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Purpose of Pedal Tones Gordon/Maggio/Callet



 
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MF Fan
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:01 am    Post subject: Purpose of Pedal Tones Gordon/Maggio/Callet Reply with quote

I worked out of SA without a qualified instructor in my high school days (40 years ago). I didn't find value in the pedal tone component of the approach at that time. Looking back at it I believe I wasn't playing them correctly, for example I never could play Pedal C with open valves. Fast forward...after a 30 year lay-off, and now being back to playing sporadically the past five years I stumbled into Jerry Callet's early pre-TCE teachings in his books Trumpet Yoga and Superchops. A central element of the Trumpet Yoga approach is to play in the double-pedal register to condition the top lip to unfurl, and then pull that set into the regular playing register. He talks about it as maintaining the fat top lip feel. He explicitly recommends not playing the single pedal register. I have found this approach to be very effective for me. It really opened up my sound, and when I keep the fat top lip setting my range all across the horn comes much easier. And guess what? I can now play pedal C open like it's nothing, loudly, even with articulation. It makes me wonder if Claude's approach (and Maggio's for that matter) to pedals was intended to do the same thing, i.e. unfurl the top lip?. Claude's books don't give an explanation for what pedals were to accomplish, that's where a qualified teacher would have helped.

Can any of you that worked directly with Claude or one of his students speak to the underlying purpose of pedal in his approach? It makes me wonder if Claude and Jerry were taking the same basic approach, with Jerry being more explicit that what the mechanics were all about, while Claude instructed to forget about the lips.
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JVL
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

hello again,
Claude Gordon wrote in SATDP that pedals correct your embouchure, improve the quality of your sound, give you better commend of the horn etc.
best
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John Mohan
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

JVL wrote:
hello again,
Claude Gordon wrote in SATDP that pedals correct your embouchure, improve the quality of your sound, give you better commend of the horn etc.
best


Yes. And in addition, playing them the way Claude directed, holding the last note of each arpeggio exercise "as long as you have air and longer, with an attempted crescendo as you run out of air" build tremendous blowing strength which is required to play the extreme upper register. This is also the safest way to build that blowing strength as when doing it this way, on very low notes, one is not building up tremendous levels of thoracic air pressure (causing one's face to turn dark red and possibly risking a Cerebral Vascular Event - Stroke - as one does when sustaining high notes over and over to build strength).

Also, one of the "knacks" of being able to play very high notes is to be able to blow nearly as hard as one can, all the while maintaining total relaxation in the uninvolved muscles, namely the vocal chords, the back of the tongue, and the soft palate. If these muscles tense up, they choke off the air. And when straining to play high notes, it's easy for tension to creep into these muscles. A pedal note requires tremendous air flow, so it is impossible to play a pedal note if these uninvolved muscles tense up. Practicing the pedal notes the CG way, trying to crescendo as one runs empty (blowing very hard) all the while maintaining that pedal note helps one get the knack to be able to blow very hard all the while maintaining total relaxation in the muscles that need to be kept relaxed.

In relation to the OP's questions about what the practice of pedal notes does for the lips in particular, basically, over a period of time pedal notes will slowly but surely correct any embouchure deficiencies. Practicing pedal notes in the correct manor, on a regular basis helps the lips adjust to form a good, free vibration, which is really the definition of what a correct embouchure is all about.

Hope this is helpful.

Best wishes,

John Mohan
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