Master Class Stories

[NCTrumpet]

I'd love to hear tales of your personal experiences in a master class situation. It's interesting to hear about what somebody learned, or to know what certain clinicians have to say. In my experiences, very few clinicians discuss technic, but mostly one's approach to the music, not the instrument.

Here's one of mine:

As a junior in college, I was pleased to be asked to play at a master class. Most of the entire brass studio was to attend. I decided I would play the Artunian, unaccompanied, and from memory. I was about as nervous as I should have been.

As I stood alone on stage, I was soon perfectly at ease. I began to really make music. The performance was quite decent. Afterward, the clinician came on stage and congradulated me, saying he wasn't sure where to begin with his suggestions. But he did say that I could try this or that...can't really remember. So I grabbed my part and put it on a stand. Now the interesting part.

I started to try the passages he suggested and could hardly play at all. I just sucked. I had really lost all focus. Maybe I had burned ot for the moment. I was as stunned as everyone else there. He smiled, patted me on the back and said, "That's allright, we'll just talk."

And the discussion evolved into why I had played the concerto from memory, and how had it affected my performance. He pointed out to the audience that playing from memory can allow the player to be absorbed by the music and to lose his inhibitions, as it had with me. A very cool day for me.

JC.

[ This Message was edited by: NCTrumpet on 2002-03-29 22:27 ]

[NelleTrumpet]

JC,

I'm playing on a master class with Marvin Stamm in two weeks - I'll let you know how it goes (hopefully it won't be a horror story...)
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Danelle Wilbraham

[trjeam]

and this one time at a masterclass ...

My masterclass with the navy jazz commoders started of cool John Blount was talking about what we wanted to hear range, tone technique, fast fingering, flexibility. ext. after he is done talking this guy starts talking about throwing away music and burning electric tuners and about how not to learn to play trumpet by reading music and telling me to forget everything that I know and tellinng us about how he hated to practice. Well it was boring so then I raise my hand and totally change the subject to embouchure set ups and one of the guys answers my question and then the same guy picked off where he left off and starts talking about bach and the classical so I raise my hand again and ask a question about mouthpieces and then one of the trumpeters laugh and says all that stuff is important and I don't agree with some of the stuff you say but I don't think these kids wana hear that stuff they want to ask question so anyways it was so funny because i kept cutting him off and then he just stopped talking and we started to talk about horns.

The guy wasted like 30 minutes talking about how we should burn our music.

But at the end i did learn allot of stuff and it was fun cause i got to play some jazz licks.

[pair of kings]

[trickg]

Hey trjeam, are you talking about Blount wasting 30 minutes or someone else? I've had the wonderful opportunity to gig next to John Blount on two occasions and just being in the same big band section where he is playing lead is like sitting in a master class. He's also very cool about sharing what he knows and and talking about the equipment he is playing. One day, if I can manage to find time and money at the same time, I'll see if I can get some lessons from him.

The only other master class I attended was where Denny Schnieder played the Goedeke (sp?) Concerto. He also talked a lot about playing long tones and breath control but since that was around 15 years ago, I don't remember much else.
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Patrick Gleason
- Jupiter 1600i, ACB 3C, Warburton 4SVW/Titmus RT2
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"95% of the average 'weekend warrior's' problems will be solved by an additional 30 minutes of insightful practice." - PLP

[tcutrpt]

Denny Scheider is great! I had a lesson with him when I was in highschool up in Nebraska. My band director set up a lesson for the three trumpets who were auditioning for allstate. He had some great things to offer. Too bad he retired from the University of Nebraska. I might have stayed close to home if he was still teaching there.

Matt

[NelleTrumpet]

I've been busy with end of the semester stuff, and I forgot to post about my master class with Marvin. I would play a phrase or two, and then he would describe other ways that I might look at it, demonstrate, talk about it, etc. For example, I was doing the Hummel first movement, and he talked about thinking how the lyrical stuff might sound on a flute as I play. He also stressed the value of listening to others playing the piece via recordings to hear how they have interpreted the work as far as style is concerned. His general comments were also quite enlightening. He spoke about how many players play the trumpet rather than playing music, and also about how important it is to practice playing very soft, which is something that he thinks most trumpeters don't do. He was very positive, and had nothing but positive things to say to any of the students, even if they didn't sound that good. Very professional, I was impressed and feel very lucky to have worked with him.
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Danelle Wilbraham

[PC]

Hi,

I have somwhat different masterclass experiences:

1) I got to play for Pierre Thibaud quite a while back. I had prepared a Bozza or something and was quite ready if a bit nervous. Anyway, I didn't get to play more than 3 notes before he stopped me, shaking his head saying No, no not like this and having me play some Caruso to check efficiency and range. Quite bizarre experience, but nice in a sense, as I didn't come to hear how good I was, but to learn a few new tricks.

2) I played for Richard Giangiulio (sp?), a trumpeter from Texas. Completely different style! I got to play the whole 1st mvt. of Hindemith uninterrupted, with piano as in a performance, got a round of applause and then we were in business, mostly talking music and interpretation, as I recall. Very worthwhile as well.

3) Interesting masterclass by a famous tuba soloist (American whose name I had on the tip of the tongue...). At that time I lived in Jerusalem, Israel and there were probably not enough tubists to keep the guy interested so some other brass were asked to join. Funnily enough, I chose to do a piccolo piece (can't remember which one) and got a VERY good coaching by the guy! I remember, beside obvious music interpretation issues (also very sound), that he talked a lot about the feel of the picc in relation to the long trumpet. He said that you should play lighter on picc, but have more emphasis on tonguing (harder tongue than on Bb) but with longer notes as the sound kind of disappears quicker.

4) A jazz impro class with an Israeli sax player. Very basic stuff: hearing licks and repeating them to work on the ear, with transposition to all keys. Another jazz trumpeter (name?!) told us to practise Clark studies but with other modes apart from major and minor, like diminished scale, augmented and such.

Enough for now,
Pierre.

[trjeam]

[kjb]

Played a masterclass with Roger Vosin a couple of years ago. . . He's getting a bit old a hard of hearing. I played Charlier #2, everything went well. He made a few suggestions relating to pacing and a little bit of style. Near the end of my time, he stood contemplating for a minute or so, and then yelled "You need to fall in love!!" and shooed me off stage. I was mortified. . . infront of the entire brass department!

kjb

[trumpetgeek234]

lol, thats funny

[kenny dorham is an animal]

hahah i guess you could call this is a masterclass because i learned a lot:

I saw Los hombres Calientes, with irvin mayfield on trumpet (monster), at blues alley. I loved the way irvin played, and i was right in front of him when they were playing. So after the show i sit down ang talk to him. We get talking and talkin, and some how i saw something about how i dont know if i like wynton or not. And of course at this point i was kinda jumpy talking to one of my living idols, so i forgot that he is like wyntons protege. So he says to me, man you should like everyone, like everyone on the outside, you dont need to feel it, just show it. So he says, you should like everyone, cause then most everyone will like you. he said I mean look at clifford brown, he aint hate nobody, nobody hated him. So then he gets even deeper.... He says "usually when you dont like something about someone, theres usually something wrong with you, not them" And when not only did he give me musical advice, he gave me some advice for life, it was great. He had basically learned the lesson for me, he just said here know this, so you dont have to learn later that it is a mistake. Damn man i loved talkin to him it was soooo great. Man that was great.
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Im out for dead presidents to represent me-Nas

DRES

[William F. Dishman]

Many years ago in the weekly master class as an undergrad, I remember the feeling as a freshman after doing the Enesco Legend for our jury performance 1st quarter when my professor played the tape recording of the performance for the rest of the trumpet studio and made the comment "That's the way a jury is supposed to be played!" As I was a newcomer at the time and totally unprepared to be singled out in this manner, I was quite taken back. It worked out very well however as the rest of the students critiqued the performance as well and through the discourse I got many other tidbits of information on possible other ways to approach the piece. It opened my eyes and ears to different interpretations, opinions and also helped me get "into" the trumpet studio and feel comfortable discussing music and performance with the other students.

Bill Dishman
Gainesville, Florida