Lesson with Charley Davis

[djm6701]

I was in Los Angeles last week and had the privilege of having a lesson with Charley Davis. Charley is an Adam student (so I hope this is the right forum to post this) and knows his stuff.

This was the first lesson I've ever had involving a baseball bat. Charley asked me to adjust my breathing by breathing through imaginary points starting at the top of my head, then my forehead, just below the chin, the middle of my throat, and then 'through' my lower abdomen. We blew bubbles while playing into the kitchen sink as he felt my airstream was not steady enough. He had me do an exercise wherein I clasped my hands together, extended the two first fingers straight out, closed my eyes, and then concentrated on the thoughts, "My fingers are coming together", causing my finger tips to slowly move together, emphasizing how simple thoughts can control physical actions. The baseball bat came in under the topic of 'support', where we both swung the bat to illustrate where the strength in the torso was (I think he picked a lot of these exercises because he found I was constricting my chest muscles quite a bit, causing some blockage and tension), and did tug-of-war with the bat for the same reason. We then played through the copy of the Adams Daily Routine that I had brought with me (from Mark Minasian's site), adding Schlossberg #24 and a few notations and fermatas here and there, as well as extending some of the exercises into the higher register. Charley emphasized the importance of sound ("Check your sound! Check your sound!) throughout. It was really an excellent lesson and I would really like to go back for more (despite living on the other side of the continent).

Charley also spent some time working on my trumpet ("Oh, no, no, no, that's not like Wayne's," he said after playing it.), but I'll leave that for the horns forum.
_________________
Dave M.
Richmond Hill (Toronto) Ontario
Kanstul WB1600, 1952 L.A. Olds Recording, 1975 L.A. Benge 3x, 1960's Olds Flugel, Yamaha 631 Flugel

GR 65.6 Mouthpieces
a jazz.fm member

[Karel]

[Trumpet Monkey]

I used to have alot of tension problems too and once I became aware of them and learned how to deal with them my playing really opened up. For me, playing through routine is almost like doing yoga or something. I use that time to release the tension I'm holding in my body and get into phase with the horn. I also like to imagine that my nasal and chest cavities are resonating along with the trumpet. I find that if I'm away from the horn for more than a day I start feeling very tense. But for those that are watching I never take a day off.....
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Ben Belton

[AZcoolhorn]

FYI--

It's Bill Adam...no "s," i.e. not Adams...

http://www.roth-music.com/Bill-Adam/

[djm6701]

Oops - I knew that, too.

Fixed!