“Clocking” Your Mouthpiece Part #2

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Some may remember my first post (How to place your mouthpiece in your horn) which was written to disprove a practice which stresses the importance of placing your mouthpiece in the proper position to benefit your consistency in playing. This practice is called “Clocking” and the reference to positioning your mouthpiece in the best rotation in your mouthpiece receiver turn out to be true. What I started out to disprove, I ended up totally agreeing with. The reason for this second post on the same subject is again to verify the importance of the correct rotation of your mouthpiece in…

Accuracy Study

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One of the more difficult requirements of trumpet players is coming in on a note with very little reference points. To become more accurate, I have found that isolating notes and playing them short tends to make the player more conscious of where the note must be played. In this recording you are expected to listen to the passage the first time through and then on the repeat, play the same notes as you heard. When a note is centered properly, it has a very distinctive sound which can be describes as “fat” and when the player is a little…

So, You Want To Play A Shofar?

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  Now that question does not come up often but if and when it does, you need to be prepared. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia- “A shofar (pron. pronounced (Sho-far)  is an ancient musical horn typically made of a  rams’s horn, used for Jewish religious purposes. Like the modern  bugle, the shofar lacks  pitch-altering devices, with all pitch control done by varying the player’s  embouchure. The shofar is blown in synagogue services on  Rash Hashanah and at the very end of  Yom Kippur, and is also blown every weekday morning in the month of Elul running up to Rosh Hashanah. Shofars come in a…

Shocking Discovery While Playing Pedal Tones!

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Many of us have dabbled with Pedal Tones during our stint as trumpet players so this post may be an eye opener for many of you. It was for me when I discovered this anomaly. During a return to Claude Gordon’s wonderful collection of trumpet lessons, Systematic Approach to Daily Practice”, I came across a shocking realization; the notes I thought I was playing were in fact one full octave above where I should have been playing. To fully explain how this came about, let me start from the beginning. When practicing notes which include pitches above our normal range,…

“I Want To Play Just Like I Did 40 years Ago” ….you can’t and you never will!

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I don’t mean to discourage anyone from trying to improve their playing, but some things are not possible. How many times have you heard lately “If you try hard enough, you can do anything”. That is a crock and it is time to let our kids know that you will improve with hard work but sometimes your bar is set too high to be reached. The same is true with improving your trumpet playing ability when the number of years have reached the six decades or plus range. A very good friend passionately told me that his goal was to…

Never play with your elbows resting on the arm rest of your desk chair…..unless!

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For years I have taught to always have your arms free to move while playing your trumpet. My thinking was that with the added freedom of your arm movement, you would not restrict the natural movement of the horn as you pivot from high to low and back again. The idea of the pivot as promoted by Donald S. Reinhardt’s Pivot System has been taught for as long as I can remember. If you are not familiar with this concept, check out an outstanding introduction to this concept by David Wilken at An Introduction to Donald S. Reinhardt’s Pivot System. Now…

Preparing for Chair Placement in Your Band This Fall- Part #4

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By continuing in this series I hope to give you alternate views of how to prepare for an audition, whether for a chair placement or an All State tryout. You will find attached several pages of exercises which will give you alternate ways of practicing from which most players adhere. Each exercise is approached with a more concentrated view to fully understand and perform the audition material. The Allegro exercise is practiced at different tempi, keys as well as alternate articulation which help decrease the monotony usually associated with this type of exercise. The Moderato exercise begins with the last…

Preparing for Chair Placement in Your Band This Fall- Part #3

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Now Let’s Get Specific. Here is an example of an audition sheet for a trumpet chair in an actual High School band- Band Auditions These examples are typical of most audition material in that they begin simply and continue to get more difficult. Each of the four sections was selected for a specific reason and I will address these issues individually. Example #1- Allegro To most, this is just another simple scale but to your director it has several deeper characteristics that you should be aware of. 1. The scale is the A minor scale and to be even more…

Preparing for Chair Placement in Your Band This Fall- Part #2

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By continuing in this series I hope to give you alternate views of how to prepare for an audition, whether for a chair placement or an All State tryout. Rule #3. Stop practicing your audition material and start learning it! • To most students, practicing means running through it once a day. Wrong! Practicing consistently the same way every day creates boredom. Boredom generates lack of concentration. Lack of concentration wastes valuable practice time and helps to ingrain mistakes and create phobias when learning the music. To get the most out of your practice time, get in the habit of…

Preparing for Chair Placement in Your Band This Fall

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We have all been through the agonizing, embarrassing and in some rare instances, exhilarating experience of auditions. The days and weeks of preparation for those few moments auditioning seem insufficient once you have played your heart out in front of a judge, band director or conductor. Thoughts run through your mind such as, I wonder if they caught that missed note in the second measure or, I hope they noticed the subtle dynamic change I made at the end of the second number. The hours upon hours of practice in preparation for an audition are much like going through a…