Méndez' breath control improved over the years?

_TrumpeT_ · Heavyweight Member Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 1424

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gUij8FCg0z8
In this clip he plays a passage from the Mexican Hat Dance in one breath which lasts about 40 seconds to demonstrate what one can arrive at after a lot of hard work. Even Mendez seemed to find it a little taxing (see how he breathes at the end). We know that Rafael Mendez recorded moto perpetuo in four sections each lasting over a minute. Did he improve his breath control?
_________________
Bach Stradivarius 180/37
Bach 1.5C
"Just put it on the face and press till it hurts." - Maurice Murphy

trpt.hick · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 9:31 pm Post subject:

Personally, I don't think that Mendez was actually that much out of air in the video. He may have seemed that way for show.

aiyipianni · New Member Joined: 30 Jul 2008 Posts: 4

When age of conan gold

saw this card time, they feel am very surprised, age of conan power leveling is also.They think it is very

good,thanks!
_________________
aoc gold

oj · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 2:15 am Post subject:

aiyipianni - a new spammer today?

Kindly stop pestering TH with this nonsense!

Ole

llswoods · New Member Joined: 07 Feb 2009 Posts: 5 Location: Texas

I do not know for a fact, but someone once mentioned that Rafael Mendez had only one lung, and he devloped that to a tremendous degree in his pursuit of playing trumpet.

mateo · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:23 am Post subject:

I heard one of my teachers in high school say that Mendez used to tell the students to do breath control exercises in time with their steps as they walked. I have done this exercise for years- partly becuase I used to run cross country and the coaches told us to time our breathing with a certain amount of steps and try to increase as the season went on. ie 7 strides inhale 7 strides hold 7 strides exhale. when you develop this as a runner it helped my endurance and prevented cramping. As a trumpet player it mostly helped promote relaxed and more efficient breath use without getting dizzy on the long passages.
That being said, I was thumbing through the Army Band's publication on trumpet playing and this breathing exercise was included. I still try to do it every once in a while. There is also a book worth mentioning here that recently came out and it has a short section on developing breath control that I think may be beneficial. It is called "Peak Performance" by Mick Hess- the long tone scale patterns in there are similar to the first 5 studies out of the cichowicz book. The idea is to extend them and play them at a slower tempo every week or so. he has his study working backward from 100 bpm to 40 bpm. I recommend checking it out.
Mateo

trpt.hick · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:53 am Post subject:

Mendez had two healthy lungs, although he developed ashma late in his career. It was Arnold Jacobs that had one useless lung and had to learn to play tuba in the Chicago Symphony with only one.

mcgovnor · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:57 am Post subject: Mendez

Mendez walking exercise was learned from Louis Maggio.
Carlton Macbeth details the exercise in his book.

www.newyorkbrass.com

trpt.hick · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:58 pm Post subject:

I think it may be the other way around. Mendez was the teacher of Maggio even though Maggio was much older than Mendez. Mendez taught Maggio how to play pedal tones as a way to get over his accident (Maggio slipping on ice in Minneapolis and smashing lips on trolley track spike). Mendez developed this after his own accident in Detroit a few years earlier.

mcgovnor · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:01 pm Post subject: interesting

Carlton Macbeth wrote it the other way around.
here is something quick
One of Louis Maggio’s Greatest Students

To those of you who do not know, Louis Maggio (1878-1957) developed a revolutionary approach to brass playing. A disastrous injury to his embouchure evolved into an amazing recovery and a totally new concept of brass playing. Maggio’s teachings were faithfully documented by Carlton MacBeth and presented in The Original Louis Maggio System of Brass. I was first introduced to this method by Vince Penzarella, 3rd trumpet for the NY Philharmonic, many years ago. Mr. Penzarellla had also suffered a disastrous injury to his embouchure and used this method to make an amazing recovery.
As a teen, Vince had told me to buy this book and do the exercises every day. Well I didn’t listen to him. Not until about eight years ago, when I was frustrated with my old embouchure and was looking for a way to play that would serve me in the long run.
In The Original Louis Maggio System for Brass there is a photograph of a group of Louis Maggio’s students. Sitting to Maggio’s right is Raphael Mendez who apparently utilized his method with great success.
I have attached a very interesting video of Mendez offering his advice on practicing and breath control, as well as exhibiting his awesome talent. Watch closely and see Mendez doing circular breathing. Enjoy.
1 video:
Rafael Mendez - Flight of the Bumble Bee & Mexican Hat Dance

mcgovnor · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:06 pm Post subject: WELL..

Thank you Mendez Forum Moderator for the facts.
Very benevolent of the Mendez Estate to permit the Maggio/Macbeth story to linger so long.
Thanks again.

trpt.hick · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:14 pm Post subject:

That photo (which a very large copy is in the Rafael Mendez Library at Arizona State University) was taken at Maggio's 75th birthday party. Mendez was there because they were good friends, not because he was a student.

MacBeth got the story wrong. He probably assummed that Maggio came up with the pedal exercises on his own, but he developed them after seeking Mendez (who was by then living and performing in Los Angeles) to find out how he got past his accident (swinging door into bell in a pit orchestra when Mendez and Maggio played together in Detroit). Later, Mendez played with Rudy Vallee in NYC and then moved to LA. Maggio had moved to Minneapolis to play in what was then called the Minneapolis Symphony.

Maggio never wrote a book. His student, MacBeth, put together a "Maggio System" book after Maggio died. The exercises were taken from lesson notes and exercises Maggio gave him. By the way, Claude Gordon and Roger Spaulding were also students of Maggio. Interestingly, they never mention Mendez or Maggio in their methods.

Mendez did an interview for an ITG Journal in 1979. The interview is transcribed by H. M. Lewis: "Rafael Mendez: Trumpeter Extraordinaire." (Vol. 4, May, 1979) Mendez states all of this very clearly. He even says "Him (Maggio) from me, not me from him" because Lewis had heard the opposite as well.

trpt.hick · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:19 pm Post subject:

The two Mendez sons studied with Rafael, and with Maggio when their father was on long tours. Both Robert and Ralph have told me the same story about how their dad got the pedal exercises from his father in Mexico. After nearly a year of pedal development, Rafael returned the the US playing even better than before the accident.

When Maggio moved to LA to study with Mendez, he decided to stay there and teach pedal tones to all who wanted stronger embouchures. For some reason, Maggio never played as well as before his accident (probably nerve damage?), but he was the man who started the pedal craze in a big way.