It’s been a while since I played “Guess the Embouchure Type.” Aulis sent me a link to a video he spotted of the Berlin Philharmoniker performing an excerpt from Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra with a good look at trumpet player Martin Kretzer’s embouchure. Take a close look at around 2:07 and 2:14 and see which embouchure type you think Kretzer has. My guess after the break.
Month: February 2012
Thoughts On Branding Practice Methods and Why It Does More Harm Than Good
One of my pet peeves these days is how often teachers and players brand their recommendations. My interest in brass embouchures has led me to look closely at a lot of different method books and internet resources that offer good examples of branding in brass pedagogy – Pivot System, Balanced Embouchure, Superchops, Song & Wind, you get the idea. Sometimes there isn’t a specific term used, but rather these methods are identified with a particular teacher (Claude Gordon, Carmine Caruso, Bill Adam, etc.). On the one hand, it’s nice to be able to easily separate these methods with a short phrase or name that lets a reader familiar with these approaches know exactly what you’re talking about, but when I look at the big picture I think that the idea of partitioning off these ideas does more harm than good.
It’s certainly true that many of these different methods are mutually exclusive. For example, Donald Reinhardt (Pivot System) instructed his trumpet students to never practice pedal tones while Claude Gordon’s method relies quite heavily on them. In discussing these ideas it can be helpful to look at the contrast, but in separating them into brands it leads to an argument from authority, rather than a logical discussion. We should be considering facts, not individuals. If we want to discuss pedal tone practice for trumpet players it’s best to simply discuss pedal tone practice, not argue which teacher was right.
One of my favorite online brass forums to read is the Trumpet Herald Forum, which has different sections devoted to different brands of playing. While it is nice to be able to look for information about a particular approach and get what I hope is an accurate depiction, the effect this tends to have is to stifle any conversation about why an author or teacher recommended something and instead inhibits criticisms or modifications that may be valuable to consider. As a regular reader of a few other brass forums and blogs too, I’m always a little amused at how many people go out of their way to inform the reader that they studied with teacher X for a certain number of years. The implication is that we should pay close attention to what this person has to say because of that association, not because what they say is rational and fits the facts as we know them. Sometimes these public debates seem to be more devoted to a cult of personality than a discussion of how and why a particular instructor taught.
The trend to “certify” teachers pass on a particular method is this cult of personality run amok. Continue reading “Thoughts On Branding Practice Methods and Why It Does More Harm Than Good”
Avoiding the Bunched Chin
I’ve recently had the chance to work with a couple of players with embouchure issues that are both in part related to a bunched chin. Both of these players have their chin disengaged and moving around separate from their jaw as they play. Both have trouble holding the pitch steady when this happens. This is a common issue with many younger players and sometimes, as in the case of the above mentioned two players, sometimes musicians will play this way for decades. For some reason this seems more common with the two basic downstream embouchure types and isn’t so frequent with the basic upstream type. When it happens to very high placement type players there is frequently some type switching going on, so they may look like very high placement types in one register and medium high placement types in another.
Like some other embouchure problems (such as the smile embouchure), bunching the chin usually develops unconsciously because it works, to a certain degree. What seems to be happening is that the player is compensating for a lack of lip compression while ascending by using the chin to push the lower lip up, rather than properly focusing the muscular effort at the mouth corners. Sometimes there are other issues that accompany a bunched chin, such as holding the jaw in too open a position, allowing the jaw to recede too far (which then is followed by a loosening of the mouth corners, more pressure on the top lip, etc.). You can see what a bunched chin looks like in the following video.
Continue reading “Avoiding the Bunched Chin”New Sound Big Band Performs David Wilken
It’s always neat to hear your music performed, but most of the music I compose is generally written for a specific ensemble, often one that I’m involved with as a performer or director. It’s even cooler when a group that you aren’t familiar with plays your music. Poking around on online I discovered the New Sound Big Band, a Belgian jazz orchestra based in Arendonk. I was thrilled to see that they have performed two of my big band compositions, Snipe Hunt and A Kneezy Waltz. Here are their YouTube videos of these charts.
The trombone soloist must have transcribed my solo from the demo recording of this tune. Either that or we have some of the same licks. He doesn’t play it note for note, but borrowed some of my ideas as branching off points for some of his own improvisation.
I always enjoy hearing different interpretations of my music. On A Kneezy Waltz I wrote in a trombone solo (I think a lot of us trombonists got into composing and arranging to make sure that we get interesting solos to play). The New Sound Big Band opted to give that solo to the soprano saxophonist. While I’m partial to trombone solos I have to admit that I liked how a soprano sax sounded there. Plus the soloist sounds good.
The New Sound Big Band has a bunch more videos up on their YouTube channel from different performances. Go check them out there or on their official web site.
Alternate Slide Postions For Trombone
When I was a high school and undergraduate student I always felt a little frustrated trying to keep up with the “fleet footed” trumpet and sax players I was jamming with. Compared to those instruments, the trombone is such a difficult instrument to get around on in faster tempos. There are a variety of techniques that I began practicing to help me with this, but one thing that has helped me quite a bit has been to become familiar with and comfortable using alternate slide positions.
Rather than go over what positions can be used for every individual note, I’m going to focus here more on why I use alternate positions and offer strategies for when to use them. I’m also not going to cover intonation adjustments here, so keep in mind that when I suggest using a particular position for a certain passage you will want to know how that particular partial needs to be tuned. Always listen carefully and adjust your slide to correct out of tune notes.
One of the simplest rules of thumb for using alternate slide positions is to strive to keep half steps in adjacent positions. The Eb major scale is a good example.
Continue reading “Alternate Slide Postions For Trombone”