Derek Reaban
Heavyweight Member
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 4221
Location: Tempe, Arizona
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 Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 3:00 pm Post subject: A Personal Success Story |
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Rich,
I’ve wanted to write to you for some time now, and after seeing the post that you wrote recently about long term endurance (congratulations on your hard work to get to that point, by the way!) I wanted to share a personal success story with you related to something that I’ve seen you mention a number of times over the years, but am guilty of getting caught in its trap frequently.
In this Topic that Paul Poovey started (Rich Willey – Analysis and Orientation Lesson), you mentioned to him "Don't fall in love with your sound in the middle and low registers during your practice periods as that can expand the size of your aperture and can make it tougher to develop the upper register". You also commented that before meeting with Donald Reinhardt you were "basically falling apart and getting worse every year".
I tucked those phrases away when I read them knowing that they were important. I feel like I’m a pretty good player, but similar to your phrase about "progress", I didn’t feel like I was getting better every year, even though I put in quite a bit of time to daily practice and very rarely miss a day, and find myself struggling just to maintain what I have. That has been a source of ongoing frustration.
I had my first Wind Ensemble concert of the season on Sunday evening, and it was a lot of playing. Lots of patriotic stuff, marches, a John William’s piece called Hymn to the Fallen with some delicate solos, and some other big blow tunes. I drew the principal book for everything since we had a number of subs for this concert and a lot of these pieces were one per part, so there was not very much rest (and we had no intermission). Several of the subs were former Hickman students (both very fine players) and another gentleman was also a great player who sparked an important idea in my mind.
Each of these new players in the section approached their brief warm-ups using a very gentle dynamic to get things working and then maintained a beautiful core sound with lots of vibrancy, but without playing too loudly. I am very guilty of playing just a little too loud because I really like my sound. With this perfect opportunity to explore something new, I decided to change my practice diet leading up to this first concert, and see what result it would have on my playing. While this quote isn’t Reinhardt specific, I really like it, and feel it is in the spirit of that idea that I was trying to pursue (Chris Gekker quote related to Clarke):
| Quote: | | Form follows function. If, on a daily basis, you establish a very efficient, relaxed approach to playing the trumpet, you will eventually become a trumpeter that can, on a daily basis, play the trumpet in a relaxed, smooth, and expressive manner. |
I decided to scrap my daily practice routine for a month to see if I could retrain myself and practice in a way that aligns with the statement in the 35 Basic Points from your website - Point 1: Never warm up so loudly that you experience strain or so softly that you feel a pinching or a holding back. It is obvious, therefore, that your warm-up dynamic level will vary from day to day in order to cater to vast physical differences.
I opted to do a routine using Iron’s Groups 6-9 and Clark 2 with slurring, T, K, and DT, being very mindful of your words related to falling in love with my sound and the Gekker quote. I had to get away from anything that would allow me to fall back into a familiar groove, and really give this idea time to take hold while it was so present in my mind (given the sound examples from the fine new players in my ensemble). I also added some of the compression exercises about a week or so before my concert.
Well, I don’t have the same level of endurance that you have, but I marveled at the fact that I was able to get through this challenging wind ensemble program at all! If I would have fallen into the all too familiar trap of playing just a little too loud, I think this program would have completely done me in. And while it was far from note perfect, there were lots of musical moments that I was really pleased with. I was able to access the high range during the concert even when I was starting to get tired, because I hadn’t allow my aperture to open too much. That is a definite first for me!
After reading the 35 Basic Points, I feel like deviating from this item in point 1 has really kept my playing from progressing as I’d like it to. I’m excited about what I’ve learned over the past month, and think that when I begin applying this back to my FocalPoint routine, I may start to experience more long term growth.
It’s encouraging to see where my playing may go with this important tweak to my overall approach to sound production (and while it's great to have access to the higher range, my real goal is just overall great vibrancy in my sound). It seemed appropriate to jump on your coat tails and mention that the ideas from Dr. Reinhardt have made a tangible difference in my playing!
Thanks for all you do!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest |
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