Ed Treutel Breathing/Posture Question

[Trpt36]

I have read/heard that Ed Treutal had a unique approach to teaching breathing/posture for trumpet players. Can anybody who studied with Treutel chime in and give any info on the subject?

I believe Jim Wilt mentioned this briefly in a previous post...could you chime in, Jim?

Thanks very much!

[David Krauss]

It's Treutel and I can still remember the smell of old cigars imbedded in his sport coat......


DK

[Derek Reaban]

I think only William Vacchiano was a teacher at Juilliard for longer than Edward Treutel. Nearly 60 years. Wow!
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Jo Ann Lamolino]

I studied with Ed Treutel for about the last 5 years of his life. At that time, he was into making you stand up against a wall with your back flat, head back so your neck would line up against the wall and pevic tilt up. The idea was to line up your spine against the wall so you were as straight as possible.

As far as breathing he was really into breath attacks. He had sheets of exercises that I used to use. He was big into visualization and promoting flexibility with your torso area; thinking of using your body like fireplace bellows or thinking your body was a tube of toothpaste getting squeezed. Those are 2 specifics I can remember. I practiced tons of lip slurs, Bordogni and Concone. He was also really into slurring pretty much everything before tonguing it.

I studied with him when I was in high school/early college. My guess is my experience studying with him would have been different than alot of the adults that I saw coming for lessons. So I would be interested in hearing from them if they are lurking around TH

[Derek Reaban]

Jo Ann,

While I don’t know anything about Ed Treutel or his pedagogy, I feel like the people that I have had lessons with or attended their Masterclasses have been influenced by his pedagogy in a strong way. Your comments about posture, slurring everything before tonguing, breath attacks, and using Rochut / Concone line up with the what I have learned from David Krauss, Mark Inouye, Jens Lindemann, and Michael Sachs. And they were all at Juilliard during his tenure as a professor there.

Posture

ITG Conference 2004 – David Krauss

[Derek Reaban]

TH Post on Edward Treutel
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Jo Ann Lamolino]

Hi Derek,

Thank you for the links to other posts. The biggest things that I took away from my time studying with Ed Treutel, were exactly what David Krauss mentions, walking away with a "solid foundation" and he was an "extremely patient" man. But it also looks like David studied with him at perhaps a similar point in trumpet developement as myself. I guess I have frequently wondered if I took a lesson with him as an adult, being at a much different point with my trumpet playing, what would that be like? I have also wondered, since he taught for about 50 years, how did his teaching differ; for example, did he approach a 16 year old with similar material in 1956 similarly to a 16 year old in 1995? Things like that, how he changed as a person and a trumpet teacher/player. Afterall a middle aged man is much different than a man in the autumn of life.

[MrClean]

I think Jo Ann summed it up very well - at least what I got out of my time with Mr. T. A lot of work on getting everything lined up along your spine and using your body as a bellows. Staying down, blowing through everything, getting the "lippiness" out of slurs, etc. He also passed out illustrations to try to hone concentration skills. Once I moved back to Houston, it gave me some time to try to assimilate what he was trying to get me to do. I don't know if I'm doing what he was saying, but I will say that I changed the way I play, and it is much more reliable than before.

J

[MrV]

bookmarked for further reading

[Derek Reaban]

Jo Ann,

Thanks very much for your initial post. When I read it my mind flooded with all of the information that I have learned in lessons and masterclasses. It was fun to go back and read my old posts and make the tie-in to Edward Treutel. I figured the links to these posts would give you some additional reading to see the common pedagogy comments for yourself.


MrClean,

[David Krauss]

To be honest- when I was taking lessons with Mr. Treutel, I wished I was studying with anyone else. We didn't do excerpts (except for Shostakovich piano cto) and the only solo rep we did was by Morton Gould. It was tough to hear everyone else working on cool stuff at a rapid pace. Lessons were repetitious and often mundane focusing solely on posture and embrochure development. You try pressing your spine against a wall, aligning your head directly on top of your spine, having someone jab their thumb into your chin pressing your jaw back while you play.... lessons with him were not at all fun. BUT! I was a cocky juilliard kid. What did I know? Nothing. Nothing at all. In retrospect, I shutter to think where I would be if I had been focusing on learning the Tomasi at age 15 instead. (Most likely, I'd have a "real" job)
Like Mr. Vacchiano, Treutel never played in my lessons. They were both old-school. Learning mezzo soprano clef was also a big drag with Vach. I hated it. But- basic transposing skills have saved my ass over the years and so has basic posture and embrochure awareness. I am really fortunate to have studied with both of them.

DK

[darinkelly]

Like Dave, I was young and stupid when I studied with Mr. Treutel up in Leonia-- now I am just no longer young! Yep-- I, too, just wanted to play excerpts and fast and loud stuff and whatnot, and wondered why this old geezer with the funny way of singing ("HHRREEUUU!") and talking about pelvic tilt never played a note, nor really cared much about how fast or loud I could play. I forgot about him and his teaching for about twenty years.

But today, I find that I draw on what I learned from Mr. Treutel perhaps more than anything else. The things he was trying to teach that 16-year-old jackass-- breathing, posture, economy of approach, balance-- went completely over my head until I was old enough to get my head out of my arse and actually put some thought into what I was doing. Today, one of the first things I do with a new student is open his Arban book and write on the title page: "LESS MOVEMENT=MORE SECURITY", just like he had in mine. The things I learned from him-- though I didn't think I had-- have in the past six or seven years completely changed my approach to playing in the best way possible.

Thank you for starting this thread; It's a pity more people don't know about Ed Treutel.

DK (Philly version)

[Derek Reaban]

Ollie Crepe! Two DKs in a row. Hey Now! This stuff must really work.
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Jo Ann Lamolino]

Of course Mr. Clean got the same stuff out of his time with Mr. Treutel. We had back to back lessons on a thursday for a while. I was always excited to see the "fella from the philharmonic" as ET used to refer to Jim

[Derek Reaban]

[dstrad]

My father studied with him at Juilliard back in the 50s. He made my father move his bottom jaw out to make his bottom lip even with his top lip. I know he also was big on practicing the Shostakovich as mentioned here. He also wrote out alot of stuff.

The other thing my dad told me that the student who had the lesson time before him was Carole Dawn Reinhart who was a child at the time.

I will ask my dad what his thoughts about breathing were at that time.

Here is a little known fact - he played semi-professional baseball in his youth.

[dstrad]

OK so I just spoke to my Dad. He studied with Mr. Treutel from 1952-1957. According to my Dad, Mr. Treutel emphasized breath attacks and focused on using the AH syllable when you took in a breath to keep your throat as open as possible. He emphasized on maintaining the feeling of air hitting the back of your throat. At that time, he never mentioned the fireplace bellows and he never had him stand against the wall. He did not advocate changing syllables when tonguing like Clarke - it was always use the AH syllable. He also said Treutel taught transposition using intervals not clef like Mr. Vacchiano

Mr Dad also studied with Jimmy Smith. Unlike Mr. Truetal, Mr.Smith did a lot of playing during lessons. Mr. Smith's main emphasis was to have the student try to imitate his sound.

[ehiggins]

I am a Juilliard Graduate and worked with both Mr. Vacchaino and Mr. Treutel. Admittedly, I spent more time in Vacchaino’s studio then Treutel’s however, As far as the approach to the trumpet, I personally found the two teachers to be very different. Vacchaino was far more into visualization of the desired sound while Treutel stressed his own unique concept of the proper mechanics to navigate the instrument in order to achieve the desired sound. Best as I can remember, all avenues to navigating the instrument came through his concept of posture. Like many others who have posted on this subject, I too remember standing against the wall quite often during my lessons. Looking back, I think that he may have been ahead of the times when it comes to posture etc. I also remember a lot of players in his studio who were very good players. (Nice guys too.)

I would also like to address Derek Reaban’s post in regard to Mark Inouye being introduced to these concepts including Rochut in his early days at Juilliard. I would like to politely suggest that Derek might be mistaken. As one of Mark’s former teachers and the teacher who pushed him to audition at Juilliard in the first place, I am certain that he was introduced to many of the concepts discussed including Rochut well before his days at Juilliard.

Although I am now a conductor, I enjoy logging into the Trumpet Herald site from time to time. (Once a trumpet player, always a trumpet player.)

Dr. Edward Higgins
Artistic Director: Portland Wind Symphony
Director of Bands: Portland State University

Former Principal Trumpet of The Sacramento Symphony and Spoleto Festival Orchestra before taking up the baton

[Derek Reaban]

dstrad,

Interesting insights into the Juilliard studio many years ago. Thanks for relaying your Dads experiences.


Hi Edward,

Thanks for your contribution to this topic. It’s always interesting for me to hear from former Juilliard students about their experiences in school.

I had a lesson with Mark several years ago and he commented that he was asked to get a copy of Rochut when he had his first lesson at Juilliard. It sounds like he already had one! What I think is most interesting is that, as a Juilliard graduate, you introduced Rochut to Mark as his teacher, and you had been introduced to it, I’m assuming, by your teachers at Juilliard. That lineage is important for this topic.

I picked up Rochut from my teachers in Tempe. It was initially to learn bass clef, and a ploy to provide me with a great tool to easily transpose on my piccolo. Now that I play through these, years later, I’m so thankful to be able to play these with a singing legato approach and focus on phrasing from the Italian style (i.e. Cecelia Bartoli). I was playing a job with both of them one time a few years ago and Rochut came up in conversation. I had forgotten who had introduced them to me, and sure enough we sorted it out in short order!
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[ehiggins]

Actually, and to the best of my recollection, I did not play one Rochute etude for any of my teachers while attending Juilliard. I was introduced to them by my teacher prior to going to Juilliard. He is Mario Guarneri. Also a Juilliard graduate as well as a master teacher. (His teacher was Mr. Vacchaino while in attendance at Juilliard) I assume that I did not play from the Rochute book because I was a master's degree student or more likely, my teachers at Juilliard thought that I needed to develop other concepts. I did warm up on them every day at Juilliard and still use them as part of my warm up to this day. Of course, they are standard fare in my own trumpet studio.

Edward Higgins