Jim Manley & Airmen of Note lead trpts hang on YouTube

[dbacon]

If the upper body is tight you're doing too much. The explanation is all right there, it's not terribly hard to do. If done well the upper body relaxes as you move air. Tension comes from muscle system fighting muscle system. You might do better with Sam Pilafian's Breathing Gym.
Don Jacoby would say, "Only use the support you need and no more!"
Un-opposed support works, isometric tension moves nothing and makes everything much harder to do.
Bobby's the most efficient player on the planet!!
Listen to how he plays, try getting that in your ear and sound as close to him each day as you can....this works!

[trumpjosh]

I'm no high note guy, but thanks for posting that video. That was some crazy stuff.

[Yamahaguy]

[Kevin Burns]

[LeeC]

Think the naysayers here ought to make a better effort to raise the level of human decency expressed. HRD has a way of degenerating into a food fight within a short weekend.

I am not "jealous" of anyone. Passed that stage a long time ago. Strive merely to work in my own enlightened self interest and do the best I can with what I have. Try to anyway.

I do upon occasion send demonstration DVD's to my friends. The critical word here is "friends". People I like in other words.

Those people I do not know or whose company I don't prefer? Well why bother even sending them a Christmas card? I mean really!

When we see a clinic by a great trumpet player we all want to receive that special insider knowledge he has. However most of it was hard work and perseverance. Doing things the average person isn't willing to do.

Can you do twenty pull ups? I can't. Lack the desire and perseverance to push myself that far. And my height may be a problem. At six ft. five inches the leverage in my longer arms puts an added strain on the muscle flesh in my shoulders and biceps. Unfavorable fulcrum compared to a short guy. I also weight a tad more than what i used to.

See what is happening by using that metaphor compared to trumpet playing? I have described a gymnastic or athletic ability rooted in two principles:

1. The honorable ambition to strive to do something the great majority of people can't do. To rise above the fold.

2. A physical limitation that precludes the exercise from being a realistic possibility. Or at least limits the success to a certain degree.

Now were I to lose fifteen to twenty pounds and gradually, systematically increase the amount of strength in those muscles applied to performing pull ups I might one day gain the ability to do twenty pull ups. Maybe anyway. Not a bad idea really. However i suspect that sloth and other interests would have their way and I'd forget about the whole thing within a month. Lack the DESIRE to do twenty pull ups.

I'm also a fairly decent trombone player when i put my mind to it, but again: Don't have the desire to do that either.

Now take someone like Nadia Comaneci in her younger days. Very short arms. Low body weight, excellent physical leverage advantage in her muscles for gymnastic stunts. Even if she didn't condition at all for a year she'd perform more pull ups than if I worked out every day for five years.

Mark Conover used to run 2:13 marathons on a diet of "Twinkies" "Snowballs" and "Carling" beer. True fact. I can understand the Hostess products but not the Carling. Should have switched to Heineken...

Now if I were to have gone to an athletic clinic featuring Conover (who has improved his diet due to an unfortunate problem with cancer long ago) would I have pickd up any real nugget of info that would help me learn to run a 2 hour 13 minute marathon?

No. I might gain a lot of inspiration though. He could refer me me to a good trainer and help with my athletic shoe selection etc. But I'm not going to run a 2:13 marathon. If i ever get my one mile run down under six minutes would consider it a miracle.

I have a fifty year old cousin who can run a five minute mile with no prior physical conditioning at all. Just a light bodied person with excellent slow twitch muscles. After the weather warms up and football season has ended he goes down to the track and clocks a five minute mile. His whole winter being spent watching TV at home or working in an office by day.

Now when we see these really good trumpet players blow extreme high notes well, in tune and musically we naturally and automatically infer that we can eventually learn to do this too based upon some kind of information the great player gives us at his clinic. But can we?

All based upon the insight delivered in an hour long discussion or chat?

When i was much younger I had a mistaken view of my ability as a trumpet player. Thought the reason i couldn't play DHC's all that well or easily was because I "wasn't practicing enough". I think a lot of us blame ourselves for not reaching a certain high note goal within some fixed period of time. This is a natural but unfortunate misunderstanding of physical law as well as a denial of common sense.

We're trying to run that 2:13 marathon but aren't physically equipped to have the ability. We also usually lack the desire to make the sacrifices involved along the way.

With extreme range high note trumpet playing we probably all have the innate capability to figure what to do. Unlike my trying to run a five minute mile. That sure as hell won't happen. However the players who achieve extreme range production and make a career noted for doing this tend to peak early. Like Maynard and Faddis did. Ditto Brisbois and a whole host of noted great players. All hit fantastic high notes before even entering High School. That's a huge advantage folks.

And these greats most likely found their embouchures working well within the natural state of their ordinary facial muscle movements. So they didn't have to fiddle for years and years trying to unlock some element of positioning that allowed the extremely high notes to blow. The way most of us would have to experiment were we to have the sincere desire to so.

After these less gifted players finally arrived at the ability to play controllable scales over three and a half octaves? Well they'd still have to make these newer less natural movements become more automatic. Accuracy, confidence, tuning flexibility to name a few. Subconscious training that can take YEARS! We are at a hell of a disadvantage compared to the person who "gets it" in the eight grade...

The majority of us would have to work with unnatural movements the same way a right handed drummer learns to do everything with his left hand he can do with his right.

Sure a few of the great high note trumpet players had some problems from time to time, but what fixed then was only a minor tune up. Not the major over haul a lot of players will need to go through if they ever want to "sit' on a DHC.

[groovinhigher]

The other great nugget in there, one commonality of great advice you would also find from guys like Mark Van Cleave and Frank Minear, is learning to relax, avoid the tightening up, visa vie that low breath and low syllable example of the breath, not raising up and tightening up your upper body, smaller aperature, all usually accomplished with more relaxed breathing and in the Minear and Van Cleave stuff also moderate volume practice to get the aperature smaller, but achieving huge sound with less effort and less air expended through pure and resonant vibrations. Great technique, relaxed and correct approach beat brute force any day of the week, plus it just feels better to play that way.

That light, or these ideas, principles, coming on can make a difference, certainly did for me and some other players I know.

I thought the video was informative and I see some of the similar approaches in thoughts shared by Van Cleave and Minear, among a few others over the years, and I for one can say it works, it sure did help me and some other folks I know. Good stuff.
_________________
Rich Wetzel
Bach Artist and Clinician
Rich Wetzel's Groovin Higher Orchestra
www.richwetzel.com
www.facebook.com/rich.wetzel

[Asian Man]

So Jim is a dry player?
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[LeeC]

What would be the explanation for why "relaxed shoulders, neck, back etc" would help to allow extreme range production?

Please be specific.

Define the physical characteristics involved here. Remember: The adult, healthy non trumpet playing person probably has the capacity to create enough PSI within his body to sustain any high note within what most people would consider the musical range of the trumpet.

If so, why should relaxed shoulders directly contribute to loud high note production? Even if some of the effort is wasted through unconscious and unnecessary muscular contraction?

My guess is if the matter is accurate to any significant degree (probably is) it is related simply to reducing the physical energy expense of tensing unnecessary muscles. That unproductive tension could reduce over all endurance and pull other muscles out of alignment from an embouchure perspective.

However baring that last qualification it would be quite possible for someone to engage in an extreme tension in the muscles of his body NOT directly related to high note production and still pull off an impressive register. Obviously it would be desirable to eliminate unneeded energy. But the removal of that tension wouldn't be a specific criteria for high range production.

The real reason for high range notes being played easily would involve a far more in depth analysis than just saying: "Relax your shoulders" Or as Maynard said; "Improve your stance".

Empty phrases both of them. They sound cool but don't mean anything of significance. Not when you give the matter even minimal thought.

[Mikeytrpt]

Over-analysis can lead to paralysis.

[LeeC]

[Pops]

[Yamahaguy]

I didn't bother to read all the drivel...but guess I saw that Nadia
Comenici could play a double C?

[LeeC]

[groovinhigher]

Lee

In all respect, I disagree. He may not explain it as thoroughly as you want, but some nuggets in there like keeping the aperature smaller, that helping and enabling him to play smaller mouthpieces is one thing.

Playing relaxed and not over filling or over blowing is another.

Both of which are significantly helpful all over the horn, not just in high note playing.

A further explanation could include, but not be limited to, doing soft to moderate volume practicing to develop that smaller aperature. Frank Minear and Mark Van Cleave and some others have done that to help get people thinking of less volume of air through the chops can equal a smallet aperature, thus helping with higher frequency vibrations, and that if you are getting clear vibrations, resonant intonation, the result is it will cary and cut much better, appear much louder, than a ton of brute force or overblowing, which can spread the aperature further apart, a not so ideal set up for extreme high notes.

So maybe not all the explanation appears to be so obvious, but knowing what he is doing, and being an advocate from my own personal experience, he is spot on. At any rate, if people want to tune more into those principles he is talking about I would recommend either The Frank Minear method, or Mark Van Cleave's books.

The nuggets are there, further explantion can be found in either of those methods.
_________________
Rich Wetzel
Bach Artist and Clinician
Rich Wetzel's Groovin Higher Orchestra
www.richwetzel.com
www.facebook.com/rich.wetzel

[richardwy]

[Kevin Burns]

For the third time - this is not about high notes! It's about efficiency and relaxation.

Jim is not trying to explain how to play high on any of those videos, which I took and edited from the perspective of 3 professionals hanging out and talking trumpet. This was not a formal lesson. A fun time was had by all!

Thanks again Jim for the great hang! Sorry, I've subjected you to the abuse. I think you'll get alot of requests for lessons though from those who are discovering you for the first time. And those that can't come to St. Louis have a little piece of you on the web that they can go back and absorb a wealth of great ideas from.

I can only wish that I could have access to the minds of such great players through these forums and online videos when I was younger.

Some folks on these forums would do much better at:

www.bittercritic.com

www.naysayers.com

Thank you! I'll be here all night. Try the veal!

[Mikeytrpt]

Kevin, don't let people like Lee get your goat. You are the one working world-wide in one of the greatest big bands in existance. While I have not yet met Jim in person, I know enough about him to know that he does not give a rat's a** what Lee C thinks. Thanks again for posting a the video of a great hang (not a lesson, as Lee stated).

Keep up the great work!

M.

[Don Lee]

[LeeC]

[groovinhigher]

Lee, you may feel there is no substance there, but I for one, can tell you, in my very humble opinion, there is if you get what he is pointing out and apply it. In particular the smaller aperature and relaxed approach.

I am sure everyone is sincere and respectful and as such, not dissing anyone, I just would leave my comment or opinion there is substance and something tangible there, that does in fact work and produce results.

You both deserve respect for your own takes on things, but again, I believe there is some substance to what he says in that video as I personally have used that same explanation to great effect for my own playing and students alike.
_________________
Rich Wetzel
Bach Artist and Clinician
Rich Wetzel's Groovin Higher Orchestra
www.richwetzel.com
www.facebook.com/rich.wetzel