

Manny Laureano

drtrumpet1 · Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 5:57 am Post subject:

I am so glad to hear someone in a position of prominence say that! My own particular embrochure is off to the right - the edge of the mouthpiece just about lines up with the center of my lip, and my bottom lip flattens out when I play. I am making a few adjustments, but for the most part, this setup has worked for me through successful all-state tryouts, college scholarship auditions, and juries. Now I just need to make it work for the pro gigs.

Thanks again for focusing on the music!

Guy NoVa · Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:13 am Post subject:

Not too long ago I got involved in a little personal research project -- something that I suspect others might have done also. I spent a couple of weeks, off and on, searching the internet for decently close-up pictures of the embouchures of great (and not-so-great) trumpet players. Mostly I was interested in how high or low they placed the mouthpiece on their lips. But what I noticed pretty quickly -- to my great surprise -- was that many (and maybe even MOST) of the pictures I gathered showed the mouthpiece off to one side or the other, rather than being centered horizontally. Not a whole lot off to the side, but definitely not centered. Nonetheless, I keep my own mouthpiece pretty well centered. Seems to work and keeps my teacher from getting all wrought up.

I also (accidentally) found a picture of Tom Cruise showing him with a big toothy smile: WOW are his teeth misaligned! One of his two front teeth is centered under his nose, instead of having one tooth on either side of the centerline. I showed this to my wife to prove that -- HA! -- I've got way better teeth (at least) than Tom Cruise!
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Mikeytrpt · Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:16 am Post subject:

According to my wife, Tom Cruise has plenty of ASSets besides his teeth.

(Women........Go Figure..)

But I agree. I have seen very few pros with the mouthpiece dead center, both horizontally and vertically.

The mouthpiece will go where it wants to go.

Mike

budfan · Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:28 am Post subject:

Mr. Laureano, What struck me about reading this post (besides the unusual embouchure) was the fact that you are concerned with putting (and/or keeping) the auditioner at ease. I know if I were auditioning, something as simple as this would make a difference to me. Kudos, for putting yourself in the shoes of the auditioner.

[ This Message was edited by: budfan on 2004-08-25 10:29 ]