Stamps Lips Bends

[Pat]

I would appreciate affirmation or correction from Stamp advocates of my understanding of various concepts I've picked up from working with Stamp, Poper and other Stamp-related materials. The first is the use of lip bends.

From what I have gathered, there are at least 3 ways or reasons to practice lip bends:

1) the first is as Hardenberger recommended in his master classes as reported in the ITG journal a few months ago. He advocates that early in the daily practice you use lip bends from G in the staff down to C to get the proper balance between lip tension and air. He says to use a breath attack and carefully listen to the sound as you do the lip bend until the "gravel" is out of the sound. ---

2) the second is as in one the Stamp exercises in which you play the open harmonic arpeggio down to the pedals and then up to top line G, do a lip bend, and then accelerate the air to the high C. The C is supposed to sound better after using the lip bend.

IT IS MY UNDERSTANDING (and I am not sure where I read this) THAT THE IDEA BEHIND THE LIP BEND IS THAT YOU CAN'T DO IT WELL UNLESS THE MIDDLE PART OF YOUR LIP IS REALTIVELY RELAXED AND PLIABLE, AND THE AIR FLOW IS GOOD. THIS, IN TURN WILL HELP PRODUCE A GOOD VIBRATION AND SOUND. ----(I don't know if he is exaggerating but Hardenberger seems to suggest that if you don't get this balance worked out early in the day, especially when you are stiff, you will have difficulties the rest of the day.)

3) the third reason for lip bends is to strengthen the corners. I am not sure if Stamp advocated this, but Phillip Smith in his CNN interview (which you can read on the Dillon Music site) says he does lip bends for this reason. David Hickman's method also has lip bend exercies to develop lip strength.---- BTW, Hickman says that lip strength necessary to bend a G on the top of the staff, is all you need play the G above high C.(of course you have to use the air correctly too)

Your comments are appreciated.

[_PhilPicc]

What is a lip bend? If I know it, it is not by that name.

Thanks,
Phil
_________________
Philip Satterthwaite

We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you could be good enough to keep in touch now and again."
- Sir Thomas Beecham to a musician during a rehearsal

[screamertrumpet]

Pat,
Yes Yes Yes. The main reason why Stamp put that lip bend in his "arppegio" is to make sure that your chops were relaxed so you don't force out the high c.
Lip bends also have another purpose. Make sure you blow through the lip bends and don't let the air down. That's one of the main reasons I do them. With lip bends, you can't get the sound out unless you keep the air going.
Trevor

[trumpetherald]

The lip bends don't really 'make' your embouchure do anything - perhaps a better way to think about it is as a 'test.'

If, when playing the Stamp warmup which uses the bend, you can reach the G on top of the staff and have little enough tension in your embouchure to execute the bend, you're in good shape. If the bend is difficult, breaks, or is not possible, it's a sure sign that there's simply too much tension in the emboucure. So, the bends can promote a more relaxed set by training you to relax enough to execute them...

Also, Tom Stevens advocates only doing a 1/4-tone lip bend, not a full halfstep. The 1/2 step can cause the tone/aperture to spread and cause more problems in the end. It's worth experimenting with in your own playing to see which is more helpful.

And, yes, it does take some strength to execute the lip bends, especially when you move higher. But, the strength has to be a product of working on the bends correctly, not vice-versa - don't try to 'muscle' the bends to make them work.

[Pat]

To the System Administrator:

For lip strength purposes Hickman's exercises start with a 1/2 step and then progress to 1 and 1/2 steps.(e.g G down to E).(to be done at the last practice session of the day) Would Stevens find pitfalls in using this wide a lip bend for this purpose?

[trumpetherald]

I hesitate to speak for Tom as I never heard him talk about really wide bends. Let's just say that it's not part of his approach as far as I am aware.

Personally I can see some benefit from working on wide bends, but I wouldn't use them in conjunction with the Stamp drills. With Stamp, you just use them to check that you're staying relaxed and to help keep the 'light steady crescendo' feeling going...

[shofar]

[trumpetherald]

Hey Shofar:

Truthfully I've done both the 1/2 & 1/4 step bends and found them both helpful at different stages of my career. It was just rather intriguing to me when Stevens introduced the 1/4 tone bend to me ... I'd always done half-steps and the quarter tones opened up a new thing for me.

The quarter bends are much lighter and helped me get a springier feeling to intervals and a more centered blow.

In retrospect my statement that the 1/2 bends will make you spread was heavy-handed, I do think that wider bends *can* do that but I and many others have certainly used them to good effect ...

Cheers,
TD

[trumpetherald]

Shofar one more thing - this quote:

[shofar]

Hey That's cool Todd. I was just replying to your previous post. I am quite sure there are a lot of people who benefit from bends...either 1/4 or 1/2 step bends. But thanks for the clarification. I don't know if you ever had the chance to study directly from Jimmie, but it was quite enjoyable, very helpful, and I would never change that opportunity. Doing the bending exercises was a very important part of his approach.

See ya, Rog

[ComposeAl]

Hi Folks,

I studied with Jimmy Stamp in the 70's. The lip bend, (lipping a note down a half step) I understood was a way to make sure that one doesn't pull up the pitch on lower notes making it more difficult to play the top note of an arpeggio. In other words, Jimmy used to say that the tendency for most players as they play up an arpeggio to pull up the pitch of the lower notes in anticipation of the higher ones coming. Some players so pull up the pitch that the top note they're aiming for really doesn't exist, it's too sharp and not on the horn.

He used to play along with me an other students. His pitch was so good that he would keep everyone's playing stable and arpeggios were easier to play as were wide intervals. He did this on etudes as well making 7ths, 9ths and even wider intervals really easy to negotiate.

Al

[dbacon]

[ComposeAl]

Hi Dave,

A lot of Jimmy's lessons were him playing along with his students. He was famous for fingering the valves while the student did the blowing and other occasions beating time with his mouthpiece on the plastic cup of his thermos bottle. But much of the musicality, tone quality and intonation was taught by simply hearing him play along. Jimmy often played as I may have mentioned on the earlier post duets, trios and quartets with students staying after their normal lesson to keep playing with the next student. His musicality even on a third part was astounding and catching. He would taper phrases so beautifully with such a centered and gorgeous sound. I would get lost just listening to him. It was so pure and wonderful. He was really a humble, peaceful, gentle and kind person making his elegant playing all the more beautiful. He was truly a wonderful human being who sincerely gave his all to make each of his students the best they could be.

Jimmy played the piano through his buzzing warmups saying that if we could play in tune with the piano that we could play in tune. He played keys with his right hand and buzzed with his left listening carefully to his students. He had us buzz with the left to minimize mouthpiece pressure. He had us play very high as we worked our way up scales. (I was a composition major. I wrote a string trio based on his mouthpiece warmup. He thought that was hilarious.) He was meticulous and insistent on making the mouthpiece buzz well.

He played the piano well enough to accompany us on solos. This is where he talked a great deal about phrasing, making phrases sound like parts of a whole piece, style, playing with a beautiful centered tone, and playing intervals in tune. He could actually play the out of tune notes intrinsic to the trumpet quite well in tune without pushing out a slide or using a false fingering. What was amazing is that he could get his students to do the same by having us sing the note first and then playing them. Again, he used piano tempered pitch as the measure for being in tune.

Measuring intervals correctly, he would often point out, was key to making a piece work properly including actually having the endurance to get through it. He developed lots of exercises that I suspect appear in his books (for some reason I haven't bought them yet) that allow a student to measure over and over the same interval. For example, he would have us play 6th chords just up to the sixth and back down. Specifically, if you started on middle C you would play up the major triad to E, then to G and then up to the A allowing you to mainly measure the major 2nd between G and A. He usually began putting a short fermata on the C to make sure one didn't pull up the pitch of the low C in anticipation of going up the arpeggio. When everything centers and measures properly, your lip vibrates beautifully, the tone is prettier, intonation is excellent and you're more efficient. The efficiency increases your endurance. It's a beautiful thing!

I wonder if there are some recordings of his lessons? That would really be helpful for those who weren't born yet. He was such a peaceful and kind guy. His lessons put me into an alpha state. I can feel that great relaxation just thinking about his lessons and that was exactly thirty years ago for me!!

Thank God for Jimmy Stamp. What a great contributor to the art. I miss him terribly. When I used to play a lot, it was always fun to meet other Stamp students and hear about their experiences.

I've been mainly a composer for the last thirty plus years first in the industry and now I teach full time at Pasadena City College. I haven't played much in the last four years. I recently was diagnosed with asthma so I'm back to playing to improve my lungs. I'm doing Jimmy's stuff everyday and it really works.

Best regards,

Al

[Atomlinson]

Great post Al.

It's always interesting to hear of people's experiences with great teachers like Jimmy Stamp.

I hope you will be able to contribute more to this forum.

How do the published Stamp drills (BIM) (if you have them) compare with your own experiences? I've read elsewhere that Jimmy wasn't entirely happy with them. How much of the lesson was taken up with the drills?

Andrew Tomlinson

[ This Message was edited by: Atomlinson on 2004-08-24 09:13 ]

[_Old_mod_account]

ComposeAl:

That's a great post, thanks so much. Although I didn't get to study with him in person, I've always felt and been taught that Stamp's approach was all about efficiency, ease, and center, and his materials and approach really get one to that point if applied properly.

TD

[ComposeAl]

Hi Andrew and TD,

I must admit that I don't have Jimmy's published exercises. When I studied with him, he was using photocopies in his hand manuscript. I will pick up them up.

One thing that I should point out is that Jimmy would make everyone's exercises into his own by often putting a fermata on the first note and then a fermata or a repeat of the last notes on the top note of an exercise. I noticed somewhere online Clarke's first technical study with a whole measure of repeats on the top two notes. On the first study starting on low F# going up to middle C, Jimmy would have the student repeat C to B, C to B for a whole measure. If this makes any sense, the fermata on the first note insures that the pitch isn't being pulled up to anticipate the higher notes and the repeats at the top insure that the pitch isn't dropped in anticipation of the lower notes.

Incidentally, the lip bends are great when you've really thrashed your chops and have to go on. I used to play with an R n' B band and the playing was brutal. Often just before the last set I would take my horn in the restroom and do a few soft lip bends. I think they loosened the muscles around my lips and got me back to thinking of the center of each note.

Best regards,

Al

[dbacon]

Al,

Is there anyone in L.A. teaching at the level Stamp did, or Pappy Mitchell , Claude, Irving Bush etc? Who's the "go to" guy these days?

Thanks!

[BigBadWolf]

I would go and see Boyde Hood. He uses a lot of Stamps ideas and has expanded on them quite a bit.

Kevin

[ComposeAl]

Hi Dave,

I think Kevin's right, I've heard that Boyde Hood is excellent.

There is also Uan Rassey who though not a Jimmy student is an institution in his own right. He is the wonderful trumpet soloist in the haunting film China Town starring Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson. Also, Mark Garrabrandt who is a wonderful LA trumpeter who studied with Jimmy. I believe the Mark took Jimmy's place at Cal State Fullerton after Jimmy passed away. Mark is one of the most underrated trumpeters anywhere. He plays beautifully and really knows Jimmy's stuff.

Where do you live?

Al

[oj]

Al,

Great posts! Keep posting.

Pat,

H. Hardenberger (HH) studied with Stamp (when he was 14 years old). I asked HH this question:

The Stamp book (edition BIM) says that you should use force when bending?

Here is part of his answer:

Yes - absolutely wrong! It’s the same with the Schlossberg book written by his son in law. Schlossberg wrote out exercises like a doctor prescribing medicine for each of his students. Most certainly very precise! In fact I have a copy of Stamps lesson when he as a very young man went to Schlossberg – a little prescription for next weeks exercise. Someone then collected these notes and put it together as a book. What we also know is that Arban, Clarke etc, the text in the books serve no purpose. It is not what you practice, but how you practice.

Many do not succeed when they try these bends. The tone does not change – it is still a G or F regardless of what they do (HH makes ”locked throat sound” with his voice). This is a sign of stiffness. You have to solve that problem first.

more here:

http://abel.hive.no/trumpet/hardenberger/

Regards,

Ole

P.S.
Al, the Clarke thing you mentioned is here:

http://abel.hive.no/trumpet/exercise/clarke1.html
http://abel.hive.no/trumpet/exercise/clarke2.html
http://abel.hive.no/trumpet/exercise/clarke3.html