Shout-out for Hickman's Trumpet Pedagogy e-book

[scottfsmith]

I recently got this e-book for $30 and WOW what a huge quantity of great information!

http://www.hickmanmusiceditions.com/select.asp?selection=22 (and scroll down a bit)

I expect many people here already know of or have the book but as a relatively new player I have found a massive amount of great stuff in it so thought it deserved a shout-out here. The pictures of so many excellent players all in one place playing the same notes is great to study. There are diagrams of tongue position showing some standard ways the tongue repositions as notes get higher and higher which was an eye-opener for me (it goes beyond the diagrams I had seen before, into the very high range). There are surveys cited and quotes from many different teachers/schools on specific topics, e.g. why practice pedals, why mouthpiece buzz, etc. Plus a massive amount of other great material. Its primarily meant for teachers but as a student I have found it immensely useful.

Two things in particular made concrete improvements in my playing. The diagrams of lip / teeth / tongue position made me realize I was having my lower lip too much exposed above the lower teeth, and fixing that has made it a notch easier to play. Also the discussion of "puckering/bunching" the lips in many places has improved my playing by thinking along those lines. I am also now convinced to start working on pedal tones, they are much more widely recommended than I realized (by 3/4ths of teachers if I recall from the survey cited in the book).
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Thane Standard Large Bb / Monette Unity B6-7M mpc
Lots of vintage trumpets and mouthpieces

[brassmusician]

Sounds like a well spent $30. I will be looking into it, thanks.