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MrClean
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Location: Los Angeles
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 Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 10:34 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the advertisement, Derek. Check's in the mail...
Did we do any mouthpiece buzzing?
J
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Jim Wilt
LA Philharmonic
Colburn School |
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Derek Reaban
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 4221
Location: Tempe, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 11:23 am Post subject: |
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Jim,
You touched on mouthpiece buzzing briefly when we were working on the excerpts. I’ve been watching the video of the Charlier part of our lesson many times to really get my mind around all that we discussed for foundation work, and then buzzing was later in the lesson. I do recall that you buzzed an interval of a perfect 4th that I would have accepted as very good, and you said, "See how I missed that from above?" And then you buzzed it 3 or 4 more times moving from center to center, absolutely dead on”. That attention to detail clearly stuck with me!
On a slightly different topic, I was wondering about what materials you use for bending pitches. I’m certain that you probably do things differently now than you did when you were building your foundation, but it would be interesting to know what you did as a student and what you do for maintenance today.
This David Hickman book that I have seems to be just right for me at my current level of development. Series I begins on a second line G and has you play G-F#-G, Half, Half, Half with Fermata using valves and after a short rest doing the same thing bending the note down indicating that the dynamic should be forte on the G, fortissimo on the F#, and then forte on the G. He moves down in this fashion to a low F# and then after a five minute rest uses a similar approach in Series II but this time going down a full step, G-F#-F-F#-G. In Series III, which I’m not yet ready for he does the minor third that you demonstrated in our lesson. I think if I do these exercises diligently over the next many months, I’ll be in a much better position to fully apply all that we discussed!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest |
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Derek Reaban
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 4221
Location: Tempe, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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| RandyTX wrote: | | I've tried to work out this "slower valves" thing myself, I just have trouble nailing down how slow is too slow. It seems a very narrow window between what sounds good, and what sounds horrible when you do this. |
Randy,
I had a lesson yesterday with my friend Benny, and he has worked with both John Hagstrom and Jay Friedman. I told him that I had recently re-read the articles on Jay’s website, and I was very interested in the F-G-A-Bb lesson that John had. He told me that, the mechanics of this concept are excruciatingly slow at first, before you get to the application on real music. He also mentioned that a little of this goes a long way and I could certainly find some benefits by incorporating a few minutes into my practice day.
You start with the first valve fully depressed. The exercise lasts for one full breath (let’s say around 20-30 seconds). During that time, the valve moves a quarter of the way up in the first 5 seconds, to the halfway position after 10 seconds, three-quarters of the way to the top after 15 seconds, and finally arriving at the top after 20 seconds. This is really, really, really slow! Slower that I had imagined in my mind by orders of magnitude!
After taking a breath, he demonstrated moving from the F to the G at a mezzo dynamic with somewhat lackluster support. As the valve came up slowly the note ghosted out and then eventually re-established itself just before it reached the top of its stroke. Benny said that this is the let up in support that John and Jay describe in the articles that I linked to. At this painfully slow speed, it’s easy to see how that level of support fails to deliver a convincing musical message, but many players play with this type of air and rely on the valves to make the note changes.
Then Benny demonstrated again, and told me that at first you want to simply try to blow through the note (it will feel like a sock is in the bell), and try to keep the dynamic similar to what you had on the open horn as you move into that first quarter of the upward travel of the valve. Keep this sound all the way to the top.
As you experiment with this, the note will eventually move from the F to the G somewhere in that first quarter to half way point of the valve coming up.
After you have spent some time with this interval, move on to the G to A. This is the one that tends to be the trickiest (I guess because you’re crossing a partial). I played around with this last night, and it’s really tricky to get a seamless transition. I can only imagine someone that has extremely high standards wanting to get this perfect trying this for the first time!
Eventually, you want to combine intervals. In other words, on a full breath you will go from F-G and then G-A as seamlessly as possible, with "pervasive" air supporting the notes and the gaps between the notes. Once this is accomplished move on to F-G-A-Bb all in one breath.
I can see how someone in a major orchestra would scrutinize this level of detail both slurring and then articulating for all of the intervals on the horn. For now, I’m simply going to work on F-G-A-Bb (individual intervals at first) slurred and see if I can’t better understand the subtlety behind this idea. For me, this would be 5 minutes or so of my practice day.
Clearly when you move on to actual music, your valves are moving much faster (slower than rapid passages though), but the air support you have developed through this exercise will fill in the gaps between the notes and make your musical line much more compelling!
Hope this helps!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest |
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MrClean
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Joined: 27 Feb 2003
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Location: Los Angeles
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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Derek,
There might be a few students of mine nodding their collective heads in recognition - "that's the same crap he told me". It comes up a lot in lessons...
I'm reminded of a story that Don Green told me. He was having a lesson with Vacchiano at Julliard. Vacchiano stopped him and commented on how easy it was to teach him. Well, Don puffs out his chest thinking he must be a great player and that he's just been paid the highest compliment from his teacher when Vacchiano continues with "because you guys all make the same GD mistakes!" Classic.
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Jim Wilt
LA Philharmonic
Colburn School |
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Derek Reaban
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Joined: 08 Jul 2003
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Location: Tempe, Arizona
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| Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:02 am Post subject: |
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I was simply blown away last night when I was taking my youngest son to his violin lesson. Since school is almost ready to begin we were talking about our vacation from this summer since he might have to do a “What did you do this Summer?” paper next week. Then we started talking about plans for vacation next year and he said, “Maybe we could go to Magic Mountain again”. This was a trip that we took several years ago (he was 7 years old on that trip) and everyone in my family loved it. It is also pretty close to where MrClean lives.
Then I said, “I might schedule another trumpet lesson with Jim Wilt and skip the park on the second morning and meet you there in the afternoon”.
Then my son blew my mind! He said, "He’s the guy that told you not to raise your bell when you play, right?"
Wow! I’m sure I made a big deal about the concept of the "downward sit" and the story from Jim just after I had my lesson and shared it with all my boys. But for an 7 year old to remember that specific detail about Magic Mountain and that story almost 3 years later? Wow! It’s amazing how the mind works.
Since my youngest son just started trumpet this Summer, I decided to share with him that my regular teacher (Benny) studied with Boyde Hood in college. Benny would be playing and when his bell would start rising, Boyde would simply put his hand over the top of the bell to keep it in the right position (the downward sit concept). Apparently my Son is really tuned in to what I've been telling him, so to reinforce a good idea made sense to me.
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest
Last edited by Derek Reaban on Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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derekthor
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Joined: 01 Oct 2012
Posts: 480
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
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| Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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This whole thread has been pure gold to me, both as a player and teacher. I especially like the downward sit idea, as I have a few students who could probably benefit from it 
Thanks for sharing this! |
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cbtj51
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Joined: 24 Nov 2015
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Location: SE US
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| Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 11:52 am Post subject: |
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| Derek Reaban wrote: |
"If you’ve ever watched great lead players when they’re getting their job down you never see them come up. They actually sit down (metaphor)".
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I can easily see this concept displayed in this way. When I was a kid in Drum and Bugle Corps, this seemed a natural approach, especially playing outdoors to throw the sound. Using the same concept when playing lead in Big Band and Latin Bands was logical as well, and for the same reasons. I would guess that I never made the transfer when I played "legit" styles and softer passages, but why not? This makes perfect sense. I have immediately begun practicing the idea when seated as well as when standing. What a difference! Thank you so much for sharing your experience!
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