One of my pet peeves these days is how often teachers and players brand their recommendations. \u00a0My 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. \u00a0Sometimes there isn’t a specific term used, but rather these methods are identified with a particular teacher (Claude Gordon, Carmine Caruso, Bill Adam, etc.). \u00a0On 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.<\/p>\n
It’s certainly true that many of these different methods are mutually exclusive. \u00a0For example, Donald Reinhardt (Pivot System) instructed his trumpet students to never practice pedal tones while Claude Gordon’s method relies quite heavily on them. \u00a0In 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. \u00a0We should be considering facts, not \u00a0individuals. \u00a0If 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.<\/p>\n
One of my favorite online brass forums to read is the Trumpet Herald Forum<\/a>, which has different sections devoted to different brands of playing. \u00a0While 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. \u00a0As 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. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0Sometimes these public debates seem to be more devoted to a cult of personality than a discussion of how and why a particular instructor taught.<\/p>\n The trend to “certify” teachers pass on a particular method is this cult of personality run amok. \u00a0Good brass pedagogy stands on its own merits, regardless of whether the individual offering advice has taught thousands of successful students or none at all, published a lot on the topic or written nothing on it before, or whether the teacher is a noted brass performer or doesn’t even play a brass instrument (Carmine Caruso, for example, was a saxophonist and didn’t perform on any of the brass instruments). \u00a0Musical performers and teachers need to consider many different options, put those recommendations into a rational context, and adopt an approach that both suits their own physical and mental tendencies (and those of their students). \u00a0Here in this blog you can find a number of posts where I criticize some noted brass pedagogues that I also acknowledge have been a huge influence on my own teaching and playing. \u00a0There is always room for improvement in any method and by placing your system into a brand you end up locking yourself into something that is inflexible and unchanging.<\/p>\n I don’t want people to misunderstand my main point. \u00a0We shouldn’t adopt the pedagogical relativism that some seem to (“all methods are fine, just find the one that works for you”). \u00a0That leads to a lot of the proverbial spinning wheels and can waste too much valuable practice time. \u00a0Yes, I do think that we should use an approach that fits the individual, but not all methods are equal, and some can be downright counterproductive, in my opinion. \u00a0Rather, I would like to see pedagogues and players alike be more willing to engage in an open discussion of ideas that removes concepts from the association with a brand or particular teacher and simply weigh them according to how logical and useful they are for a given situation. \u00a0You can criticize an author’s point without having to throw out everything else out. \u00a0Similarly, even a broken clock is right twice a day and we can find some helpful advice from the most unlikely sources. \u00a0We can be advocates for an approach without being disciples. \u00a0If you want to truly help players and teachers separate the wheat from the chaff, a public dialogue that allows this open and honest debate about both the merits and the disadvantages of an approach is not just useful, but essential. \u00a0Branding your approach may work great for selling books, but aren’t so helpful for moving discussions forward and discovering the truth of a matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of my pet peeves these days is how often teachers and players brand their recommendations. \u00a0My 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, … Continue reading Thoughts On Branding Practice Methods and Why It Does More Harm Than 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