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Dizzy1312
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 Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 5:40 pm Post subject: BE discussion on Wilktone.com |
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The forum here has seemed a little slow lately so hopefully this is of some interest.
David Wilken has a website over at www.wilktone.com which has a lot of articles and brass player related resources. A while back he wrote a review of “The Balanced Embouchure” book and has a comments section open in which BE forum regular Valerie, wrote a comment. I also wrote a comment (a bit lengthy, got carried away).
Here is his review and the comments.
http://www.wilktone.com/?p=183
David has now written a reply to my comment you may find interesting.
http://www.wilktone.com/?p=1845
From Alistair.
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Come check out my trumpet blog at www.trumpetconnections.com where I do videos and blog posts of my journey as I develop as a trumpet player, as well as sharing my knowledge of all things trumpet.
Lastest post - www.trumpetconnections.com/2018-goals/
Last edited by Dizzy1312 on Thu Feb 15, 2018 3:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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trptStudent
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| Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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I think that a lot can be said on the topic of the validity of a method and on the topic of correct embouchure mechanics. As Dave Wilken seems to have much to say, I took the liberty of reading his past work, including his dissertation, and believe that much can be said about those things as well.
And while a lot can be said, I think all that needs to be said is that we all have opinions and ideas on what a good or proper embouchure is and how an efficient embouchure functions. These ideas are based on some mix of theory, opinion and personal experience and that the ideas a person may hold true are not necessarily objective truth. As an advocate of BE, I tend to believe that an increase range of motion aids in embouchure development while acknowledging that others may believe differently. I personally have no problem with this, as they may hold to their truth as long as they don't attempt to make it my truth. |
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royjohn
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| Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 10:12 pm Post subject: BE discussion on Wilktone.com |
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I think it would be best to leave BE's advocates in peace and discuss Dave's ideas elsewhere. I bought the BE book early in my comeback, found some of it useful and even took some lessons from a teacher who Jeff recommended. I found the idea of roll-in very useful but eventually moved to reading a more generalized account of embouchures in Pops McLaughlin's books and ended up loooking at Reinhardt's work and taking an embouchure consult with Dave Wilkens. I personally found the consult with Dave more enlightening than any other trumpet activity.
Phil, I think you need to be more specific about your objections or conclusions. Truly, "there is a lot you could say" about anything having to do with the trumpet. Dave is saying that there are observable facts about embouchure that are discoverable by research. He is also saying that he doesn't see any research data in Jeff's book. If you have specific criticisms of his work, which includes a lot of video of people and their embouchures, I think you should post it along with details. If you have specific research data from BE, post that, too. Then maybe we'd have something to discuss or argue.
Best,
Roy Kersey, Ph.D.
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royjohn
Trumpets: 1928 Holton Llewellyn Model, 1957 Holton 51LB, 2010 Custom C by Bill Jones, 2011 Custom D/Eb by Bill Jones
Flugels: 1975 Olds Superstar, 1970's Elkhardt, 1970's Getzen 4 valve
Cornet: 1970's Yamaha YCR-233S . . . and others . . . |
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trptStudent
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| Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 11:56 am Post subject: |
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Roy, I appreciate your willingness to want to talk about Dave's ideas and BE but I left my reactions to Dave's work vague purposefully. I do not think it would be fair for me to critique the work of another without having personal experience with it as initial impressions are still just initial impressions. That is why the only work that I'm willing to critique is TCE as I spent over two years working with it.
As for research, there is nothing I have that I would present as having met the rigours of scientific methodology. As a psychologist, you know better than I the myriad of biases that can affect the outcomes of a study (allegiance effects/experimenter bias, systemic errors, etc.) or the controls that need to be put into place to minimize them (randomization, double-blinding, wait-list controls, objective coding, etc.) and I have nothing that I'd be willing to say measures up. In good conscious, I am unwilling to say that anything I know about the trumpet/brass/music world is based on scientific research but rather, that it's based on experience. And while it may not be my place to say, I think Jeff would claim something similar.
In the end, conspicuous use of post-nominals aside, criticisms toward the limitations of research or the absence of research are topics that I leave for chatting over a beer or coffee. I've accepted that regardless of what my criticisms are, unless a person knows who I am, they'll simply continue on as they've always had as there's much more to discussion than logic.
On that note, if either yourself or Dave are ever in Toronto and are willing to hang out with a no-name guy like me, let me know.  |
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royjohn
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| Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:11 pm Post subject: BE discussion on Wilktone.com |
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Hi Phil,
Many, many thanks for your thoughtful reply, which is miles more polite and reasonable than much of what I see here when there are disagreements. Like you, I understand that there's precious little systematic knowledge or research about brass embouchure and I hope that my posts are in general pretty reasonable and muted, too.
We may disagree, though, about actual scientific knowledge regarding the embouchure. I think that there is some. In any area of study, initial research is descriptive and observational. Systematic case studies and videos of the embouchure fit this model. I think the observational research that typed embouchures by Reinhardt qualifies are good scientific research and I think that the old slo-mo films on Dave's website show that. You can clearly see on the film how there are upstream and downstream embouchures and that they both work. This clearly proves there isn't just one way to place the mouthpiece. You can also see, in Dave's own research on the website, a case study of a guy who was told to play downstream who is having a stutter in his playing and then you can see how he improves when he goes back to playing upstream, his original embouchure. Now obviously one cannot generalize too far from one case study, but I would contend that case studies like this disprove the nostrums about everyone placing the mouthpiece 50-50 or 1/3, 2/3's. I am not familiar with Dave's dissertation, but I do know that he is compiling videos of a lot of people's embouchures playing a standardized set of notes, so eventually it ought to be possible to draw some inferences about embouchure from these. It appeared to me that you original post was rather vague, but implied that there wasn't anything really scientific about Dave's dissertation. I haven't read it, but I have participated in the embouchure research and read the embouchure classifications at his website [not original with him] and they make a lot of sense to me, as does what I have seen of the research on the website.
I think that you are saying that we've all got our opinions and that's that and I would disagree and say that the only person I am aware of who is doing embouchure research and sharing it publicly is Dave. I find some of Jeff's logic reasonable and interesting, but I would have to agree with Dave that the specific BE exercises themselves may or may not be what is causing improvement for BE devotees or it might just be the practice itself and it might be that other types of practice might produce as much improvement. I would have to say that Jeff appears to have worked with a lot of people and developed a system that seems to work in helping a lot of people improve at playing trumpet. I don't know of folks using any BE who have been harmed by it and there are some other teachers who do harm some students [as by turning everyone into a downstream player].
I think it wouldn't be all that difficult to get a group of middle school students to participate in embouchure or method research. Get twenty kids in each group and have them keep a playing diary and do pre- and post-tests of improvement. I don't function as a band director or have any way of doing this while getting paid [and it would involve a large chunk of time] or I might consider it. I hope at some point someone will do this.
If I get to Toronto, I will look you up and we can have a beer or something. Thanks for sharing your thoughts in a most thoughtful and reasonable way . . . . are you sure you're a trumpet player? <LOL>
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royjohn
Trumpets: 1928 Holton Llewellyn Model, 1957 Holton 51LB, 2010 Custom C by Bill Jones, 2011 Custom D/Eb by Bill Jones
Flugels: 1975 Olds Superstar, 1970's Elkhardt, 1970's Getzen 4 valve
Cornet: 1970's Yamaha YCR-233S . . . and others . . . |
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trptStudent
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| Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 11:31 pm Post subject: Re: BE discussion on Wilktone.com |
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Hey Roy,
| royjohn wrote: | | Many, many thanks for your thoughtful reply, which is miles more polite and reasonable than much of what I see here when there are disagreements. Like you, I understand that there's precious little systematic knowledge or research about brass embouchure and I hope that my posts are in general pretty reasonable and muted, too. |
I'm also very happy that this has not de-evolved. I love talking brass and doing it in a reasonable way is just how I like to function.
| royjohn wrote: | | Now obviously one cannot generalize too far from one case study, but I would contend that case studies like this disprove the nostrums about everyone placing the mouthpiece 50-50 or 1/3, 2/3's. |
I think that's a pretty reasonable point to make and I think it's a good one. I think it's hard to find any real generalizations that would hold up to scrutiny over a suitably large sample size. Things like mouthpiece placement, horn angle, etc. are probably more variable than they are constant across people.
When I said I didn't have any research, I meant to say that I've never conducted any on BE specifically. There are very clearly observational studies and from these observational studies, I'm sure that there will be some inferences that can be made. My concern with such material is that these inferences may be applied beyond the scope of what is reasonable from an observational study (as opposed to an experimental study) and that these inferences may change from statements of observation to statements of causality. Personally, I have no problem with science and research but I'm very much aware that without a science degree, it's hard to make sense of the results of a study and that it's human nature to want to jump to a conclusion that the data does not yet support.
| royjohn wrote: | | It appeared to me that you original post was rather vague, but implied that there wasn't anything really scientific about Dave's dissertation. I haven't read it, but I have participated in the embouchure research and read the embouchure classifications at his website [not original with him] and they make a lot of sense to me, as does what I have seen of the research on the website. |
Again, I don't feel right in critiquing the work of someone else off-handedly as I don't believe it's a fair thing to do. I will say that I do believe that Dave's work was scientific in that it was work which proceeded from hypotheses and data was then gathered to test these hypotheses. In that sense, I think most would agree it follows the premise of science. That, however, is pretty much all I'm willing to say in this context.
If you have a ProQuest subscription, then you can read it for yourself: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=03-09-2016&FMT=7&DID=727736951&RQT=309&attempt=1&cfc=1
| royjohn wrote: | | I would have to agree with Dave that the specific BE exercises themselves may or may not be what is causing improvement for BE devotees or it might just be the practice itself and it might be that other types of practice might produce as much improvement. |
This is a reasonable point. The causality is not well-defined, but there would have to be some pretty strong experimental evidence for me to stop doing what works. I acknowledge that uncovering the inner workings of truth and nature are noble and fulfilling, but when it comes to someone's individual practice routine, that has to go out the window and be replaced with a philosophy of pragmaticism. I strongly believe that if something works, you should keep doing it. I acknowledge that there may exist at a future point in time something that provides as much, if not more, value than what I get from practicing BE material but until that happens, I will dutifully play out of my BE book everyday.
| royjohn wrote: | | I think it wouldn't be all that difficult to get a group of middle school students to participate in embouchure or method research. Get twenty kids in each group and have them keep a playing diary and do pre- and post-tests of improvement. I don't function as a band director or have any way of doing this while getting paid [and it would involve a large chunk of time] or I might consider it. I hope at some point someone will do this. |
There's something that I think would be interesting to read. It'd at least give a general idea of what kind of information you could get from a study like that.
| royjohn wrote: | | If I get to Toronto, I will look you up and we can have a beer or something. Thanks for sharing your thoughts in a most thoughtful and reasonable way . . . . are you sure you're a trumpet player? <LOL> |
I look forward to it! And I'm not really a trumpet player, I just pretend to impress girls. |
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Wilktone
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 6:28 am Post subject: |
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I just wanted to let everyone know that I am following this discussion. This forum should be a place where people can talk about the Balanced Embouchure, not a place where I come and criticize it. I'll try to not do so here.
| Quote: | | I strongly believe that if something works, you should keep doing it. |
The one point I would like to make is that if you strongly believe something will work, it probably will. This is why medical studies, for example, use double blinded controls. This is very impractical for brass pedagogy, but the same principle of the placebo effect is still present.
Practicing works. If you're having fun practicing, you'll probably get better, regardless of what you practice.
Thanks,
Dave
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trumpetteacher1
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 8:57 am Post subject: |
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I hadn't even heard of, much less read, this "review" until it was posted here.
Considering the personal bias and polarized thinking of the author, I'm not particularly surprised by the confabulated conclusions he reached.
At some point, it might be worth refuting or claryifying his misunderstandings of BE. But for right now, I'll restrict myself to his comment on this forum (and a related comment from his blog):
| Quote: | | The one point I would like to make is that if you strongly believe something will work, it probably will. This is why medical studies, for example, use double blinded controls. This is very impractical for brass pedagogy, but the same principle of the placebo effect is still present.
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| Quote: | | Bottom line, practicing can work for some players. If you are enjoying practicing because you have fun with the Balanced Embouchure, then it will work for you. |
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In case you don't get it folks, he is saying that BE works only because people think it will work, or that it is "fun" and therefore promotes more practice (and that any old practice yields improvement). This, of course, is opposite to what the testimonials reveal on my website. In fact, most players have strong initial doubts about BE, and are therefore shocked when the exercises work as predicted by the book. This is what keeps players practicing, and not some generic placebo effect.
Further, many players turn to BE after after other methods fail. So, more generic practice is not the source of improvement, either.
Jeff |
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Jerry Freedman
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 9:17 am Post subject: |
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I think Pops has said somewhere that if you are using a reasonable method (BE, Gordon, Callet etc) and you practice regularly and faithfully then the chances are good that it will work.
As far as Dave's comments, he has not tried BE, he has read the book and filtered that through his experience as a teacher and a Reinhardt disciple. To really critique a method, you gotta try it. I tried it and was happy with it and would have stuck with it had I not come upon a good teacher. A good teacher trumps any book.
My bottom line is that no method works well for everybody and, hopefully, in your quest to be a good player you will find a method that works. |
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Wilktone
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 10:02 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Considering the personal bias and polarized thinking of the author, I'm not particularly surprised by the confabulated conclusions he reached. |
You are correct, Jeff, I do have a personal bias. You do too. We all do. It's human nature.
Having conducted some research in brass embouchures, I've learned how my own confirmation bias resulted in a distorted perception of what I was actually seeing. Considering that I'm not immune to this, I'll keep an open mind about your methods and will strive to avoid the polarized thinking you recommend against. I would rather that I be proven wrong based on the merits (or lack thereof) of my ideas than on my motives.
| Quote: | | In case you don't get it folks, he is saying that BE works only because people think it will work, or that it is "fun" and therefore promotes more practice (and that any old practice yields improvement). |
Jeff, my point isn't that your method works only because one thinks it will. My point is that this is true for all methods, mine included.
| Quote: | | As far as Dave's comments, he has not tried BE, he has read the book and filtered that through his experience as a teacher and a Reinhardt disciple. |
Jerry, why would you assume I hadn't tried the exercises before criticizing them? I'm sure I didn't give them the effort that Jeff would insist on, but I did spend time experimenting with them before forming my opinions.
Secondly, I eschew your characterization of me being a "Reinhardt disciple." I'm critical of many things from the Pivot System as well. In fact, I think that the lack of cross communication is one of the things holding back brass pedagogy these days. Locking our ideas by being "disciples" of one method or another do more harm than good, in my opinion. Ideas should stand on their own merit, not based on who said it.
| Quote: | | To really critique a method, you gotta try it. |
This is, strictly speaking, not true. As an extreme example, I don't need to try jumping off my roof to note that it's not a good idea to try. I try to base my ideas on what I can observe and confirm to be true and base logical conclusions on it. I can be mistaken, so I would enjoy reading what others can say based on their observations here. I can be convinced to change my mind.
| Quote: | | My bottom line is that no method works well for everybody and, hopefully, in your quest to be a good player you will find a method that works. |
I would agree. Jeff would probably not, "A dynamic development system that's easy to learn and works for every trumpet player."
Dave
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trptStudent
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:37 am Post subject: |
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| Wilktone wrote: | | I just wanted to let everyone know that I am following this discussion. This forum should be a place where people can talk about the Balanced Embouchure, not a place where I come and criticize it. I'll try to not do so here. |
Dave, thanks for checking in and posting. I had a feeling that it was simply a matter of time before that happened. I'm glad that you took the time out to do so.
| Wilktone wrote: | | Quote: | | I strongly believe that if something works, you should keep doing it. |
The one point I would like to make is that if you strongly believe something will work, it probably will. This is why medical studies, for example, use double blinded controls. This is very impractical for brass pedagogy, but the same principle of the placebo effect is still present. |
Dave, I think you make a good point but it's a little puzzling why this was what you quoted. My statement was "If it works, keep doing it" and not "If you believe strongly, it will work."
Your point, however, on the placebo effect is well taken. I would also like to point out that double-blinded designs do not protect against placebo effects, but rather, they randomize them and provide a comparison group for the treatment group. More importantly, I might add, is that the double blinding is a control against experimenter's biases, similar to the confirmation bias.
I would also note that while placebos have an effect on many things, there are very obvious limitations. Placebo, for example, cannot cure cancer or schizophrenia. These are serious organic diseases which require some kind of medical intervention. On a similar vein, I believe that only a certain percentage of players can make TCE work and if you are not in that percentage, no amount of believing will make it happen for you, as that was my experience.
While this is not quite the place for discussion on experimental design, I would agree that such blinding in trying to study the efficacy of brass methodology would be problematic. As a quick aside, I think the field of study which brass experiments could learn the most about in terms of experimental design are efficacy experiments for psychotherapy. I personally think that the designs for testing psychotherapies should be adopted for studying brass methodologies, but that's just my opinion.
| Wilktone wrote: | | Quote: | | To really critique a method, you gotta try it. |
This is, strictly speaking, not true. As an extreme example, I don't need to try jumping off my roof to note that it's not a good idea to try. I try to base my ideas on what I can observe and confirm to be true and base logical conclusions on it. I can be mistaken, so I would enjoy reading what others can say based on their observations here. I can be convinced to change my mind. |
Dave, you are right in the strictest sense, but only in the strictest sense. And while I understand that you're trying to make a point, you also need to consider the shortcomings of your own reasoning. It is true that it's possible to say something substantive about a method without using it, but I do not think that it would be fair for you, personally, to do so. I have great respect and admiration for the scientific attitude that you've adopted in trying to unravel embouchure mechanics, but science is about the evidence and not about any one person.
While personally, you have the right to believe whatever you may like, scientifically, you are only allowed to believe what the evidence indicates.
I think the most fitting example of what I mean is the cognitive revolution in psychology. Before cognitive ideas entered into psychology, most people believed in behaviourism. If every behavioural scientist had judge cognitive ideas based on the ideas of behavioural science, there would never have been a revolution. They would have said things like "Trying to figure out what goes on the in mind is guess work" or "You're trying to observe the unobservable and therefore it's not a real science" and etc. The fact remains that cognitive ideas were studied, they were incorporated and in its applied form, cognitive behavioural therapy is the go-to therapy for most disorders. Cognitive sciences were evaluated upon the research and not against the precepts of behaviourism.
The point here is that this is similar to what is happening when different advocates approach different schools of thoughts. Those who believe in focusing on music dismiss the Reinhardt guys as too analytic and thus, overlook the rich amount of content the Reinhardt created (I have the Encyclopedia and think Reinhardt was a genius ahead of his time). I don't mean to lecture you Dave, but I see that you can potentially do some extremely meaningful work and hope that this may reach you on good terms. In saying that others must convince you, you are saying that you have ideas and that others need to change your mind. When you approach other schools of thought, it would be problematic to approach them with your perceptual filters in place because one of these other schools (TCE, BE, CC, etc.) may cover ground that you have not and you will have lost out on valuable information. If you truly want to be scientific about this, I believe you need to evaluate a method on the criteria for success that it has set for itself and not against the criteria of success from another method.
Edit: Wanted to add that the reason the reason that I think it would be unfair for anyone who hasn't used a method extensively to critique it is that there is a lack of information to do so on. It is difficult to critique if there isn't a large amount of information to do so with, which can be obtain through extensive personal experience and through studies conducted with large samples. I realized that it could have been misconstrued as an insult against Dave in some way and I wanted to clarify that.
Again, I apologize if this reads like a lecture or if I've offended you in anyway. I think it is an admirable thing to try to approach embouchure concepts scientifically. I just have strong ideas on what scientific means. And like I said before, if you're ever in Toronto, I love to chat over a beer or two. |
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Wilktone
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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Hi, Phil.
| Quote: | | Dave, I think you make a good point but it's a little puzzling why this was what you quoted. My statement was "If it works, keep doing it" and not "If you believe strongly, it will work." |
Sorry, more of a knee jerk reaction to this line of thought than your specific point. When evaluating a practice method I think it's good to consider the mechanism for why something is helpful to practice. Does it work because of or in spite of? How do we really know that it's the specific exercise that is beneficial, as opposed to say simply more time with the metal on the mouth? There are certain things that "work" (smiling to ascend, for example) to a degree, but then end up causing more problems down the road.
| Quote: | | More importantly, I might add, is that the double blinding is a control against experimenter's biases, similar to the confirmation bias. |
Indeed. It's very difficult for brass teachers to objectively remove ourselves from our student's progress and evaluate how we're helping (or not).
| Quote: | | Placebo, for example, cannot cure cancer or schizophrenia. |
Definitely true. However, placebo can convince someone that their cancer was cured, even if it wasn't. When the cancer goes into remission on its own or because of some other treatment, we can be led to conclusions that may not be accurate if we're not careful.
Fortunately, trumpet playing is not as life or death a situation as human health. Unfortunately, trumpet playing is a very subjective thing to objectively evaluate.
| Quote: | | On a similar vein, I believe that only a certain percentage of players can make TCE work and if you are not in that percentage, no amount of believing will make it happen for you, as that was my experience. |
Yes, I would agree with you here. I shouldn't be so cut and dried with my language here.
| Quote: | | Edit: Wanted to add that the reason the reason that I think it would be unfair for anyone who hasn't used a method extensively to critique it is that there is a lack of information to do so on. It is difficult to critique if there isn't a large amount of information to do so with, which can be obtain through extensive personal experience and through studies conducted with large samples. I realized that it could have been misconstrued as an insult against Dave in some way and I wanted to clarify that. |
No offense taken. Although I still stand by my point here so far.
I do have quite a bit of data showing a large number of brass players' embouchures functioning (and in some cases malfunctioning). Based on that evidence, which I've made publicly available, I have to conclude that Jeff's descriptions of how a brass embouchure should function are not very accurate. It's possible that I'm wrong, or simply misunderstanding his point.
Maybe there is something to the method, but the evidence that he puts forward in the book doesn't conform to what I can see. If that's the case, the exercises themselves may not need revision, but the reasons for recommending them could be. I remain unconvinced, but will continue to look in here and hopefully learn some more and get to revise my opinions.
Thanks,
Dave
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trumpetteacher1
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Considering that I'm not immune to this, I'll keep an open mind about your methods and will strive to avoid the polarized thinking you recommend against. |
Dave, my point is, I don't think you can avoid that style of thinking. It's who you are.
| Quote: | | I would rather that I be proven wrong based on the merits (or lack thereof) of my ideas than on my motives. |
Of course you would, because then you can tell the world that you are being "objective," and that you are pure and independent of your motives. Scientists are notorious for believing in that artificial condition.
| Quote: | | Jeff, my point isn't that your method works only because one thinks it will. My point is that this is true for all methods, mine included. |
You are being disingenuous. There was a context. You simply don't believe that BE can work as advertised, UNLESS there is a placebo effect. This is similar to the medical world, where doctors regularly dismiss what they don't understand as a placebo effect, or even more dismissively, call it an "anomaly."
In essence, BE is an anomaly to your left-brained frame of reference. Since you have no explanation of why it can work, you invent reasons to explain why it can't. An then you call it a "review."
| Quote: | | I can be mistaken, so I would enjoy reading what others can say based on their observations here. I can be convinced to change my mind.
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Also disingenuous. NOW you are interested in learning more about BE? NOW you claim that you can be convinced to change your mind? Not likely. See Dave, I am very accessible. I answer all emails and phone calls. You have never, ever contacted me to ask anything about BE.
Not once.
Instead of asking me if your understanding was the same as mine, especially in terms of how certain terms in the BE book are defined, you instead chose to remain ignorant and take pot shots at BE on your blog (and illegally print copyrighted photos from the book). If you were really sincere, and had an ounce of professional courtesy, you would have contacted me first, especially considering we are both members of the TH.
So yeah, I question the sincerity of your words.
Jeff |
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Wilktone
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry, Jeff. I thought that reproducing small portions from you book fell within fair use, but if you prefer me to remove those images I will happy to do so.
I would have preferred to discuss ideas and avoid the ad hominem thing. I'll take some time to consider your characterizations of my motives, though, even though I don't feel they are accurate.
You're understandably upset at me, so I will take my leave from this conversation now. I apologize for disrupting your forum.
Dave
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trumpetteacher1
Heavyweight Member
Joined: 11 Nov 2001
Posts: 3404
Location: Garland, Texas
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Sorry, Jeff. I thought that reproducing small portions from you book fell within fair use, but if you prefer me to remove those images I will happy to do so. |
Thank you.
| Quote: | | I would have preferred to discuss ideas and avoid the ad hominem thing. |
I actually was discussing ideas. To me, context is incredibly important, and the degree of polarization of our world view steers us into making general types of observations (Phil's point about behaviorists and cognitivists was especially fitting). I believe that you are stuck in seeing brass pedagogy from only one perspective. Nothing wrong with that - unless you go out of your way to publicly dismiss the ideas from a different perspective without - at least - making an effort to first understand its terminology.
In short, in my view, your review said a lot more about you than it did BE. The bias just leaped off the page. Why not instead promote your own version of trumpet pedagogy, without specific attacks on others?
If I had wanted to make an ad hominem argument, I would have said that, since you are primarily a trombone player, your knowledge of trumpet embouchure is understandably deficient. But I wouldn't make that connection, as I know that it is not always the case.
Jeff |
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slidehammr
Regular Member
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 14
Location: St. Louis, MO
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 7:47 am Post subject: Wilktone |
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I ran across the Wilktone theories some time back and after reading decided that mp position (in my case) has as much to do with physiology as anything else. I'm "medium high" position. For the most part I play 3 types of gigs: wedding ceremonies, soul/rock band and jazz. I have to use several mp's to get sound and comfort. I discovered that gradually moving some of the upper lip out of the mp, ie shifting the mp down somewhat, enabled me to switch to a shallower mp when need be. A constant awareness of mp pressure is essential. Moving the mp down and continuing to play these gigs took months!
Otherwise, there are two things that remain remarkably unchanged: If I over-practice I get "brick chops" and have to back off. If I play a lot of gigs, including jazz, I have more range and strength to play anything! Few revelations here. |
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semiring
New Member
Joined: 06 Jan 2011
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Scientists are notorious for believing in that artificial condition. |
Mr. Smiley: In the interests of not misleading the many readers of this forum, I feel obligated to respond to this statement. "Scientists" are well aware of the pitfalls of human bias and, as a community, go great lengths to do our very best to mitigate it (e.g., peer review of papers and funding). By no means is this completely effective, but it's better than throwing one's hands up in the air and doing nothing.
The end result speaks for itself. The world you live in is shaped by science. Maxwell's equations (and, for that matter, QED) aren't a personal belief, nor is Shannon's Channel Coding Theorem. If we didn't objectively understand these things (and many others), we wouldn't have the technology to facilitate this exchange.
As a teacher, your words can exert surprisingly powerful effects on the thoughts of others; this is a privilege that carries with it a responsibility to do one's utmost to "do no harm" to one's students. You chastised Mr. Wilken for commenting on BE without having a full understanding of it -- I don't think it is unreasonable to expect you to apply the same standards to yourself with regard to commenting on modern scientific practice. |
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trumpetteacher1
Heavyweight Member
Joined: 11 Nov 2001
Posts: 3404
Location: Garland, Texas
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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Great. Now I'm responsible for warping today's youth.
You've taken my comment that few people even read, and magnified it out of proportion, and turned it into a rant against all of science.
Before I respond in the wrong direction, please tell me EXACTLY what you thought that I meant by the comment.
Jeff |
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raw_brass_kicks
Regular Member
Joined: 01 Sep 2010
Posts: 46
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| Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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I think that Wilkes is simply using the fact that he uses big words and scientific-sounding ideas that he has something going. To be frank, trumpet performance is not scientific. trumpet technique is not scientific. nothing about making music is scientific, at least in the bloated context that wilkes puts it in. here's what i mean:
Trumpet teaching is completely subjective. You can figure out the perfect embouchure technique, but it doesn't mean the student will get it. they might play it really close to what you want, but not exactly. however, that doesn't mean that trumpet teachers don't have any ground to base their ideas off of. based on Smiley's success with his students, his teaching techniques work. a lot better than others, in fact, and he doesn't deal with the irrelevance of airstream direction or anything students can't understand on a tactile level. its pointless!
Let me ask a question: scientifically speaking, what is the best embouchure? how can one scientifically determine that a player has reached the absolute best lip position possible? To have an objective definition of what a good embouchure, one would have to describe it as "never fatiguing, infinitely high range with no inconsistencies in tone over any interval jump or musical passage, no matter how bizarre."
okay, so I'm being a little fascetious, but here's my point; great trumpet teaching is not about a perfect technique. its about teaching students to play with techniques that are close enough. exercises are done as well as a student can do them, and thats good enough. most methods don't teach students to play close enough and that's why they fail.
I just don't get how so much psychological nonsense will solve something that is completely unrelated (i don't hate wilkes methods, they just don't apply!!!) |
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trumpetteacher1
Heavyweight Member
Joined: 11 Nov 2001
Posts: 3404
Location: Garland, Texas
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| Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 8:07 am Post subject: |
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raw_brass_kicks
I appreciate your intent here, and I'm glad that you have found some success with BE. But, be careful of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Although I find his conclusions about BE faulty for many reasons, I actually support Dave's approach. (and it's Wilken, not Wilke). There is nothing inherently wrong with detailed analysis. Sometimes things are discovered at a fine level that illumine understanding, or can be usefully applied in a teaching environment. And, sometimes those same discoveries are misapplied, leading to unfounded (and self-created) fears, which cause unnecessary limitation in the student's potential.
There are two fundamentally different points of view at play here, which are directly connected to the relationship between brain hemispheres. The trick is to not be polarized on one side or the other, or to fall into an ineffective state of compromise, but instead to rise above the duality and synthesize into a higher understanding.
This is not as abstract as it sounds. It's frequently experienced by players who use BE, as recorded in the testimonials on the website.
Jeff |
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