Funny, I used to hear about DHC as the note to which we must aspire, but in recent years, DHD has become "the" note to own. What will it be in five years?!
Last edited by dstpt on Sun Apr 25, 2021 6:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Posts: 1471 Location: Riverview, FL
Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 9:59 am Post subject:
dstpt wrote:
Funny, I used to hear about DHC as the note to which we must aspire, but in recent years, DHD has become "the" note to own. What will it be in five years?!
Yes, I've heard DHD referred to as the "new" DHC. But, personally I don't think it will end there, but pretty much go on further to the next G above. Would that be DHG or THG? Not sure. A very few players have been able to play some good Gs above DHC, but I think it's THE note that everyone who plays high really wants, secretly or openly .
It's insanity, but waddya gonna do. And then of course THC has to be somewhere in the mix. My observation is that players can claim THC even though it doesn't have to be especially robust or in a musical setting. But the pitch does need to be defined and with the least amount of air in it.
The highest note I can recall hearing in a musical setting (A over DHC) is a Victor Paz solo on an Eddie Palmieri recording from around the 70s. _________________ Too Soon Oldt, Too Late Schmart
Joined: 22 May 2007 Posts: 2655 Location: Anacortes, WA
Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 10:42 am Post subject:
I just did a search on YouTube looking for a good sounding DHD and failed to find one. Anyone want to take a stab and post one? _________________ Richard
Joined: 29 May 2016 Posts: 104 Location: Orlando, FL
Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:47 pm Post subject:
I am not a professional, I am not a high note expert, but in light of this discussion, I thought that Doc Severinsen’s opinion of DHD might be relevant.
If you are interested, watch this video until the end.
I finally had time to respond to my post
I did find the graph of the impedence of the trumpet very interesting, and it makes sense. It's just weird because although I can't slot a DHD, the E above it just hits and stays there, so Idk why the e does but the d doesn't.
I know my mouthpiece has several dents from drops, if that can cause it?
Someone asked for a video of me playing, and I don't have any of me doing for a DHD, or a DHE, but I have this old video of the national anthem where I do a DHC if anything
Yowza Wowza! Thanks. I should have searched for trumpet gods when I was looking. I only found mere mortals trying to play the note. Well done. _________________ Richard
Faddis... heard this in 06... couldn't believe what I was hearing. His sound is just astonishing, and his command of the horn, the bebop language and harmony, and music... utterly inspiring and incredble.
Actually, the original post is not quite as strange as it might first seem. Clearly, the post was designed to get attention but a topic that doesn't get any attention soon gets buried.
Where the poster has some merit is that believe it or not, one of the most successful trumpet studies ever written initially taught the extreme upper register first. That and to all beginners too. Allow me to paste these words from the extremely rare first edition of the ''Stevens-Costello Triple C Embouchure Technique''. Hmm where'd I put that thing?? Ah yes!
Here's the exact quote from page 3, First edition:
''Some authorities contend that I have harmed more players than I have helped. To this, all I can say is that they have not heard my beginners play a four-octave scale. Nor have they spoken to the many, highly regarded professionals from the commercial, jazz and legitimate fields who come to my clinic aware that they are limited in embouchure development. These players are the products of their formal training with habits developed over many years of playing and they themselves recognize their own inadequacy''. Roy Stevens, 1971.
I might add that Stevens did not prescribe pedal tones in any of his students. So the described ''Four octave range'' extended from the low F# and on up to the F# above Double C. NOT INC PEDAL TONES! I can state with all honesty that I too am barely more than a beginner on the Stevens System myself. Yet my range also extends to the same area. Just the other day I ALMOST got the Triple C but had to settle for the B flat just below.
It's not difficult to recognize one's own limitations. That and the range ceilings of others. Back long before my dental injury of 2018 that ruined my former way of playing trumpet, I would sometimes find myself confronted with some pretty sad characters. They being trumpet players, who at the time, had overall stronger technique than me but were yet unable to produce enough range to play the lead book in the school Jazz ensemble. I took a number of lead books away from these fellows. A tendency of mine that actually started in my freshman year as a college music major. In fact, during that same initial college year absolutely none of my fellow upperclassmen had what you'd call lead chops. And at the time I was basically just a good High F trumpet player. But a solid F/High C wins out over one who's limited to barely the C.
So range is important. Even if you never use it. One particularly successful trumpet player from the Sixties was a very popular musician. He a fellow who was known to have a sweet tone. That and one who almost never played above a High C. So you'd think that he would be largely incapable of harming his chops, right?. And yet he truly did lose his ability to play for several years! This was due to a faulty embouchure apparatus. Just because one doesn't blow any high notes is no guarantee that self-abuse from a defective embouchure can't occur. _________________ "Check me if I'm wrong Sandy but if I kill all the golfers they're gonna lock me up & throw away the key"!
Joined: 07 Jan 2020 Posts: 220 Location: Texas Gulf Coast
Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 6:34 pm Post subject:
Lionel wrote:
''Some authorities contend that I have harmed more players than I have helped. To this, all I can say is that they have not heard my beginners play a four-octave scale.
So who these days besides Javier Gonzalez can actually play a 4 octave scale without taking a breath and repositioning the lips? I'm working daily on the same for 3 octaves, and that is years away at best. Squeaking out a high note with preset lips is one thing, but starting from low F# and playing up continuously for 3 octaves is harder. I can't do it often enough to even practice descending. According to this thread, several people here at the time could play 3 octave scales comfortably. But 4 (non-pedal) octaves is something else.
''Some authorities contend that I have harmed more players than I have helped. To this, all I can say is that they have not heard my beginners play a four-octave scale.
So who these days besides Javier Gonzalez can actually play a 4 octave scale without taking a breath and repositioning the lips? I'm working daily on the same for 3 octaves, and that is years away at best. Squeaking out a high note with preset lips is one thing, but starting from low F# and playing up continuously for 3 octaves is harder. I can't do it often enough to even practice descending. According to this thread, several people here at the time could play 3 octave scales comfortably. But 4 (non-pedal) octaves is something else.
That sounds like you're making progress. In fact one of the most important statements ever written by Roy Stevens was his remark that his studies are definitely not a program that changes his students into another Maynard within a couple of weeks. And I too can attest to the fact that it is definitely not an overnight success story. Stevens pointed out that those learning his program typically draw this inaccurate conclusion. This because since the high note squeakers are part of the beginner's initial studies. Then the student tends to assume that he's going start challenging those Vegas show trumpets by the week after next Thursday.
It doesn't work that way. In fact, nothing does. However, from my experience, I truly believe that the Stevens-Costello is the closest thing to a universal cure for poor embouchure design. And even it isn't perfect. Initially, I couldn't get the system to work properly. But I kept at it and eventually discovered an interesting quirk that made the program much more acceptable to me and perhaps helpful to certain others who may have also been stymied. There always was a certain minority of trumpet students who failed at trying to adopt the Stevens Embouchure. In time? I plan to offer an explanation for why they couldn't initially pull it off. That and offer a fix for this solution. We must remember however that to my understanding?
No other system for trumpet players could produce the number of successful lead trumpet players as did the Stevens-Costello model for trumpet playing would regularly churn out. While even Roy Stevens may have had some limitations as a teacher? Heck, they ALL do. We're involved in a process that each of us plays at least plays a small role in. Yet Stevens consistently rose to the top of the pack.
One piece of evidence demonstrating this was so is the fact that Maynard sent his own son Bentley to study trumpet directly with Roy Stevens! This explains how high of regard that Maynard held him. Although this tale wasn't exactly a happy one. As some years after he studied w/Stevens, Bentley passed away after sustaining an awful fall while visiting a Santa Barbara motel. That was sometime in the early 1980s. It was a sad SAD matter. I don't like to even mention it.
In my younger daze I could usually perform a three-octave run. Even on
my then less efficient and somewhat limited range embouchure. Just as the exercise appears in the chromatic run on the back pages of Herbert L Clarkes Technical Studies For Cornet. Although playing the three-octave scale four x on one breath was pretty hard to do. That BTW, is the indicated full number of repeats. Clarke was a freak about breath control and I've always treasured the time my college prof took me completely thru this valuable study book. This was however on a less efficient chop setting than the one I'm working on presently. On my former receded jaw embouchure I usually couldn't squeak many high notes. I basically just either got 'em or I didn't.
Today on my new embouchure I can often execute something close to a four octave run. It might be a set of arpeggios. Or might be a scale. Seeing how I'm now 66 years of age? Much of the trick tends to be taking in enough air to be able to pull off the task. _________________ "Check me if I'm wrong Sandy but if I kill all the golfers they're gonna lock me up & throw away the key"!
Initially, I couldn't get the system to work properly. But I kept at it and eventually discovered an interesting quirk that made the program much more acceptable to me and perhaps helpful to certain others who may have also been stymied. There always was a certain minority of trumpet students who failed at trying to adopt the Stevens Embouchure. In time? I plan to offer an explanation for why they couldn't initially pull it off. That and offer a fix for this solution.
"Because you have to keep them on tenterhooks until the end. It's like when you're playing cards: you have to hold a few trump cards for the final part of the game." — Joel Dicker
Initially, I couldn't get the system to work properly. But I kept at it and eventually discovered an interesting quirk that made the program much more acceptable to me and perhaps helpful to certain others who may have also been stymied. There always was a certain minority of trumpet students who failed at trying to adopt the Stevens Embouchure. In time? I plan to offer an explanation for why they couldn't initially pull it off. That and offer a fix for this solution.
"Because you have to keep them on tenterhooks until the end. It's like when you're playing cards: you have to hold a few trump cards for the final part of the game." — Joel Dicker
I'm in. Whose turn to deal?
Cheers and stay safe, Steve in Helsinki.
Is this a question? I've got a few years on me now and don't fully understand certain aspects of internet communication. That said? My first impression upon reading your post is that you may be asking for an explanation of what I needed to learn in order to get the Stevens-Costello system to start working for me.
I'll be brief in the explanation if only because I'm really not sure if you even asked a question. Here goes:
What I found from my studies of forward jaw embouchure settings on the trumpet (often called ''Upstream'' chops), is that the existing dimensions of stock mouthpieces are not acceptable for some trumpet players who switch from a receded jaw embouchure to a forward jaw setting. Even one of my own students had to move up to a Bach 1C soon after he switched to the forward jaw embouchure directed by Roy Stevens. Previously he'd used the Shilke 6A. A very small inner rim dimension.
In my own case? I had to increase the inner rim dimension of my mouthpiece by some 25 to 30 PERCENT!! In other words I had to become my own mouthpiece customizer. So I bought some reasonably priced metal lathe equipment and trudged on into a whole new field... The upside here is that I no longer must wait for a small rim modification to improve or not. I'm instantly apprised of what the condition is. The new mouthpiece either works or it doesn't.
The idea of making mouthpieces with V large inner rim dimensions may not appeal to the masses. It does however work well for me. I wouldn't recommend using a piece like this unless a trumpet player was using an embouchure as suggested by Stevens-Costello and then only if they already had difficulty getting a big enough sound out of his chops. _________________ "Check me if I'm wrong Sandy but if I kill all the golfers they're gonna lock me up & throw away the key"!
Thanks for the reply and your insight. I'm a big fan of yours cos of your unbridled enthusiasm. Thanks to you I did buy the Costello book.. I use the palm exercise and I do treat it as a version of BE rolled in exercises which must be tantamount to heresy in some eyes.
Re mouthpiece tailoring I'm a novice in that area (indeed I am a novice in all things trumpet related!) but I bet if you and Dr Dave (who like you got tired of conventional solutions) from Wedge were to sit down for a chat the sparks would soon be bouncing off the lathe.
Joined: 28 Dec 2015 Posts: 80 Location: Orange County, California
Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:23 pm Post subject:
Lionel,
I don't think that any particular mouthpiece design is more or less suited to the Stevens-Costello system. I think it's going to depend on the physiology of the individual player.
I learned S-C while I was playing a Bach 1 1/2B, which is a very large and deep piece.
Over time I found that in the high register I had a lot of non-vibrating lip tissue in the cup that was unsupported and this had implications for my endurance. I transitioned to eventually using a very small diameter piece, a Bach 20C.
I have relatively thin lips and the smaller mouthpiece is what works better for me.
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