New Method for Piccolo Trumpet

[trpthawaii]

Hi Everyone,

Monday, I received in the mail several books by my 1st trumpet teacher and good friend Richard Winslow. Among these books was his finally published 2 volume series titled "How to Get a Grip on the Piccolo Trumpet" I've been practicing out of book 1 the past few days and am very impressed with Rick's work.

If you don't know Rick Winslow, he studied with Mr. Adam in the 1960's, in the same class with Randy Brecker, Larry Hall and Charley Davis. He then went on to study with Herseth, Cichowicz and Jacobs up in Chicago, played in various orchestras before landing the job as prof. of trumpet and jazz studies at California State University in Chico. Besides his symphonic background, he's also played trumpet for several show bands and musicals in Sacramento and toured with the Paul Anka show for a few years while on sabbatical.

Volume 1 of his piccolo method contains 30 or so lyrical etudes that are progressive in nature. Exercise 1 is only 16 bars long, in C Major with a range of written low G to 2nd line G. By the end of the book, you are playing lyrical tunes that have elongated lines, making ample use of the 4th valve as well as ascending to forth line D. So, playing through the book, as written in Bb or A will provide one with lyrical studies that will enable one to develop tone, technique and the range and endurance for introductory level piccolo literature. But that is just where the book begins.

What one is to do with each etude is first, sing the song. Get the melody firmly planted in your head. Next, you play as written, then transpose the melody up a 2nd, minor 3rd, major 3rd, perfect 4th and finally, the tritone. You should do this on both the A and Bb tunings of the piccolo. Now, when transposing to E, that written D that looks fairly simple to play will take you up to an Ab above high C while playing an extended, lyrical slurred musical phrase.

Many of the melodies are angular, non-diatonic and quite challenging for transposition. I was just working on a modal tune written in six flats and transposing up a fourth into 7 flats while attempting to remember the various accidentals! My initial response was that this is hard! Why am I doing this? What is the practical value of transposing into such horrible keys? Well, Rick does this intentionally. By having your mind so focused upon the melody and transposition, your conscious mind ignores how high you are playing, thus minimizing self-caused tension and stress. Sing the transposition, keep your mind in the sound and play! Let the sound be your guide and if the sound becomes forced, stop and rest.

If one can play all the etudes in Book 1 in E transposition, one will have developed the range, endurance and musicianship to play most of the piccolo solo and symphonic literature. Book 2 extends the concept further with even more challenging exercises, taking the player into the double high range so that Brandenburg, Michael Haydn and such become quite playable pieces in one's repertoire.

This is a rather radical approach to learning and developing piccolo skills, but Rick has had tremendous success doing this with his students. In just a few days of using his book, I find that having a large collection of Vocalese-like tunes to play on piccolo really allows me to work on a singing tone and nail down my horn's pitch eccentricities. Transposing forces me to deeply focus on the song and, when the etude is completed, I find my chops to be on fire, having been given a very challenging workout.

You can find out more about Rick's books at: ricksbrassmusic.com or email him at ricksbrass@gmail.com or rwinslow@csuchico.edu

Mark Minasian

[bln748]

Hi Mark,
Any idea where I can locate on of these books? I can't find one on Amazon.

Thanks,

Blane Gosselin
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Blane Gosselin

[trpthawaii]

Hi Blane,

Rick is selling them directly. Contact him via email or his website, given in my review.

Mark Minasian