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hornkid
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Joined: 06 Apr 2005
Posts: 83
Location: Bloomington IN
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 Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 1:35 pm Post subject: "The Buzzing Book" |
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| I just received my copy of James Thompson's "The Buzzing Book". I read through the beginning section and went through the basic exercises 1-4. Both my mouthpiece and trumpet playing in the lower register really opened up as I went along. After I finished, my lips were really tingling. I'm excited about this book and am curious to see what other people think of it. Do you play it as a warmup or not necessarily? How creative do you get with it? I would especially be interested in comments from Thompson's students with any inside tips or advice. I thought his explanation of the "breaks" between the three registers was interesting. I am in the process of going through an embouchure change and have had some trouble getting a resonant mp buzz across all the registers, hopefully this book will help! |
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Andiroo
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Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 711
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| Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 1:52 pm Post subject: Yeah |
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| I've done exercises 1-4 on and off, i haven't done any of the other pages. When i first did them my lips tingled like crazy aswell.What works best for me, as in I can find my muscles burning (a good sign) is that i always breath through my nose and never remove the mpc from my face . I think it says to do that in the book. Yeah it really helps. I like the CD that comes with it as for me I struggle to hear notes in my head so with the CD i know when i'm pitching the correct note. |
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Derek Reaban
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 4221
Location: Tempe, Arizona
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| Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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hornkid,
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Do you play it as a warm-up or not necessarily? How creative do you get with it? I would especially be interested in comments from Thompson's students with any inside tips or advice.
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Warm-up?
I do about a minute of playing on the mouthpiece/leadpipe combination followed by the Caruso 6 Note exercise. Then I do the James Thompson material. I typically play exercises 1 through 12 or 13 everyday. These are what Craig Morris calls "fundamentals", specifically centering / balancing exercises (i.e. different than "skill set" exercises). If you are doing the Thompson material, you don’t need to do a big Stamp/Caruso/Adam routine during the same day. It would probably be best to alternate days, or try the Thompson exercises for a week, and then Caruso/Stamp/Adam for a week if you don’t want to get too far away from what you have already developed in the other approaches.
Stick with No. 1-4 for the first month +, and then add No. 9. As this feels good, then slowly add No. 5-8 (it took me about 7 months to get to this point). It was at least 2 years before I moved on to book 2! First organize, then strengthen!
Getting creative:
I like to apply a breath attack to the beginning of each of the Thompson exercises (just like the Caruso 6 Notes). The Caruso / Adam technique that you can bring to the Thompson material is to consciously focus your mind on something tangible to let your body simply do what it knows how to do. Caruso gets at this by focusing on the subdivision of the beat. You can certainly do that even with the CD accompaniment. You could also try focusing on hearing a specific harmonic overtone (let’s say the 3rd Harmonic - an octave and a fifth above the note you are playing). Even if you can’t hear this note in a tangible way in your sound, if you try to sing this pitch in your mind while you are playing the fundamental, you will be directing your conscious mind to something other than sound production (achieving your goal!).
I have found all of the important discussion on the Buzzing Book (I still have Buzzing Basics), and I’ve provided the links in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Trumpet Section folder. You will need to scroll down to the second post and underneath the picture of the Buzzing Book you will see links to four references. I have written in detail about my experience with this book, and I hope you will take the time to read these comments. There is a right way and a wrong way to go through this material, and I’ve highlighted some danger zones as well as the subtle things to help get the most out of this book.
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I thought his explanation of the "breaks" between the three registers was interesting.
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We had a good discussion about this in a post called Stuffy notes on a specific partial.
Good luck with your progress in the Buzzing Book!
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest |
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TWEAK
Veteran Member
Joined: 20 Jul 2004
Posts: 416
Location: Albany, NY
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| Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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this book was hard for me because i just didnt understand fundamentals of correct brass playing. when i understood how easy brass playing was, the book wasnt hard anymore.
i did a year of caruso exercises and almost got thru that entire book before i stepped back into the realm of the buzzing book.
now i do both...but not in the same day. if i have a lot of time i will do full on caruso stuff. if i have only a short time, i may do a bit of caruso, then the buzzing book.
to me, buzzing seems remedial, and it certainly does help remedy things from a hard days playing.
Reference One from derek's post has a lot of me struggling thru and then my eventual success with everything. |
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hornkid
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Joined: 06 Apr 2005
Posts: 83
Location: Bloomington IN
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Andiroo
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Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 711
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| Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Derek and hornkid for posting the links...
| Quote: | Soft playing
You have to train the muscles to make a small opening. I can always tell when somebody plays too loud. They are able to go (sings a diatonic scale, stops suddenly) like this and zip, nothing. They go from a loud note to nothing. They have an absolute ceiling in their playing. You must know people like that. They can play really great and then not one note higher. That's because they have never trained their muscles to make a smaller opening. |
This happens to me! Wow thanks guys maybe finially i'll make progress with my range. It explains why in the Cat Anderson trumpet method the 1st exercise in each lesson is a 20min long G at PP! |
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Upstatetpt
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Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 343
Location: Up-State
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| Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| James Thompson is a brilliant trumpet player a pedagogue. If anyone has the means to get to Toronto for the Trumpet Symposium at the University of Toronto, then do it!! A week of playing with Mr. Thompson and Jens Lindemann, it doesn't get more insightful than that. |
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TheIrishBuddah
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Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Posts: 202
Location: Epping, NH
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| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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The Buzzing Book has been a gift from god to me because of my embeature (sp) change. It gave me so much flexibility so quickly. You could not ask for a better book to correct problems you are having. My teacher told me all the playing is in the mouthpiece, if something goes wrong there then the trumpet will not work!
Keep working with the book and enjoy it, once you correct whatever mistakes you may be making the book will be so easy to play you'll want to stop, but don't stop it's the best book you can get.
Ian |
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Satchel
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