Commercial Playing!!!: How do you practice this skill?

[Jason Rogers]

Teachers are always inspired when we have that student that jumps on our weekly assignments in Clarke's Technical Studies, Arban's, Charlier, Smith's Top Tones, various orchestral excerpts, solos, transposing, etc....the student that has very few roadblocks in tone production, range or technical skill development. What do you do with a student that displays great potential for playing in multiple genre and styles?

What are your suggestions?

What specific methods do you use to challenge that students' development of the commercial side of playing? (Without addressing improvisation....)

What are the "get ready steps" before stepping into the ensemble that requires a commercial or show style of playing?
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[Jaw04]

Dive into a style.. for example learn the standard salsa repertoire. Or, read through a few broadway musical repertoire 1st trumpet book. Or, learn all the typical wedding band horn lines by ear. A lot of times in wedding bands or salsa gigs there are no charts and you are expected to know the tunes. So doing a lot of that is beneficial. Learning how to learn and retain tunes by ear quickly is a skill that should be practiced.

In addition to that, practicing accuracy and control in the upper register.

[Jason Rogers]

Very workable advice ....but beyond specific ensemble charts and show books that might be available (....always "hold onto" your show books for personal practice!!!)

Are there formal method books available that can be used to move a student forward? .....To practice Jazz/Commercial rhythm and articulation?

Playing "by ear" is extremely important...listening to recordings and performers is critical....
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[Jaw04]

[falado]

Hi, look up these books and give them a read:
The Broadway Trumpeter by Paul Baron (it’s a set of two books)
Hessians Sessions by Patrick Hession
Clinical Notes on Trumpet Playing by Roger Ingram

There are a few others, but this may be a good start.
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[jhatpro]

Check out www.qpress.ca You’ll find everything you need.
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[lipshurt]

I think the most important thing is actually the intonation on commercial gigs. It’s nothing like playing in a big band as far as intonation goes.

In commercial gigs, the horns typically are doubled with a synth, and that synth dictates the pitch, so every note is basically exactly where a clip on tuner would have you put it. In a big band, or a salsa band there is a lot of drifting going on.

The typical commercial horn section is trpt/tenor/bone. The tenor player and bone player will listen to the trumpet, and if they are good they will stick like glue. The problem is that if the pitch drifts (as in the trumpet drifting sharp when getting tired) the whole thing is out against the rhythm section, and if there is a synth doubling the horns its particularly noticeable. When that starts happening the trumpet is really hard to be accurate, so you start cracking way more notes. If you start going sharp as a set progresses you need to pull your slide a bit. Lots of players refuse to do that.

Things that come up that are more commercial band specific.:

1) playing outside, and the temperature changes, and you still have to be exactly in tune with a tuner. If it’s cold, you may need to pull in every time you have a couple minutes of not playing. Then pull back out when your horn is warm again. Use a tuner clipped on your horn. It’s important.

2) sax player or bone player who starts out out of tune. Don’t tune to them instead of the keyboards. It’s makes it a mess all night. Start the night and each set with a tuner clipped on your horn and nail the tuner and make the horns match you. This can take three tunes. Don’t say anything at all about the pitch! That makes the whole night awful. Never mention the pitch. Everyone will know you are right if you are on the tuner every note

3) if there are two trumpets and a mono monitor mix (either floor or in-ears) and the trumpets are playing in unison… you cant tell right away which trumpet is you. Especially up high. You wont hear you accoustic sound hardly at all, and both trumpets are in the same space in the in-ears. If using floor monitors, put up a clear plexiglass screen on your mic. That way you can separate your own sound. If using in-ears, crack one of them open a bit on the side of the other trumpet, which might help to distinguish the other players sound. Better yet…. Use a clip on tuner all night when playing with two trumpets especially in unison.

4) you might figure out that your setup goes sharp or flat in different octaves, or at different dynamics. Not uncommon at all. You have to deal with that. Practice all of your basic routine with loud drones or drones in one earbud. Just make that routine. It’s great. And then use a clip on tuner on the gig. Then find a rig that has stable intonation. I dont know if this next point is actually true, but i swear there are certain setups that are actually less sensitive to temperature, or more sensitive to temperature. I need more time on that.

5) use a clip on tuner. The standard rules of listening and adjusting dont apply to the trumpet in this situation. You just have to be exactly in tune with where keyboards are putting the notes, and you might not be able to hear them, or you might not be able to hear yourself. If you hear yourself but just barely, you can think you are in tune, and then you hear a board recording and you were flat or sharp all night long. That happens, especially if you are tuning to other horn players.

6) bone players who grew up listening to dick shearer can be a source of you cracking notes. If they scoop into everything and and slip and slide around when they are playing an octave down, that is poison. Pull the bone out of your in-ears, or ignore it, or possibly break the rule about not mentioning anything. It’s way better if everything falls into place with zero conversation about anything, but slippery bone players…..

After everything has settled in and the horns are all perfectly in tune, you can all go on for a while like that. maybe all night, and then you can stop checking the tuner on every note. As soon as something weird happens clip it back on though.

Lastly, the tuner does not know when you are playing the 3rd of the chords, so when it’s a major chord let the note be one click flat on the tuner. Even if you dont do that it’s ok, but doing that is actually the best way to use a tuner. Also if you are within one click (on a snark brand tuner) you are pretty good enough usually. If you nail it right on the green though its amazing solid and “commercial” sounding.
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[NickJTrumpet]

A lot of my playing is commercial rather than classical and I always recommend 2 or 3 books for my students:

Eric Murine - A Progressive Guide to Commercial Trumpet Playing: it’s his doctoral thesis but the content in it is great. It has exercises and duets in a number of different styles with explanations of each style and recommended listening.

Berklee Practice Method - Trumpet, Get Your Band Together: in a similar vein to the Murine it talks you through each genre but it also has sections on articulation, improv etc. and comes with a play along CD.

I also recommend lots of listening and transcription - play along with popular/famous tracks and start building a library of parts that you/they have transcribed.

[trickg]

Looking down through this thread, I'm not quite sure how we're defining "commercial." I always regarded "commercial" as anything that wasn't classical - anything that was driven by percussion or played along with amplified instruments, and anything where a brighter, more cutting tone was preferable.

Most of my career has been gigging in situations that wouldn't be considered classical:

Latin band
Big Band - I consider this to be a type of commercial music
Wedding band
Classic rock band

I learned by doing. I wanted to play Latin music, so I found a Latin band and started gigging - before long I was ripping along for 3 sets, 3-4 nights a week.

I was also lucky enough to play alongside some other great players who had much more experience than I did, so I also learned by listening, while doing.
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[kehaulani]

Is the definition of commercial playing to you folks the same as what lipshurt is talking about? This is not a criticism, I just want a common vocabulary so I can communicate.

My impression of commercial is big band, film scores, pops orchestra, pit band and the like. For what lipshurt is referring to, I would use horn section and pop/soul band.
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[kehaulani]

p.s. different topic. I may have missed it, but it is crucial to lock into the drums.
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[Jaw04]

I don't have a great definition of "commercial" playing it, but I consider it basically not Jazz or Classical. It could be playing in a horn section for a pop band, or it could be playing musical theater. Skills like improvising, sight-reading, memorizing a book, playing different styles, playing soloistically, playing in a section, playing high notes, may all be involved, so you need to be well-rounded in those areas. Primarily playing B flat trumpet maybe some flugelhorn.

Skills for an orchestral musician = more about transposition, playing different keyed trumpets, mastery of the classical repertoire/styles/literature, symphonic sound.

Skills for a Jazz artist = more about improvisation, having your own voice as an artist, composing and arranging, knowing standards, playing without charts.

There's obviously overlap in the 3 "categories."

[Jason Rogers]

I understand the confusion...What is commercial?

When I posted my original question....I was thinking...West Side Story...or Maynard Ferguson section playing...or arrangements suggested by Veldkamp's new Qpress publication Beats Daily...however, could commercial playing also include a film score by John Williams...but that is also "classical"?
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[kehaulani]

In characterizing John Williams' music, I'd say Straussian-influenced film score and leave it to that. Too much compartmentalizing genres just confuses things. Good example is "West Coast Jazz" which was populated with East Coast players.
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"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird

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[WestCoastTpt]

A Working musicians definition: anything but classical and jazz.. so funk, r&b, soul, salsa, … one would also call it pop music.

[WestCoastTpt]

[kehaulani]

Lipshurt, your post is excellent. I would just have two "qualifiers".

In pop bands, you do need to be in tune with the electronic instruments, just be aware that in some genres of "soul"-oriented music, while the former is a rule of thumb, in that genre, horn and vocal pitches can be, er, "flexible".

Also regarding two trumpets playing unison up high, I would never do that and, actually, have never seen it. It's not something I would recommend. Not that it wouldn't occur but I, personally, wouldn't even do that in the staff.

Nothing dogmatic, just a few observations based on personal practice.
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[Didymus]

[kehaulani]

I'm very familiar with Korngold. I use Stauss because I assume his name is more relatable than Korngold. Not for film-score buffs but for the average Joe.
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[trickg]