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May as well make a post here. I've got a degree and all that for trumpet, I started playing... twelve or thirteen years ago now I believe. I've also got a decent amount of post-college experience at both trombone and tuba. Being a trumpet guy, I was trained both for classical and jazz through college, but I was never really cut out for jazz. I love listening to it, but could never quite nail down the right feel to sound great with it. Classical playing, on the other hand, came much easier. As far as inspiration goes, ANYTHING by Maurice Andre is fantastic. As an example, every trumpet player ever has played or recorded the Haydn Concerto in Eb. Literally no one has ever done it and made it sound as gorgeous as Andre; not Vizzuti, not Marsalis, nobody. Movement 1 Movement 2 Movement 3 Beyond that, he is widely regarded as the best piccolo trumpet player ever. Anyone that can make an instrument as bright and tinny as that sound as good as he does is ridiculous. Probably the most well known picc part is Bach's Brandenburg 2, Movement 3. When it comes to brass as a whole, it is tough to beat the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's brass section in their heyday. Bud Herseth, Vince Cichowicz, Arnold Jacobs, Frank Crisafelli... Just a whole lot of fantastic stuff was going on there. The biggest thing I ever noticed about practicing came from moving from high school to college. In high school, I only practiced 2-3 times for an hour every week and was the best around. In college, suddenly I had to practice 2-3 hours daily just to keep up. It was a big shock. Since I started doing that, my practice time has gradually increased to around 5 hours, but you can't rush that or push yourself too much as a brass player. So some things I figured out 1. Train your ear, and don't use your instrument to do so. Use piano + voice or some other method, but the only way to be above average as a player is to let your ear guide your playing, not have your ear dependent on your playing. 1a. Have a piano or keyboard nearby when you practice, if at all possible. Don't be afraid to use it to check tuning, intervals, or anything else. 2. Warm up every morning. And use mostly your mouthpiece. My professor in school recommended this, and it works fantastically. Just one hour every morning, with 40 minutes of mouthpiece only, makes any playing/practicing you do later a ton easier. 3. Isolate everything. Having any trouble? Isolate every individual step, then combine them. Breathing, Tonguing/Articulation, Singing/Ear, Buzzing on the mouthpiece, etc. 4. Know what you want to accomplish. Never practice something without a goal in mind, even if that goal is as simple as "Slow down a bit so it doesn't sound like rear end." Bashing your face against a piece over and over again doesn't do a drat thing, and just makes your face hurt later. 5. Don't hurt yourself. If you find you are using a lot of effort to play, you are doing something wrong. I still have scars, nine years later, from trying to press and play higher than I could when I had braces. Range comes with time. Avoid going beyond what you can play comfortably. And just because I'm the first instrumentalist, here's just a few recommended books for any aspiring trumpeters, in order of recommendation. Must Have as Part of Every Daily Routine: Arbans Clarke Technical Studies Earl Irons 27 Exercises Etude Books: Getchell's first book (Beginner-Intermediate) Hering (Intermediate) Small - technical etudes (Intermediate-Advanced) Rochut - lyrical etudes (technically a trombone book, transpose up one octave)(Intermediate-Advanced) Bousquet - technical etudes (Advanced) Concone - lyrical etudes (Advanced) Obviously there's a ton more good stuff, but this represents sort of the bare minimum, imo.
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Jul 20, 2013 22:38
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CowOnCrack posted:A lot of true stuff I've gotta be honest here; while everything you've posted is very true, and very useful, it's not really groundbreaking or something music teachers don't want you to know. On the contrary, it is pretty much exactly what they want you to know. Pretty much the biggest part of music education from an individual standpoint is getting students to realize exactly this. A good chunk of an instructor's job is to give students tools so that when they practice, they can do exactly what you suggest with the "conscious practicing." It is by far the fastest way to get better. Past a certain point, it's the only way, and if you haven't figured it out by then you'll just hit a wall. I will say that this here is the most important part: CowOnCrack posted:But if you think about it, the no compromise approach is the only one that makes sense. If you allow even one mistake into your muscle memory, you're just going to have to do extra work to erase it later. I never really comprehended that before, so now I'm sucker for this method. That is so so so true, not just on a physical level, but on a mental level. I'm a big proponent of "If you can't hear it properly, you can't play it properly." If you can't hear a minor 7th interval, there's a good chance you won't play it right the first time around. That's part of why learning to play by ear is so useful. If you haven't done any yet, I recommend that you try it. Just take something, anything, and figure out how it goes, with just yourself and your instrument of choice. Even something as simple as Somewhere Over The Rainbow is great to start from, and you can get more complex from there. I will also mention it takes most people, myself included, way too long to realize this.
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Jul 27, 2013 12:10
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I can't believe this, I get caught up in real life everything for a few years and apparently lots of brass brethren have been posting here.captkirk posted:I'm a pretty mediocre trombone player (played it in middle school, started playing it again with community last year as a hobby). I'm thinking about picking up a more interesting instrument (trombone is fun and all, but the parts we get tend to be less than fun to practice). Strings seem intimidating because of the long time it takes to learn to make a good sound but playing something like a trumpet seems like it would cause me issues with switching my embouchure a bunch. Recommendations? Should I just man up and deal with the trombonist's lot in life? If this is still relevant, it really depends on you. As a trumpet player, trombones are pretty awesome instruments. If you did want to switch, there's less difference between trumpet and trombone than you'd think. The embouchure itself is really the same thing, but you have a smaller mouthpiece. It would take some time to learn, but not too much. Especially because a moderately skilled trombone player is used to navigating and buzzing the beginner range on trumpet. Some dedicated mouthpiece-only time would get you going quickly enough. That said, it surprises me that your brass bands don't have more exciting parts. Out of curiosity, is it mostly British-style brass bands with alto horns, cornets instead of trumpets, etc? I used to be in some of those and they're some of the funnest playing experiences I have.
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Apr 22, 2015 05:25
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Mederlock posted:Ugh.... I have my university audition to get into a Bachelor of Music program next Tuesday, and boy am I sweating bullets. I'm not so nervous that I'll gently caress up too badly or freeze up during the audition, but do any of you guys have advice on playing/mental prep leading up to important auditions? There's so much more I'd like to work on in my selected pieces, but I'm almost out of time for that sort of thing now. I'm assuming it's similar to the golf book posted earlier, but I'm gonna throw another book recommendation out called The Inner Game of Tennis. It's useful for so much more than just nervousness, and was basically required reading by my trumpet professor. If it's a blind audition, I'd agree with the above poster. Hyperconfidence is the easiest way; you've been practicing for this, you already know you're good enough. If it's NOT blind, you'll be fine. It's likely in front of all the brass staff, and in my experience they are usually a super-chill group. Them being relaxed made it so much easier for me at least. Something else I did, place something on the stand if you want. I put a picture of my girlfriend there, and that also kept me from tightening up too much. Also, so you aren't surprised by it, they might make you sing briefly or at least match a pitch. Couldn't hurt to make sure that isn't a problem if your ear isn't great.
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Apr 23, 2015 23:08
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