Range inside the Horn

Ronnie · Regular Member Joined: 08 Nov 2001 Posts: 87

I recently found out that I have a neighbor that is a trumpet player and taught at the London and San Francisco Conservatories in his younger days (he's in his late 60's).

Paul heard me playing one day and decided to swing by my place and talk.

While talking we started to discuss range and method. He said that methods are generalizations and each player has to in a sense develop his own method. Howeve, he stressed that proper embrochure is something very different and went into the specifics of what he thought was a proper embrochure.

Anyway, he went and got his horm (a beautiful gold plated Schickle) and we started to fool around. First he gave me some advice about breathing and said of all the things productive breathing takes a lot of committment to develop.

He started hitting some pretty high notes without any effort - no bunched chin, no redness - and his tones were fat.

His explaination was this:

"When I play low to mid range, I am playing inside of the horn - I'm not thinking any further than the beginning of the bell and in some casers the valve cluster. I try to fill them up with all the air that I can and I think about blowing warm air through my horn."

"When I play anything above high g. I am trying to fill the room with my sound. Starting at that g, I am trying to make my warm airflow resonate in the outer tip of the bell."

"As I go higher, I try to use other objects in the room as markers for my air flwo to reach. Your couch (10 feet away or so) would be a c above the staff. The window across the room would be a double high c, and so on."

"I don't really concentrate on compressing my embrochure of craming the horn into my lips. I try to fill the room with as much warm air as possible depending on how high I'm playing."

After that, he played some stuff from my Arbans and seen delighted that he could still remember all of the exercises. A great old guy with some awsome chops and an interesting approach.

What you you all think. Seems to work for him. In his day, I bet he was a monster player!

Ronnie

Quadruple C · Heavyweight Member Joined: 28 Nov 2001 Posts: 1448

[ This Message was edited by: Quadruple C on 2003-12-18 13:39 ]

davo · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2002 5:23 pm Post subject:

Ronnie,

I'd book him for lessons asap. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about...and able to demonstrate it to boot. I, for one, like his approach. It keeps you from focusing on the mechanics of sound production and more on the quality and projection of the sound, which in the end will develop the mechanics necessary to produce those sounds...in all registers.

Dave

dbacon · Heavyweight Member Joined: 11 Nov 2001 Posts: 8592

trickg · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2002 7:43 pm Post subject:

I've heard it said that a good part of range is in your head.

I know a guy who says that he doesn't have lead chops, that he can't play much above a high C.

Once we were on an Army band trip to Milwaukee and during the course of the trip, we went with some relatives of his to this restuarant/bar that had a combo playing on the bar side. Steve had brought his horn with him and after talking shop for a short while, asked if he could sit in. Steve, by the way, is a great soloist and totally loses himself in it when he's playing. Anyway, not only did he completely upstage the local hero sax player (Yeah!!!!!) he was playing up to F# above high C consistently while he was soloing. I don't think he even knew he was doing it.

Steve has the chops, but if he thinks about it, he'll probably miss.
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Quadruple C · Heavyweight Member Joined: 28 Nov 2001 Posts: 1448

[ This Message was edited by: Quadruple C on 2003-12-18 13:40 ]

Xenoman · Heavyweight Member Joined: 19 Nov 2001 Posts: 1209

I swear Ronnie I am so jealous of you dude. You are going to get WAY ahead of me that this rate. Playing in a band before me and now trumpet players coming to YOU and giving advice. I swear...

All that he says makes perfect sense and I have read that in several books. I think Pops says something about this in his trumpet A to Z book.

Incidently I played with a community band for the first time last night. It was great. It showed me how far I had to go but at the same time, showed me how far I've come. I'm walking on air right now.

Later,
X

Pat · Veteran Member Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 396

I think alot of teachers use this approach, and I have done so for my 7th grade son. Thinking of higher notes as being "out" rather than "up" has helped him keep the air flowing forward and open. I used to use a wall light switch as a target for him because it was at about bell height. I have since drawn a target that we have dubbed the "Tone Target" that I put on a music stand and move farther away as he goes higher during range extension exercises.-----Similarly, the other thing that the target helps with is long tones. I tell him to think of the sound as a laser beam from the bell to the bulls eye and this seems to help him conceptualize maintaining an even air flow.---I think the approach mentioned by the original poster is an effective teaching aid.

RooTheHorn · Regular Member Joined: 08 Feb 2002 Posts: 19

hey, this is all really interesting. Ive heard of athletes+stuff using visualisation techniques, but I never thought of applying it to trumpet playing.

Nice work guys
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He raised his horn and blew into it quietly and thoughtfully and elicited birdlike phrases and architectural Miles Davis logics - These were the children of the great bop innovators.