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Same horn?



 
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Musechaser
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Joined: 20 Mar 2023
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:50 am    Post subject: Same horn? Reply with quote

I've been lurking here for a while, and figured I'd showcase my idiocy with a really dumb first post...

How important is it to practice the basic Caruso exercises on the horn you usually play?

Here's what I'm getting at... I've got a lot of beater horns that are still quite playable, and two very big rambunctious dogs. I'm more than comfortable leaving one or two of these horns on stands throughout the house, available to pick up and go through the six note routine frequently throughout the day whenever I walk by one, but not any of my good horns. However, if I confine it to the time or two per day when I have an hour or more to devote to a session and pull out the Mt. Vernon Bach, I'll end up doing them less frequently.

Anyone see any issue with using the exercises like that? Thinking that, if I understand correctly, these exercises are more calisthenic than aesthetic, and that the chops, body, and mind will be doing what they do regardless of horn, it shouldn't matter much.

Thoughts?
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PH
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Joined: 26 Nov 2001
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A major part of what CC calisthenics does is acclimate your body to the instrument and mouthpiece you are playing. Carmine said that if you want to be an excellent doubler you should do his calisthenics on every horn/mouthpiece combination you might play on a gig. He said that if you are mostly a C trumpet player you should do them on C. Art Farmer did them on flugelhorn. Sam Burtis does CC calisthenics on all of the horns he uses for his work: tenor trombone, bass trombone, tuba, euphonium.

You should do them on the horn and mouthpiece you intend to perform with. And do them open. Doing them in a mute will make you a better muted trumpet player, but won't do much for your open playing.
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Musechaser
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you... good points. I'm using the same mouthpiece, of course (standard Bach 3C), and I only own Bb trumpets and a flugel. Still, your advice is well taken. I'm hoping that more frequent playing afforded by the occasional use of an easily accessible horn will be beneficial, but if the common (and much more experienced than me) brain trust here indicates it would be detrimental, then so be it.
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gstump
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 26, 2023 5:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The idea here is to organize your playing to the point where the brain knows what to do when going from one note to another. Mentally subdivding in 16th or even 32nd notes along with the metering of the air and face in a very organized fashion evenually leads to making music without having to think about what is going on behind the mouthpiece.

So to change horns adds another major variable. My brain is too small for that!

Mr Caruso told me the story about a toddler learning to walk up stairs. The child will look at the stairs and try to navigate. Eventually, on those stairs, the brain learns what signals to send the muscles and it becomes "second nature".

In my career whenever I stumbled on the stairs I would go back to Caruso.
Best of luck
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Destructo
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 30, 2023 9:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PH wrote:
And do them open. Doing them in a mute will make you a better muted trumpet player, but won't do much for your open playing.


Someone posted a link to a Christopher Smith essay about how he always warms up muted because that's the reality of what happens on an audition day, and doing that with a mute all the time means you're not throwing yourself a curve ball on audition day etc.

I tried doing six notes and the 2nds on a good practise mute. Felt fine while the mute was in. Once I took it out, I proceeded to having two days where my playing just felt really "off". I haven't repeated the experiment to confirm it was the mute, but it seems pretty likely.

I decided I'd rather find 3 minutes to warm up and just do the six notes without a mute and that's it, than to use a practice mute.
In fact, I'd rather not practise than use a practise mute...!

Quote:
Mr Caruso told me the story about a toddler learning to walk up stairs. The child will look at the stairs and try to navigate. Eventually, on those stairs, the brain learns what signals to send the muscles and it becomes "second nature".

And if the stairs are not even heights, walking up them becomes a nightmare! Fortress/castles that were accessed by stairs used to deliberately be built with unevenly tall steps as a defensive measure. Locals would learn to walk up them over time, but new people would invariably trip and stumble or have to go very slow.
Given that no mouthpiece or instrument produces a scale where all the notes feel exactly even and the same distance apart, it seems like a great metaphor for changing equipment. You have to get used to a whole new set of stairs that are uneven in its own unique way.
If you're climbing both sets of stairs everyday, you'll get used to it, but if you only visit them every so often, you'll never be able to run up and down them with the confidence of a local who lives there and goes up and down there everyday.
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gstump
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 01, 2023 4:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I told the stair story. While I still do not think changing equipment when doing Caruso intervals is such a good idea, for a player that has religiously followed the rules for years, it is not so bad. And hence here comes another self serving Stump Story:

I was subbing on a national tour of Les Miserable. A young lady from NYC was subbing for Paul Perfetti on the first part and I played second. She accidentally knocked over my Schilke B5. The valves froze. So I played the show on my flugelhorn. The next few days I used my King. Then back to the Schilke. She said..." you changed horns 3 times and never missed a note"

So the stair analogy is more about what is behind the horn. Here is the self serving part: The conductor, Bob Gustavson, said I could play this show on a straw. So nice.
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Destructo
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 01, 2023 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gstump wrote:

I was subbing on a national tour of Les Miserable. A young lady from NYC was subbing for Paul Perfetti on the first part and I played second. She accidentally knocked over my Schilke B5. The valves froze. So I played the show on my flugelhorn. The next few days I used my King. Then back to the Schilke. She said..." you changed horns 3 times and never missed a note"


Was the mouthpiece at least the same?
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gstump
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 02, 2023 2:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes same mouthpiece. Thanks
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