Tripple pedals (?)

[trumpetteacher1]

Now your are purposefully baiting me.

I don't try to help people that are only looking for attention.

Many people here do not know your history on TH. Unfortunately, I do.

Jeff

[John Mohan]

[trumpetplanet]

I've only just found this thread because I tend not to post outside of the Callet forum these days but there are things here that absolutely contradict a conversation on the same topic over there.

John, you've shared this story about causing yourself harm by playing below double pedal C before and when I called you out on it the CG forum my posts were deleted and your cronies told me to grow up.

Within the last week you have talked with me and others about being interested in the way that we play double pedals, knowing that the system is completely different from what you do and in no way harmful to those who use it.

What's the deal here?

I have to say I'm with trumpetteacher1 in "knowing your history". Knowing you as a die-hard Claude Gordon advocate is one thing, but seeing you contradict yourself in these two different threads at the same time just leaves me bemused.

For those who want to know - I practise double pedals daily, have done for years, and have expanded this technique down to triple pedal C. When done properly there is absolutely no way that it is harmful.

It would be professional negligence if I were to know of any potential damage and continue teaching something anyway. This is precisely the reason I don't teach playing in the single pedal register with a consistent embouchure position - because after four years of practice I derived absolutely no benefit from doing it and because both Doc Reinhardt and Herbert Clarke criticised the technique as being harmful to some embouchure types. It's also the reason that I don't teach note bending or mouthpiece buzzing.
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[John Mohan]

Rich, I think more than anything else, there is a lot of confusion in communication going on here.

How do you think I am contradicting myself? I thnk there is misunderstanding going on.

I'll try to clear some of this up.

1) As far as approaches to double pedal notes, I really don't think there can be any difference between sustaining a Triple Pedal C the "Gordon" way and doing it the "Callet" way at least in terms of any potential harms. How we approach the exercises and what we are trying to gain from the exercises might be different, but I think a sustained note is a sustained note.

2) I think it possible (as Jeff pointed out) that there is confusion in the OPs use of the term "Tripple" [sic] pedal notes - maybe he didn't mean triple, but rather he meant double pedal notes.

3) My original post here was only to warn people about sustaining notes well below Double Pedal C. I shared my own story of how I split my lip callous open on a Triple Pedal note in an effort to stop anyone else from hurting themselves similarly. I pointed out that the callous was much more built up than typical because of my playing schedule at the time (13 shows a week with three shows on Saturday and Sunday).

Note that when I hurt myself doing Triple Pedals I was NOT doing it the way Claude taught us to. He had us stop at Double Pedal C. And had I not been playing such a heavy schedule, I am sure the injury wouldn't have occurred in the first place.

4) I don't honestly remember what the rift was concerning anything you wrote in the CG Forum (I do remember something happening, but I don't remember the details). What do you mean by you "called me out" in the Gordon forum? I've looked through the CG forum and I can't find a recent topic thread discussing pedal notes. Can you remember or refer me to the topic thread?

5) You and others keep telling me that the TCE way of doing double pedals is different than the CG way, but everytime I ask for details, no one gives me any. I have just watched both yours and Civletti's 5 octave trumpet videos, and listened to your descriptions, and far as the lip positions and the sound, I see and hear no difference between what you are doing and what a CG student would be doing. If you have your tongue coming through between your lips such that your tongue is between your bottom teeth and your lower lip, that is different. But the movement of the lips and the sounds seem the same to me. When the semester is over I'll put up a youtube video up of me playing down to double pedal C so you can see how I do it. Heck I'll go down to the Triple Pedal C (it's not going to hurt me as I'm not playing a crazy schedule at this time). Maybe that will clear the air.

6) You mentioned that you routinely go down to triple pedal C. Do Callet students routinely take them down that low?

In summary, Claude developed his pedal register down to triple pedal C. He didn't think in retrospect that routinely practicing the exercise much below double pedal C really did any more good so he advised us to stop at DPC. I took it upon myself to go down to the triple pedal C routinely in practice. At a point in my career where I was playing a WHOLE lot, sustaining a triple pedal note caused the callous on my lip to give way. So I decided to stop routinely practicing that low. If one is not playing 13 heavy shows a week one will probably not have the problem I had, whether they are practicing pedals the CG way or the Callet way (with whatever differences there are between the two ways), even if they are choosing to go all the way down to triple pedal C. I don't think it is necessary or of much benefit to go that low, but I concede that perhaps for whatever the Callet way is trying to develop, maybe Callet folks feel it is beneficial to go all the way down to triple pedal C.

If you'd like to, let's get together via Skype in a few weeks (after my final exams are done) to sort out any further confusion. I think it would be fun and certainly take less time and be more of an accurate way to discuss all this.

Cheers,

John

[John Mohan]

[trumpetteacher1]

No John, there are not two blind men. There is one. And it is you.

First, you go down your typical path, and do your best to defend the damaged honor of Claude Gordon. But you see John, there was no damage. You invented it entirely in your own mind. I never said directly, indirectly or otherwise that pedals done the Gordon way were dangerous. You just made it up, as you have made up so many things on TH over the years.

Indeed, YOU WERE THE ONE who said that pedals could be dangerous. You have taken my response to that, and twisted it (in your mind) to make it appear that I was saying something bad about Claude's pedagogy. That is BS.

Second, you now attempt to equate Gordon pedals and Callet pedals. THE LIP POSITIONS IN THE TWO APPROACHES ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Anyone with half a brain can look at the videos and see and hear the difference.

Eighteen years ago I wrote a book that attempted to bridge the gap between Gordon and Callet. It was called The Balanced Embouchure. You see, I actually studied with Claude Gordon, and respected him as a man. I know his method inside and out, as I taught it for two decades. And I know where it typically fails to work with a certain percentage of players.

Naturally, I thought that my contribution would be appreciated - and it was, by a few Gordon advocates, like Larry Miller. He actually got he book and took some of the ideas for a spin - as I would expect anyone with any intellectual curiosity to do.

That was eighteen years ago. In that time, I have learned that some people in the Gordon camp - NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY -are simply not sincere about learning anything outside of their comfort zones. And that is sad, as that was not my direct experience with Claude Gordon. He was a good man. His followers have taken his pedagogy and crushed the life out of it, in my opinion. In the places it had great potential, it has become robotic and mechanical. Where questions needed to be asked, mindless defensiveness and deification have instead become the norm.

You have once again accused me of attacking your father figure. So tired of this. Yes, there are crickets. Eighteen years of crickets.

Jeff

[John Mohan]

[trumpetteacher1]

Please be clear about this John. I do not seek to interact with you. Yes, life is short, which is why I choose to stay as far away from you as is possible.

Why would I have that attitude?

First, you confabulate things constantly. You just make things up, and try to make it look like you are defending the honor of your father figure. YOU are the one that said that pedals done in the Gordon way below a certain point can be harmful. I never said that. I flat-out think that you are wasting players time and filling them with unnecessary fear. All I said was that if a player sticks with the Callet pedals, then no harm is possible. In other words, there was no need to fear. And then you began to confabulate, and to bait me with false accusations.

<<<You can claim all day and all night that's not what you meant, but those are your words you wrote Jeff. >>>

NO John. That is YOUR INTERPRETATION of the words I wrote. There is a big difference between YOUR INTERPRETATION and the truth. But you obviously don't care about the truth, or about the actual intent of an author. Your FEELINGS are all you care about. I came to that conclusion quite a while ago.

<<<Yes, you studied with him. As I understand it, based on Claude's records which Jeff Purtle obtained through the estate auction, you took a crash course and and also had several lessons with him. And then you moved on. >>>

I figured that this was coming. You and Purtle have both tried to attack my credibility based on the creepy compilation of records after Claude died. I found it ASTOUNDING that neither of you contacted me and simply asked me when and where I studied with Claude. Instead, you jumped to a false conclusion (sound familiar?) and declared to the world that I had never taken regular lessons with Claude, and had only taken a Crash Course. You were both damn liars, but all you cared about was your agenda. I have learned that truth has no meaning to you. You jump to false conclusions and make up stuff to fit your agenda.

So tired of it.

<<<Learned that from you and your book (I still have the copy you sent me many years ago>>>

Yes, I sent you the BE book FOR FREE many years ago, in the hope of helping you get out of your self-imposed box. In it, I exactly describe how to do the Callet double pedals. I CLEARLY illustrate how different they are from conventional pedals. And yet, you claim ignorance of how they are done, and now you want to "skype" to "compare notes."

After over 40 years of teaching, I have learned (finally) to know when a player is not sincere. You are not sincere. You continue to make false accusations. After 18 years I have had enough.

As a result of this, I have decided to restore the Claude Gordon section of my website. Time to set the record straight, and let people decide for themselves who is telling the truth.

Jeff

[trumpetplanet]

In the interest of clearing up any confusion over the differences in the two systems I will just throw in my last two cents. John Mohan and I have settled our differences off of the public forum, so this isn't a continuation of any disagreement, but instead just me sharing my point of view.

There is one clear difference between the way that pedal tones are taught by Jerome Callet and the way that they are taught in more 'traditional' schools, which includes Mendez/Maggio and Claude Gordon's pedagogy.

To the best of my knowledge, the traditional schools instruct very clearly that there should be no intentional manipulation of the lips or mouthpiece position in order to play pedal tones. This is an essential detail as these schools teach that you would develop a separate 'pedal embouchure' and derive no benefit from the practice.

[Rod Haney]

Does this mean all of you are killing this stupid discussion?
All this discussion of "trumpet farts" is smelling up the forum!
Rod

[RussellDDixon]

I have thoroughly enjoyed this ... thank you.
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[John Mohan]

Thanks Rich. Claude was not as rigid in his personal teaching regarding keeping the exact same embouchure as he was in his book where you quoted, but I think you're right - in the Callet version, more change in the embouchure is permitted. When going down to the lower notes Claude used to say in our lessons, "Just drop your jaw and think, 'Aw'." On the Double Pedals I definitely drop a portion of my lower lip out of the mouthpiece. And if I go all the way down to a Triple Pedal C I am pretty much adopting the embouchure you describe as the Callet way of doing the exercise. I can easily slur from a double pedal C to just about my highest notes and when I do that there is a lot of lip movement under the mouthpiece, but no break in the sound so I think tecnically it qualifies as one embouchure.

After this semester ends I am probably going to do a YouTube video demonstrating how to properly practice Parts One and Two of Lesson Two in the Systematic Approach booklet, and if I do, I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about what my embouchure looks like as I get to the lowest notes, and if you think it is similar to or different from what you and the other TCE players do.

Best wishes,

John

[John Mohan]

[mm55]

" ... you could be spending your time practicing and playing your trumpet ... "
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[oxleyk]

[John Mohan]

[John Mohan]

[Mike Sailors]

[JVL]

or posting these (at last) coming videos about how to correctly play double or more down pedals
pace e salute

[trumpetteacher1]

<<<No, I said that (in my opinion, based on my experience) practicing into the range well below Double Pedal C can be harmful. I did not write that it had anything to do with what approach one uses. >>>

And what approach did you use when playing your notes below double pedal C? Let me guess - the Claude Gordon approach? And my response was that a player will NEVER have a problem playing double pedals with the Callet approach. And then you freaked out.

I think that anyone can see the problem with your logic. According to you it was "double pedals in general" that caused your issue, and not Gordon pedals specifically. When I pointed out that Callet double pedals would never cause a problem, you were suddenly trapped into defending your father figure. That was not my intent, but that is how you interpreted it.

John, I realize that you have issues interpreting context. You also have hypersensitivity issues regarding anything related to your father figure. And that you tend to have difficulty seeing the forest for the trees.

So in that light I'm going to respond, and spell it out for you in the clearest possible terms. Then, it will hopefully be over forever. I don't enjoy interacting with you. I actually have a pretty good life outside of this forum.

The most important thing to take away from this is that nobody here cares about this issue except you.

REPEAT - NOBODY CARES ABOUT THIS BUT YOU. NOBODY WAS OUTRAGED BUT YOU. THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY THINKS THAT THIS IS MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Here is exactly what I said, with commentary below each paragraph in red:

"Seymor, the difference between you and Mohan is that you do pedals in the way that Callet designed them, and not in the way that Claude Gordon recommended. Because of this difference, you will NEVER be harmed by doing the double pedal routine, as designed. Back in his heyday, Callet would do this routine up to 10 times per day, and never had any ill effects. Instead, he experienced the benefits of doing them properly, as you apparently do as well.

Seymor is a BE student. I wanted to make sure he knew that double pedals can never harm him, as he does them the Callet way. Fear disguised as "advice" is regularly transmitted on this forum. If there was ever any reason to fear doing double pedals, whether by using the Gordon approach or any other approach, there is simply no reason to be concerned when doing them as Callet instructed. You can do 10 shows a day or 100 shows a day. It simply doesn't matter. You can never be harmed by Callet double pedals.

I've taught over 20,000 lessons and have never seen any type of injury from doing the Callet pedals. Very much the opposite.

In my experience on Trumpet Herald, there are way too many players here who do "Danger Danger Will Robinson!" type of posts, based on a very narrow way of interpreting trumpet pedagogy and an equally narrow way of viewing our ultimate human potential. Take most of those "danger" warnings with a grain of salt."

This last paragraph, of course was my point. Too much fear is presented here as "advice." People like yourself think that they have a good intent in presenting their fear story, but they fail to see the whole picture, and how they may be negatively influencing players here. Because of fear, players become limited. Fear is the biggest multiplier of embouchure problems. In my teaching, most adult players I have encountered carry tremendous psychological baggage, primarily because they have taught (by people with good intent) to be afraid - afraid of pressure, afraid of high notes, afraid to auditions, the list goes on and on. And now we have to add another - the fear of double pedal tones!

John, instead of seeing the bigger message I wanted to send - whether you agree with it or not - you fixated on, and fully misinterpreted a single sentence. The fact is, I did double pedals using the Gordon approach, down to F below double pedal C, FOR DECADES, with no ill effects. However, the benefits I gained from doing those Gordon pedals, both for me and my students, paled in comparison to the benefits gained by doing double pedals as Callet designed.

Because of my extensive experience both doing and teaching Gordon pedals, my general feeling was that your story, besides promoting an unnecessary fear of double pedals, was hogwash (you should be familiar with that term, as Claude used it all the time). I'm sure that you believe your story, but I think that different (and more important) causative factors were in play.

If you want to keep picking at me, and baiting me, and calling me duplicitous, then I will keep responding. It took me a long time, but I have learned to never back down to false accusations. But at some point it will stop, and I will never communicate with you again. Bliss!

Jeff