We as instrumental musicians have a lot to learn about listening to our musical product.
While taking a voice lesson from a good friend of mine I was told “You can’t tell what you really sound like when you are singing and that is why professional singers always work with a vocal coach”. That made me think about our hearing and actual listening situation.
I have always been a campaigner for regular recording and listening to one’s practice periods. I have even extended that practice to practicing with pre-recorded material utilizing a play/rest concept which I use every day. I have a large library of pre-recorded MP3s which include warm-ups/ finger exercises/ lip slurs/ melodic passages as well as pre-recorded solos. All of this material is done in a play-a-line rest-a-line format. I am able to practice for hours without getting tired. As I rest through one of the pre-recorded lines, I am able to pick out playing errors such as sloppy slurs, hard articulation, intonation problems and such.
My vocal coach related that because of the structure of our skull, throat, and chest areas in relation to our ear drums, what we think we sound like is not what we actually sound like. And that is what this post is going to address.
Do we really know what we sound like?
When playing a note on the trumpet, many things need to be considered.
1. Is what we hear true to what we actually sound like to others?
2. If what you sound like to others is not what you actually hear, is that the sound you want to produce?
3. If what you actually produce is not what you want your listeners to hear, how can you change it?
These three questions all have their own problems when trying to decide on an answer and for that reason; I will address each separately in the following posts.
Stay tuned for I’m not sure what the eventual conclusion will tell.
