Sound Atlas tickets on sale now!

Tickets are on sale now for this summer's Sound Atlas Festival! Akiko Tominaga and I will be playing Dorothy Chang's 'All That Glitters' and the world premiere of a new work by Arthur Bachmann on June 29th. Book your tickets now, I really encourage you to get the full festival pass to have an amazing experience! Tickets at https://www.soundatlasfest.com/tickets.

Stay tuned for more exciting summer/fall announcements!

Sound Atlas Festival announcement

I'm so thrilled to be a part of this summer’s Sound Atlas Festival hosted by Latitude 49 here in Calgary! Akiko Tominaga and I will be playing Dorothy Chang’s ‘All That Glitters’, written for our recording that came out last year, as well as premiering a new work for trumpet and piano by Arthur Bachmann.

I am particularly excited to be a part of this festival because I went to every Sound Atlas concert in last year’s Festival and I just had the best time, and now I get to be a part of making that same experience for this year’s audience, what a thrill!

Mark your calendars, the festival runs June 27-29 at Contemporary Calgary. Akiko and I play on June 29th, but the right thing to do is buy a festival pass and come hear everything!! Details at soundatlasfest.com

Album now available!

It’s finally here! ‘Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky’ is available now, listen here!!

‘Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky’

I am so pleased to announce that my debut solo recording, ‘Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky’, will be released on November 10th 2023. The whole album is premiere recordings of music written for me and my friends within the span of my career, and I am very proud of being involved in creating this music, and now presenting it to you.

Check out the pages under the ‘Fifteen Feet Closer to the Sky’ tab at the top of this website for more information, but in the meantime pre-save or after November 10th listen at this link!

Website update

This page has been long overdue for a facelift, and now I’ve done it. I’ve got some exciting news to share soon, but if you want the inside track you can find the info on this shiny new website without too much trouble.

Legacy Blog

As I overhauled my website I cringed at my writing style of years past, and I wondered if it was worth preserving these old blog entries. But it’s impossible for me to know who might have found something useful in here, so for posterity I’ve taken all the blog entries from the old website and bundled them, unedited, for reference. Maybe you’ll find something useful in here!

Does the world need another trumpet blog?

November 17, 2014

Well, maybe. Trumpet blogs certainly haven’t reached the saturation level of celebrity fashion blogs, or funny cat blogs, or funny celebrity cat fashion blogs. I’ve been at my job for six years now, and I feel like I’m finally getting a handle on things. Along the way I’ve learned a thing or two that might be interesting to active or aspiring musicians, or music lovers in general – everything from broad thoughts on music to the nitty-gritty of professional performance. And possibly some updates on my culinary and cycling exploits.

Thanks for reading! Please let me know if you have comments, questions or requests for blog posts.

Festival 2014, Week One

November 19, 2014

Every year at about this time, the CPO plays a festival of music on a particular theme. This year it’s “J’aime Paris”, and it’s full of great music with great trumpet parts. It’s five programmes over three weeks, with the third week just being an Edith Piaf pops show, so the first two weeks are where most of my preparation is going (though I haven’t seen the Piaf folder yet, so maybe I’ll be eating my words!). Luckily for me I’m getting to that point in my career where I’ve played most of the repertoire before, so it’s less of a panic than it has been in previous years.

The two programmes this week feature two of my favourite pieces to play. First up is the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony, which has a really meaty trumpet part. I’ve got a few mental lists of pieces, and this piece is on two of them. First, it’s a part with lots of variety, making it a fun and balanced day at the office. There’s some lyrical playing, articulate passages, and loud ‘orchestral’ parts, so I don’t get stuck in a rut. Pieces like this help keep your trumpet diet balanced, as opposed to something that’s all one type of playing, requiring you to balance that out at home. The second list this is on is one of my favourites: low (well, relatively low) risk, high reward. Really satisfying to play (like, say, Firebird), but I don’t have batting average concerns about it (unlike Firebird). 

Then next programme features La Mer, which is one of my all-time favourite works, really a ‘desert island’ piece for me (there’s another list). I’ve got a soft spot for this piece because it was the first big part I got to perform in my undergrad. Every time I come back to it I remember what that was like, and how far I’ve come since then. One of the most satisfying things about my job is remembering a passage I really struggled with, and realizing that now I can play it well and just think about making it really beautiful. That’ll keep you going in the practice room, playing the long game.

Balancing Your Workload

November 20, 2014

(Note: My wife/editor warns me that this will be super dull for non-brass players, while I know it will be very pertinent to those of us who try to play these darned things, and probably other instruments too. You’ve been warned. I like to write about these things that I think about a great deal, as they're really the nitty-gritty of professional music making.) 

It’s not by chance that I’ve gotten this website and blog up and running around now. Not through any grand designs, or a strategic launch before the holiday season. Really, it’s because this has been a physically and mentally taxing part of the orchestra season. Heavy pops and opera shows along with big serious repertoire on stage have meant that I’ve needed to be judicious with my practicing, leaving time for other matters. 

When it comes to playing your instrument, there is only so much physical and mental energy to work with in a day, and we carry a longer-term balance as well. The goal is always to get the best result possible, both immediately and in the long term, and that doesn’t always mean that more is better. When I’m not feeling the heat of my schedule, I know that I have the energy to spend on serious practice: time, quality, intensity, and focus. But when work is a pressure cooker, it’s best to balance that with a lighter workload outside of office hours. If I’m playing a well-balanced, high workload piece at work, like a Mahler symphony, I don’t need to be hitting it hard in the practice room, in fact that would be more likely to hurt my performance than help it. If it’s something more homogenous, like a John Williams programme, I need to balance it out with some soft, lyrical, low playing while still keeping the practice time down. 

It’s important to think about what sort of condition you need to be in. The demands of a Bruckner symphony are very different from a Bach orchestral suite, and something like Petrouchka is again another beast entirely. Whether you need to be strong, sensitive, or well-rounded (or any other specific profile) will determine how you tailor your workload leading up to and during a concert cycle. 

Heavy weeks like the one I’m in now also highlight the need for quality recovery. Just like athletes, getting good sleep and treating your body well lead to better performance. Giving your brain a chance to recharge is important too. You don’t get stronger when the horn is on your face, it happens when you recover afterwards and your body adapts to the workload it has experienced. 

Practicing heavy in light weeks and light in heavy weeks is not a new idea, but it’s still one that bears fruit. Getting that balance right is the way towards optimal performance, progress and avoiding injury in your playing, and keeping your head on straight when things get crazy!

Festival 2014, Week Two

November 23, 2014

The first weekend of the festival has come and gone, and to great acclaim. I felt especially good about La Mer. There’s a piece that feels super satisfying to get right!

Now we’re into the second week of the festival, and there’s even more great music! The first of two concerts has three big pieces for me: Ravel Piano Concerto, Milhaud’s La Création du Monde, and An American in Paris.

The Ravel is such a tricky little piece, and while the usual trumpet excerpts are a challenge, the rest of the piece shouldn’t be overlooked either. Almost every passage in the trumpet part is a solo, and it’s a challenge to hop onto the moving train in the last movement. Stay tuned for another blog post about practicing that uses this piece as an example, including some detailed practice ideas!

I played The Creation of the World during my brief stint as a masters student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, right before I won my audition here in Calgary. What a great piece it is! A really fun trumpet part too. More than almost anything else, I think this piece is the perfect example of French classical jazz.

Gershwin holds a special place in my heart. After I won my audition here I played a few concerts as a trial, before I was properly offered the job. The first week with Roberto Minczuk, the CPO’s music director, was an all-Gershwin programme that was being recorded for a CD. Talk about high stakes! An American in Paris was on that programme, and every time we play it I remember what that pressure cooker of a week was like. If you’re interested in hearing that recording, you can check it out here. 

The second concert of this week, the fourth programme of the festival, is Messaien’s Turangalîla Symphony. If there was ever a once-a-career piece, this would be it. I heard the Toronto Symphony Orchestra perform it when I was at the Glenn Gould School for my undergrad, and only then did I really understand that some pieces that can be really difficult to listen to a recording of can work wonderfully live. Turangalîla is definitely one of those pieces for me. It’s in such a unique world of sound that there is a huge amount to discover sonically. As I’ve gotten to know the piece better in preparation for this week I’m really starting to wrap my head around some of its complexities. I’m playing the piccolo trumpet part, and it feels somewhat like playing an unfamiliar, extra-fragmented Rite of Spring, including the same gnarly transposition. In terms of execution, this piece is a real team effort for the orchestra, and also within the trumpet section. By this point in the festival every year there’s always a feeling of solidarity within the orchestra that comes with being run ragged, so a team pull like this has usually come off well in the past. Here’s hoping!

Smart Practicing

November 27, 2014

Practicing can be broken down into three categories: repertoire, etudes, and fundamentals. A pyramid-style diagram with fundamentals on the bottom, etudes in the middle, and repertoire as the peak, would be appropriate here, if cliché. This is just an application of the idea that more general practice applies more broadly, and that any specific challenge can be disassembled into component parts that can be addressed separately. In other words, efficient and effective practicing. 

Here's the difference between the three. Any given passage, let's say the first solo from the Ravel Piano Concerto, has certain specific challenges. This one has been on my mind (and my stand) for the last little while because it's up this week, and especially because I've never felt like I've performed it as well as I could and I especially want to knock it out of the park this time. In this case, the most obvious challenges are articulation in that nasty tempo between single and double tonguing, stability of tempo, and, since many (myself included) choose to play this piece on something other than their main horn, fluency on the D trumpet. 

But no matter how much I play through the excerpt, even picking it apart, I'm not going to get the quality of results I could if I tackle those challenges more generally. Most importantly, what progress I would make would be less likely to carry over to other repertoire, because I'd be addressing very specific tasks. Instead, I can approach each of the challenges in a general way, tailoring my approach to areas I need to improve or refresh, and not dwelling on the things I'm already on top of. 

Here's a breakdown of the key fundamentals at issue. Of course other are at play as well, but that spider's web reaches into all corners of playing the instrument. 

Articulation - I spent a long time trying to speed up my single tongue, but I eventually realized that there's a wall that I'm just not going to be able to break through. Instead I decided to go around it, and I've become a big proponent of mixing Ks into strings of Ts. This was encouraged to me in my studies with Michael Sachs at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and he touches on the idea in his excellent book Daily Fundamentals for Trumpet. Ravel Piano Concerto is a perfect place to apply this. Refreshing my basic fluency in this is practice task number one for me, as it's something that I use extensively in the piece.

Stability of tempo - A very general skill, and one that I find is often tied to technical fluency within a given passage. Of course, the metronome is your friend.

D trumpet - I find that the most effective way for me to be comfortable on a horn is to play it every day. D trumpet doesn't enter the rotation too often, so I start getting in touch with it at least a couple of weeks before serious work needs to start. I find the best way to get used to an instrument is to incorporate it into my warmup. When I need to be ready to perform on C piston trumpet, C rotary trumpet, D trumpet, C cornet, and piccolo trumpet, I'm switching a great deal in my warmup. 

To get used to really applying these, especially in combinations, the appropriate tools are etudes. It's important to remember that etudes should be chosen with very specific goals in mind, and if you can't find the right etude you should make it, either by changing one you've got, or writing something yourself. For the Ravel, I've found two Charlier etudes to be very helpful. Number 31, in C on D trumpet, is perfect for applying TTTK or TKTT articulation patterns at the fussy tempo in question, and also has the benefit of reading in the same key as the first movement of the concerto. Number 33 is a good challenge to address many of the complications of the third movement, though the connection is admittedly more tenuous than 31 and the first. 

Beyond that, it's just a matter of applying these skills to the original passage. Using techniques of 'skeletonization' and other generally applicable practice ideas, you should find that transferring the general skills you've developed through practicing fundamentals and etudes will give you a more satisfactory product than you would have gotten otherwise. 

The most important thing to remember is that if you can’t find an exercise or etude to address what you need, make one for yourself! Either by writing something or altering an existing etude by key, articulation, speed, or anything else, can give you the tools you need to make the most of your practicing.

A Day Off

December 1, 2014

More isn’t necessarily better. 

Players of some instruments don’t seem to have a physical limit on how much playing is feasible on any given day. Not so for brass players: the stresses on our bodies from playing our instruments are much more acute. Overdo it and you’re definitely compromising quality, and maybe flirting with injury. 

It’s not just physical, either. Practicing when your brain is fried is also going to be a waste of time. I marvel at pianists who can practice with great focus for hours and hours on end; I clearly have the attention span of a brass player. 

Fatigue, both physical and mental, accumulates not only within a day, but over weeks or months. When the tide of demands is high we often rise to the occasion, and it’s great to be able to do something special when you’re under the gun. But when it has receded, it’s important to take the opportunity to recharge. 

We just finished a very intense stretch at the CPO, and I had a few overlapping side projects too, which added up to high demands on my body and mind. Things are a bit more calm now, so I decided I had the space to take yesterday off the trumpet. I know from experience that today, coming back to it, I might be a bit less strong than I was before, but I’ll be much more sensitive and responsive. It’s going to be easier for me to refocus my sound production and do critical general maintenance on my playing. 

Most importantly, it’s going to be so much easier for me to have my head in the game. I’ve got lots of music that I need to learn and it’s time for me to get back to putting in some serious time on the baroque trumpet for Messiah (more on that in another post), and these things require me to be mentally alert. Much easier to do that when I’m well-rested.

So, more isn’t necessarily better. If I had practiced yesterday I wouldn’t have been very productive, and I would have ended up being less productive today than I will be, now that I’m rested. Do what’s going to get the best results, not necessarily what’s going to take the longest!

Playing in a Mid-Sized Orchestra

December 4, 2014

The Calgary Philharmonic has 66 full-time players (two trumpets), and big aspirations in a high-powered city. We play a 40 week season which usually includes two or three productions for Calgary Opera, and also for Alberta Ballet. All this spells out the fact that we are a mid-sized orchestra, and that makes for an interesting set of challenges and advantages for the players.

Playing in the pit for the opera and ballet is something we get to do that bigger symphony orchestras often don't. While some have argued that "playing in a pit is boring", I say that's more dependent on the quality of music, which ranges just as widely in the pit as it does onstage. In my time in Calgary already, the contemporary music I've played at the opera has been every bit as good as what we've done onstage, and warhorses from Mozart to Donizetti have been very illuminating for me. You learn a lot about making a phrase from hearing singers up close, and you don't get that perspective from the back of the stage. Ballet has a tendency to sometimes throw together music for a novel production, so it's often a surprise what's going to show up on my stand. Very often it's been fun and challenging. On the other hand, there's a lot of Tchaikovsky, which has moments of great brilliance. Thankfully Nutcracker is fantastic music and a lot of fun to play, so it's something I always look forward to. Unfortunately Alberta Ballet will be performing Nutcracker with recorded music this year, I hope we're back in the pit next time. 

Unlike larger centres, Calgary doesn't have a professional baroque orchestra. This means that there's no competition for that repertoire, and so we can end up with a great deal more baroque music in an orchestra season than many bigger orchestras. Personally, I find the challenge of baroque trumpet parts to be engaging and rewarding, not to mention that I hold baroque music, especially Bach, in the highest regard. 

Further, in the last few years Calgary has also seen the beginning of a trend for non-specialists to begin seriously working on period instruments. The Red Deer Symphony put on a remarkable (and remarkably ambitious) performance of Bach's B-minor Mass last season, thanks to music director Claude Lapalme. The work put in for a long, long time in advance was huge, and I empathized particularly with principal trumpet Richard Scholz, who invested a great deal of himself into what started as an unfamiliar instrument, and ended up with an impressive result. While it's no B-minor Mass, I had my first performance of 'The Trumpet Shall Sound' on baroque trumpet at Spiritus Chamber Choir's performance of Messiah this past Easter, thanks to the ambitious vision of the choir's artistic director (and CPO chorusmaster) Tim Shantz. The practicality of an orchestral player developing this specific skill set is much greater here than it would be in a city full of specialists.

There are challenges though. Being a section of two with a very high workload means challenges of stamina, planning, avoiding injury, and keeping on top of sometimes six active programmes worth of music. It can feel like a victory to show up to work with the right instruments sometimes. We're lucky to have a very strong pool of extra trumpet players here in Calgary, we couldn't make things work without relying on them a great deal. Aside from the quantity of music, we're very often switching gears from pops, to big romantic orchestral repertoire, to anything else you can imagine. It's mentally challenging to be in the right gear when you need to be, and technically to have your chops ready to be sensitive and supple one day when they've had to be strong and bright beforehand. 

All this being said, I think there are unique opportunities to playing in an orchestra this size. In smaller or larger orchestras I'm sure there are different systemic pros and cons that I'm less acquainted with, but curious to know about. Even aside from size of orchestra and of the city, all the details of how an orchestra is structured and run have huge implications for the players!

Baroque Trumpet

December 8, 2014

It’s Messiah season, and this time around we’re going to be doing it a bit differently. The orchestra is split between two programmes this week (Messiah and Traditional Christmas), so Rich Scholz is going to be playing with me. Since he and I played Messiah with Spiritus Chamber Choir on baroque trumpets last year at A=415, we thought that this would be our chance to give it a go for the first time at A=440 on the same instruments. 

Baroque trumpet has been a real adventure for me. I bought an Egger 3-hole a few years ago off of an internet buy and sell, and it took me a long time to start thinking I could make anything worthwhile come out of the bell. The style and musicianship that goes along with playing a baroque instrument is mostly the same as that required for historically informed performance on a modern one. As I had been pursuing that under the guidance of Ivars Taurins, who we see regularly here in Calgary, that wasn’t a big adjustment to me. 

Technically, however, the darned thing just doesn’t behave like a modern instrument. First of all, the mouthpiece is radically different. A super flat rim with a very sharp angle into the cup makes for a truly bizarre interface with the instrument, for a player accustomed to modern equipment. It has taken a lot of buzzing to get comfortable on the thing. The most striking difference I’ve found though, is the type of airstream that the instrument requires. 

One of the main challenges for me on any instrument is just to relax my airstream. My tendency has always been to go the other way, but on baroque trumpet the whole thing just shuts down when things are too high-energy. For this reason, learning the instrument has been really helpful to my playing as a whole. Playing it just ten minutes a day is a really great way to remind myself that I can recalibrate the way I blow. 

General vs. Specific

December 12, 2014

Thankfully, I practice a lot differently now than I did when I was just learning the trumpet. Back then when it was a victory just to make a sound, my priority was Hot Cross Buns. By the time I worked my way up to Ode to Joy (in B-flat), I had learned what seemed like a ton of repertoire. By the time I was in high school it was all I could do to try to be on top of my wind ensemble and jazz band music, and when I started private lessons that meant even more material that I was responsible for. In university I had recitals, orchestra, brass quintet: a seemingly endless stream of repertoire I had to learn.

Now that I'm on the job, I realize that life in the trenches means going through more repertoire than I could have imagined back then. Faced with performing so much music in so little time, my amateur self wouldn't have known how to begin to cope. What I've learned is that, for me, it calls for a qualitatively different approach. 

I started to figure this out towards the end of my undergrad years at the Glenn Gould School. I had been taking pro auditions for a couple of years, with no real success. I had spent a lot of time on the excerpts: listening, recording myself, working out every possible kink I could find. But I wasn't getting the results I was looking for, and I had a hard time sorting out what I could do better. I got my first positive sign without really knowing how I did it, advancing to the second round at a fourth trumpet audition in Montreal. It was a big list, and not an audition that I was as specifically well-prepared for as I could have been. Afterwards I realized that even though I was less specifically prepared, I had generally made big improvements in my playing since the last auditions I had taken. This was a big idea for me, and one that has served me well over the years. Pursuing this avenue of growth gave me all sorts of ways to work towards my goals rather than fruitlessly scrutinizing my Promenade again and again. 

The specific challenges of any given passage can be broken down into more and more basic components. A technical passage might come down to quality of multiple tonguing and coordination (which usually means not rushing); something lyrical might really be about evenness of sound production, use of vibrato, and general musicianship. What's true about any passage is that if you're generally good at the things it requires, you're going to do better. If your articulation, flexibility, and musicality are strong, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to play a fine ballerina's dance. Through refining your ears and ability to analyze what's going on in your playing, you'll learn to spot the general skills that need work. 

What this really boils down to is the importance of fundamentals. The most basic practicing is the most generally applicable, and that means that it's your biggest return on investment. A personalized approach to fundamentals, one that focuses your efforts on areas that need the most attention, is the single most important part of your practicing to develop. The more experienced I've become, the larger the proportion of my practicing that is dedicated to fundamentals. I'm the type of person who thrives on routine, so that makes it easy, but even if you're not, you can develop a flexible framework of practice that can let you target the areas you need while still keeping things fresh every day. That's a big topic though, and is worth its own post in the future. 

December Chestnuts

December 17, 2014

Every year is different when you’re in an orchestra. Each season brings different repertoire, conductors, and soloists, and the exact layout of each concert series (classics, pops, specials) is different. Time off also works out differently because Easter moves around, and there might be a week or two when trumpets aren’t required, as well. All this means that you have to assess the arc of each individual season, and plan the general flow of your practicing around it. 

This time of year, December, is a touchstone within the ever-changing rhythm of the orchestra season. Generally speaking, my colleagues and I always know what to expect: Messiah, Traditional Christmas, a couple of seasonal specials, Nutcracker, and a New Year’s show. The predictability and familiarity of this stretch makes it a really useful time of year.

First, I think it’s really important to take some time off the instrument when the schedule permits. I know this is a contentious point for some folks, and it bears further discussion another day. 

Familiar repertoire with clearly-understood technical and musical requirements also lets everyone have the time and space to get ready for what’s coming up in the new year. The holidays feel like a natural half-way point for the season, but really we’re closer to a third through than a half. There’s a lot still to come, and the opportunity to regroup is most welcome.

A Vienna-style New Year’s Day concert scheduled right in the middle of holidays poses several problems, not the least of which for me is that these shows are always very tiring, especially after taking some time off. It always feels like we’re playing all the time: there’s no chance to empty your trumpet in many of the famous Strauss waltzes, and the dreaded rotary trumpet left hand cramp often shows up somewhere in the second half. My solution is to take some time off the horn as soon as we’re off work so that I can be building again by the time this concert rolls around and I can use the heavy programme to my advantage. It’s very difficult to simulate that kind of workload at home, so I’m going to try to get out of it everything I can. With Mahler 6 a few weeks later, if there’s an opportunity to build condition I’ll take it!

Trumpet Vacation

December 21, 2014

I’ve been writing here for just a few weeks, and already this is my second post about not playing the trumpet. My high school self would be mortified. But what we do is both physically and mentally taxing, and taking time to heal and recharge is critical for quality, progress, and injury prevention. 

You don’t get better by carrying chronic fatigue all the time. Athletes know this, and the physical side of playing any instrument is analogous. Any elite athlete will tell you that it’s not possible to be at a physical peak year round, that’s why it’s called a peak. For someone playing an orchestra season, it’s more of a long plateau than a peak, though you can be as detailed as you want within the span of the year. Regardless, that peak or plateau will be higher if your body has a chance to regroup and consolidate gains made over the last stretch of work. 

It’s important to remember that we’re dealing with some very small, fragile muscles. Unrelieved chronic stress can do a great deal of damage over time. Repetitive strain injuries plague many musicians, and once they start they often never really go away. Aside from refining the ergonomics of your playing, resting proactively is just about all you can do to stave them off. 

You don’t get better by being stuck in a rut. We spend so much time playing our instruments that the physical and mental habits we’ve developed become absolutely engrained. When the habits are good, that’s great. But nobody’s habits are perfect, and it can be quite challenging to change something that you’ve been doing a certain way for a long time. But after a week, or two weeks, or a month away from your instrument, all that programming isn’t quite so entrenched for a little while. When you come back to practicing, all your habits can shift a bit. This can be a good or bad thing. Not only are those specific areas you’re targeting easier to tweak, but the things that you had dialled in before can possibly slip out of place. It’s important to be very mindful, especially in the first days back, that you’re choosing which habits to engrain. 

You get better when you’re physically energized, mentally engaged, and creatively stimulated. I think that sometimes the best way to get all three of those is to leave the horn in the case and remember what it’s like to live like a regular person again, if only for a little while.

Routine: What and Why?

December 30, 2014

The first session of the day can often feel like a chore. Warming up can seem like a mindless routine and the benefits of your introductory appointment with the trumpet can often seem intangible. I would argue that this first session is the most important session of the day, because while sure, it is important to learn your repertoire, the most important long-term path to be on is one where you're constantly improving and avoiding injury. 

What's the difference between warmups and fundamentals? All warmups are fundamentals, but not all fundamentals are warmups. Just like working out at the gym or getting on your mat for your yoga practice, the safest and most effective way to begin is to start with movements that are productive, but also prepare you for the rest of what you're up against. For me, this whole idea combines with the goal of simple efficiency into the decision to always include a full routine in my first session of the day, unless there are extenuating circumstances. It does help that I'm a morning person and I thrive on routine. That being said, I think what I outline below is a flexible approach that can work really well for people who can't stand doing the same thing every day.

This key first session of the day should serve many purposes. Okay, sure, warming up. But there are certain boxes that you should always make sure to tick off. It's important to touch on all parts of your playing. When I have to play high Cs at work, I sure don't want them to be my first high Cs of the day. Through this comprehensive daily approach, it's also possible to improve your technical command of the instrument, build strength and condition, get the face time you need on the different instruments you've got on the go, and most importantly avoid injury by maintaining base fitness in your chops. 

So, the first session should touch on all the general areas of playing. As far as I can tell, everything falls in to three broad categories: sound production, flexibility, and articulation. By having lots of different ways to check off each of those boxes, ideally options at different levels of difficulty, intensity, and duration, you'll be able to tailor an effective and complete fundamentals session for each day.

More to come on this big topic.

Vienna-Style New Year’s Day Concerts

January 1, 2015

It’s January 1st, and that means it’s time for a Vienna-style New Year’s Day concert. I played my annual today, which is a certain package that runs these across Canada and the States, which I’m sure many of you have played for yourselves. These concerts, without consideration for their place in the calendar or any other outside matters, pose a few unique challenges and opportunities. 

First of all, it’s a lot of music, and for the trumpets, a great deal of playing. After trumpet vacation, it’s a challenge to have the stamina to sound good all the way to the end. This also means it’s a great opportunity to get in a good block of face time to rebuild the strength that went away over the holiday, and hopefully more efficiently. 

This much playing on rotary trumpet is also a really great opportunity to get more comfortable on the instrument, which in North America often doesn’t get its due in the practice room. Even finding a functional and comfortable grip can be a challenge, especially in long waltzes where it feels like there’s not even enough rest to empty the instrument.

Since we’re playing a great deal of background material, it means it’s also a good opportunity to dial in reading and transposition skills again after the break. A huge challenge is dealing with the roadmaps of waltz cycles and polkas, which can be extremely convoluted and fast-paced. Getting good at reading these charts make pops arrangements a breeze!

When all is said and done, the first trumpet folder for a show like this is quite well-rounded: loud, soft, lyrical, articulate, high, low, really a bit of almost everything. It can be a great deal of fun, when things are working well. The Blue Danube is a perfect example, if cliché. Passages with the woodwinds, soft and loud solos, and throughout the piece great opportunities for very stylish playing. 

Any programme can be an opportunity to work on at least some parts of your playing. A show like this that we play every year can become monotonous, but by reminding yourself what you can contribute and what you can gain it can become a useful building opportunity, plus a much more righteous day at the office than it otherwise would be.

Routine: Keeping it Fresh

January 6, 2015

As promised, here’s a follow-up to this previous entry.

Sound production is the best place to start, because it serves the purpose of a warmup in addition to being the basis for everything else we do on a brass instrument. This broad category includes making a resonant and clear sound in all registers, in all dynamics. Mouthpiece buzzing (and lip buzzing, if you're into that) are the natural place to start. The mouthpiece is the ultimate sound production diagnostic tool, so use it! I like to buzz in all registers of the instrument, from pedal notes to the upper register, as high as I'll be playing on the trumpet. Then on the instrument exercises like the old standbys by James Stamp or Vince Cichowicz are just what the doctor ordered. The quantity of these exercises as well as how far along you choose to go in terms of range are variables that will let you tailor the demands of this segment each day. As with anything, you know best what you need. For example, when I'm getting in a lot of loud playing at work, I don't feel the need to do much at home; whereas when I've got super soft things to play I make sure to check in a bit more frequently.

Flexibility is the next area I like to tackle. Broadly defined, it's the ability to go from one state of sound production to another. Changing notes and dynamics are the two obvious ones, but you can get as detailed as you like. Dynamic exercises like swells, forte-pianos, subito dynamic changes in either direction, all fall into this category. More popularly, this area also includes "lip slurs", a term that I don't particularly like. In Allen Vizzutti's New Concepts for Trumpet book, there's a very good section of these exercises which he titles "Smooth Tones" which I think is a great label. Some good exercises with varying degrees of difficulty are Bai Lin, Michael Sachs's fundamentals book, and the Charles Colin flexibilities book. 

Articulation is the last big area to touch on. The interruption of the airstream with the tongue is a fundamental skill. Ideally this will also function as sound production work too, because it's essentially the same thing with the simple addition of the tongue. Exercises here can be simple Arban-type exercises, simplified and elaborated versions of those exercises (like those spelled out in the Sachs book), all the way to complex multiple tonguing etudes, such as some Charliers. I generally like to keep this simple, but if it’s a growth area for you the door is open.

Lastly, I like to touch on the piccolo trumpet in the first session every day. I’ve got a lot of thoughts about the little thing, but those are another post altogether. For this session, a short amount of time on the horn, addressing all three areas already discussed, will keep you in touch with the instrument and will help to build a base level of condition that will serve you well when you really have to ramp up your piccolo practice for a specific work. 

By having a variety of options to address each of these areas, you can tailor the weight of your first session of the day appropriately for the demands of the day, your general condition on the instrument, and specific needs, either to address what you’re up against in the next little while, or general growth in your playing. For me, I have a routine that I like most of the time during the orchestra season, but when I’m getting back in shape from a period of reduced workload or off the trumpet altogether, I start up very simply and gradually ratchet up the degree of difficulty for each of these areas. It’s a great way to not only get back in shape safely and effectively, but also to see tangible signs of progress, which is always helpful. 

Do you have any ideas about how to break down the technical demands of playing a brass instrument? I’m always looking for new insights into how this whole strange thing works, so please do let me know if you see holes in my ideas here. I know it seems like a dry discussion, but this is the behind-the-scenes reality of the field we’re in. Getting interested and curious about it is the best way to improve!

Mahler 6

January 30, 2015

What a week! Last weekend the CPO played Mahler 6, and now at last I'm starting to feel mentally recovered. The physical demands of the piece are heavy, and the mental demands are immense. There are so many solos, especially in the last movement, that I found it very easy to get into the intense focus that such passages require. But it really hits you when the piece is finished that your mind needs to recover as much as your chops!

It's a strange part. The first three movements feel like a balanced diet of trumpet playing: strong orchestral style, extroverted lyricism, sensitive passages, soft and loud articulate passages. But in the last movement, even though there are different types of challenges, there are so many short loud solos that things get to feeling a whole lot less balanced. Mahler writes fortissimo very frequently in this part, and often when my instinct said a single forte would have sufficed. But Mahler is the boss, and I guess he was okay at writing for the trumpet. The trickiest day of the week was Thursday, when we rehearsed the last movement first, then went back. Recovery from loud playing is often a more pressing challenge than the loud parts themselves. 

We had a really strong trumpet section that made it a super fun week. I should especially mention Jay Michalak and Dan Mills on 5th and 6th, with B-flat trumpets pulled out to A to be able to play those super low Ds. 

And now it's time for me to go play The Marriage of Figaro, quite a contrasting day at the office!

Pops!

February 25, 2015

Except for a few top-tier orchestras, every group plays pops. For some orchestras it’s quite a significant portion of the workload. While an average pops show can be a snoozer for much of the orchestra, the brass section (and often first trumpet in particular) can have their work cut out for them. 

As a new professional, pops were an especially big challenge. School does not prepare you for this kind of playing, and it’s very possible that someone fresh out of a conservatory will not be fluent in the styles required. Knowing how to identify and play a shuffle, rock, funk, dixieland, swing, or a Charleston is critically important for properly executing a pops show, and usually there’s not enough rehearsal time to sort these things out along the way. 

Several different types of pops concerts present themselves. They might break down as follows:

Classical pops concerts, which can be approached like a regular programme. John Williams type concerts could fall under this category. While challenging, they can be tackled much like a heavy concert of classical music.

Rock shows with an amplified band are generally not too stressful, but there are exceptions. Being comfortable playing with earplugs (invest in proper musician’s earplugs!) is an important skill here.

Broadway pops often have quite a range of styles, from very legit style playing to quite commercial. Usually there aren’t enough commercial parts to call for a lead player, but sometimes I’ll be out of my wheelhouse. 

Jazz shows can be very challenging, and often justify calling in a specialist to play a lead trumpet book. Jim Murray is a great high note player and I’m so very glad he’s in town. When he’s in to play the lead book I usually play third. If there’s anything legit I’ll bump up to first so he can save his chops for his specialty. 

Equipment choices might also be worth investigating. It's not quite "Change Your Mouthpiece, Change Your Life", but I’ve found that a lighter B-flat trumpet than I usually play, paired with a slightly shallower mouthpiece, gives me the best product for the least effort on rock, broadway, and jazz shows. I’ll always play John Williams etcetera on my usual orchestral gear, but there is nothing to be gained by trying to play a big band show on gear that is specialized towards a different discipline of trumpet playing. 

Finally, it’s worth saying that just like any type of concert, pops can be good or bad. It’s easy for classical musicians to scoff at pops, but a well crafted and well executed pops concert with good arrangements, good soloists, and a good conductor can be fun and rewarding. Even if it falls short, a tough pops folder is a great opportunity to hone your craft, build strength, and work on styles that you might not play so frequently. I hope that no programme is a lemon, but you can always make lemonade.

Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1

April 2, 2015

The late great Russian trumpet virtuoso Timofei Dokshizer said that his greatest regrets were not being pushier to Shostakovich and Prokofiev about writing proper trumpet concertos. It's tantalizing to think about what either of those amazing creative minds would have written, but what we're left with as solo repertoire, in addition to the incredible orchestral writing of them both, is Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1. 

It is a singularly quirky piece. Before even a note is played, the strange notion of a concerto for piano and strings having an additional soloist (let alone a trumpet!) sitting up front is unique. The first movement, by turns brooding and giocoso, is followed by a beautiful second movement which includes a famous trumpet solo which uses the very bottom of the normal range of the instrument. The third movement is a short, romantic transition into the fourth, which starts in a somewhat serious character, but soon turns into one of the most ludicrous romps in the repertoire. Truly silly writing is interspersed with old-timey saloon music, a caricature of a trumpet solo, quotes from piano pieces by Beethoven and Haydn (sometimes in the trumpet part!), and a runaway train of an ending, more like a Buster Keaton movie than a white-tie occasion. 

It's a fresh and youthful piece, and very different from the music that led to and followed his official denouncement by the state in 1936. Having played the much later Tenth Symphony two weeks prior to this, the impact of the years and events between the two pieces is made plain. 

This will be my first time performing this piece, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's always a pleasure to be invited to the front of the stage, and playing with one's own orchestra is a particularly happy occasion!

John Williams Concert, 2015 Edition

May 4, 2015

It seems that every year or two we play a big John Williams concert. As the principal trumpet, the week always sets off the full array of alarm bells and sirens. Such a programme requires thoughtful preparation, a practice plan that will prepare you physically for what you have to do, and a heck of a lot of confidence that you’ve got what it takes to nail it, right through the end of the concert. 

Having done more than a few of these shows, that confidence comes more easily than it used to for me. The practice plan, unsurprisingly, involves building volume and intensity in the weeks before, and not needing to overpractice and pick up debilitating fatigue on the days when the rehearsals of such a monster programme will provide the intensity and workload required to have the goods at the end of the week. 

The planning, however, is an interesting challenge, and is very programme-specific. We’ll have four players on this show, some pieces having three parts and some four. I’m not shy about having an assistant on a show like this. On the three-trumpet pieces I mark, both in my part and a copy, passages I’d like the assistant to double (usually passages where all three trumpets are in unison, or in octaves I’ll make sure there are two players in each octave), and passages where I’ll lay out entirely (usually accompaniment passages or long notes). I’m also not shy about strategically splitting up passages to make sure it all sounds super strong. Pieces that we do over and over, like the classic Star Wars suite, I’ve got figured out. Others that I’ve never played before require a bit more guesswork, and sometimes some changes at the first rehearsal. 

One particularly clever bit of programming has gone into this concert: the suite from Robin Hood, by Erich Korngold. Not only is it wonderful film music, but we’re playing it on a regular series concert the week prior. Pops concerts in general get less rehearsal time than classical concerts, even though the music could often use a full rehearsal schedule. This particular programme will effectively get more rehearsal because of the time we will already have spent on Robin Hood. 

In a lot of ways a week like this is an extreme challenge, but mentally it’s actually quite straightforward. There aren’t many real changes of gear, I’m pretty much in charge most of the time that I’m playing. Being such a consistently prominent voice lets me focus mostly on executing my part very well, and trusting that my colleagues will follow me. Of course the usual concerns of ensemble and intonation never really go away, but when you’re driving the bus it’s a lot easier to know you’re on track.

Canadian National Brass Project 2015

June 22, 2015

This summer I'm really looking forward to being part of the Canadian National Brass Project in its inaugural year. Opportunities to play in large brass ensembles are scarce, let alone in a group made of players from Canada's great orchestras. I'm excited to play some great music, but even more excited to work with wonderful players and friends. 

All of the arrangements are new to me, so I'm digging in now that the orchestra season is over. We'll be playing Sensemayá, West Side Story, and Pictures at an Exhibition, as well as some other pieces. I've got to get my piccolo chops in shape for the session!

We're rehearsing at the National Youth Orchestra's session in Waterloo, and I'm excited not only to perform for the NYO's players but to teach there as well. I think this year's partnership is a great way to make the most of the fact that so many great Canadian brass players will be gathering together, and will be good for everyone involved. 

We'll be performing on July 22nd at the Toronto Summer Music Festival, July 23rd at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, and July 26th at the Festival of the Sound. 

I'm planning on writing about what's going on during the session, so stay tuned!

Piccolo Trumpet

June 26, 2015

Every year in late November you feel a knot in your stomach. It nags, it distracts, maybe it even keeps you awake at night. But there’s no putting it off. You dig out the dusty case, undo the latch and hear the foreboding creak of the hinge, and behold your neglected, vengeful piccolo trumpet. 

Does this sound familiar? For a lot of people, Messiah season is the only time that the piccolo trumpet gets attention in the practice room. No wonder the results are often less than what we might like. The piccolo is like the scary dog next door when you were a kid: terrifying when encountered only fleetingly, but a great friend once you get to know each other. 

Once you accept that the piccolo trumpet is a real instrument just like your C trumpet and begin to treat it as such, rather than a toy that by its very nature feels bad and sounds tinny, real progress can begin. Most things don’t change much from playing big horns, like technical facility, articulation, and musicianship; but sound production, which is always the highest priority, needs to be calibrated for the smaller instrument. Sure, we often draw on different styles of playing on piccolo than we do on big trumpets, but there’s no essential difference in how those styles would be applied on either horn. One other thing we need to do on the piccolo is make sure we’re able to play in tune in all keys, something that is often overlooked. 

We can address production on the piccolo the same way we do on big horns. Most people will be playing a smaller mouthpiece on piccolo than they usually do, so it’s best to start with mouthpiece buzzing to get comfortable with the different interface. Make sure to buzz the entire range of the instrument, which means on the piccolo that you’ll eventually be going well above the break on the mouthpiece around high D or so. Get used to working through it, smoothing it out. Next, I like to do some Stamp or Cichowicz exercises, making sure to get comfortable in the pedal register of the instrument. I haven’t yet figured out how to make pedal notes on the piccolo trumpet sound palatable, but they’re a great way to find a free, resonant vibration of your lips in the smaller mouthpiece. 

Many of the exercises we frequently think of for big horns don’t transfer well to the piccolo. One exception is the book of 70 Little Studies by Clodomir, many of which can be adjusted to fit the piccolo, though given this treatment many become quite difficult. My very favourite resource is Chris Gekker’s 15 Studies for Piccolo Trumpet, which contains not only Clarke-style exercises in every key tailored specifically for the piccolo, but insightful and well-written text on most aspects of piccolo playing. Phil Collins has written a book of etudes for piccolo practice as well. Many baroque pieces are simple or well-known enough to make good practice material too. 

We’re usually required to play the piccolo either in the baroque style, or in a powerful orchestral manner, think Rite of Spring or Bolero. The demands are very different, but luckily practicing those two different styles make for a well-balanced diet on the instrument.

I know a lot of people think otherwise, but for me it’s very important for me to practice the piccolo trumpet every day. I like to touch on it at the end of my first session of the day, and most days I try to come back to it for part of a second session. When I started on the job, I found my playing in general improved by leaps and bounds, but whenever I needed to play piccolo I felt like it hadn’t improved at all. No wonder, I hadn’t been practicing it to keep the quality level with everything else. Since I got in the habit of picking it up, it has caught up with the rest of my playing, and sometimes I even think of it as a strength. 

Finally,  another benefit of playing picc every day is that I find it helps me be more comfortable in the upper register on my big trumpets. Playing high is a big part of my job, not to mention something on most trumpet players’ minds. When I can improve several critical areas at the same time I know that I'm doing high-value practice, and that's always something to shoot for.

CNBP Update

July 25, 2015

Just a quick update from the Canadian National Brass Project session. We've been at it for almost a week now, and we've played three of our four shows this year. This is such a fantastic group of players, and it's been amazing to hear everyone play and teach! Things have been busy, so I haven't had time to blog about it. I'll do so when the session is done and I'm thinking back over it and going through my notes. More to come!

Canadian National Brass Project 2015

August 2, 2015

Last week was a blast. Playing and teaching with such a group of great musicians and great friends was always going to be a treat, but it's always refreshing how much of a boost it can be to how you think about your practicing and performing. 

The CNBP was in residence at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada during part of their session at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. There was so much teaching going on that it was impossible for me to soak it all up: multiple masterclasses, lessons, and rehearsals running concurrently. I attended the daily trumpet masterclasses my colleagues were teaching, but I wish I could have heard everyone else's ideas too. I taught some lessons (not just to trumpet players) and took part in a few panel discussions on topics ranging from what constitutes professional conduct in the workplace, to what it's like to get a job and start working full-time in an orchestra. 

After a few intense days of rehearsal it was time for our first show, at the Toronto Summer Music Festival. We lifted the roof off of Walter Hall at the University of Toronto, the audience responded amazingly to what we were doing. Since I grew up and went to school in the Toronto area I saw lots of familiar faces, which is always a treat. 

The next night we were playing opening night of the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. We had done a slightly reduced programme the night before, as we were followed by another scheduled concert, so this was the first real go through everything. It was a good show, and as is usual we celebrated accordingly. 

Back to Waterloo we went the next day for a joint concert with the NYOC brass and percussion. The percussionists played some Varèse, the NYO brass played some standards, we played some of our tunes, and we finished with some pieces together, NYO players sitting in the section with the pros. I recall my own experiences doing that sort of thing, the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra sitting in with the Toronto Symphony and such, so I can only hope that the students got something similar out of this experience. 

The next morning we recorded a few pieces for grant applications promotional purposes. All through the week the pressure had been on to play my best for my colleagues, but recordings are something else entirely. When playing music that's as difficult and high-risk as some of what we were up against, a recording session is a real crucible. I'm really looking forward to hearing how it turned out.

Up to Parry Sound we went, and got a much-needed recharge before our final concert the next day at the Festival of the Sound. I had never been to Parry Sound before, and while the town was much as I had imagined, I was delighted to see such a wonderful performing space as the Stockey Centre. I had the pleasant surprise of seeing some unexpected friends at intermission too, making a good day even better. 

As soon as the show was done people were off in a hurry to catch flights for far-flung rehearsals the next morning. The week felt like a whirlwind, but I've got memories, notes, and inspiration to last a good long while. If you've got a chance to hear or take a lesson from anyone involved in the project, I'd absolutely recommend to do it. Though nothing is certain, hopefully we'll all be back together again next summer for another great session!

Paradigm Shift

December 15, 2015

It has been some time since last I posted here, but not without good reason. At the beginning of this orchestra season a new little tyrant has entered my life, and for the purposes of this blog, has really messed with my routine. I was once told that if I was ever going to have kids I should make sure I had everything about the trumpet figured out first, but since I didn't manage that I've got to do my best to keep making progress under the new regime. I've already learned a few things.

Most fundamentally, never before has being efficient with my time been more important than it is now. There are so many new pressures on my schedule that I need to make the most of the time that I have. Even when there aren't tasks to be done, I'd rather get the same amount done in less time so I can play with the baby more. If I practiced in my undergrad with the efficiency I've found in the last month who knows how I'd sound now!

Plan as you might, all sorts of non-optional interruptions are going to happen, some just for a minute and some for hours. Understanding my routine and fundamentals lets me divide things up as I need, to be able to feel confident about my practicing even if I can only catch short bursts throughout the day. If I have break up my first session of the day even into four small sessions, I know that I've covered all my bases.

Like it or not, the practice mute is an important tool. I saw this coming, and spent some time this past summer working out exactly where the line was between things that can and can't be effectively achieved when using a practice mute. For me, my basic routine is all doable, as is much additional technical work, note-learning, and endurance-specific practicing. Some things just aren't smart to try, like working on anything relating to sound or style. The piccolo trumpet practice mute that I got for a performance of George Benjamin's piece At First Light in my undergrad has come in very handy, too. 

On the rare occasion when both absolute silence is necessary and I don't need to sleep or deal with a non-practicing issue, I've been looking ahead and writing out practice etudes for myself, something I've done for many years to address specifically challenging passages. Not only do etudes like this provide a great way of wrapping my head around the challenges of a given passage, but they make the actual practicing so amazingly efficient that I really should do a lot more of this sort of thing.

I'd probably write more here, but the boss awakens and I'll gladly attend to him. Maybe he'll teach me brevity, among other things.

Asked and Answered

November 21, 2016

Someone wrote in with a few questions based on my earlier post about routine (here), and I thought I'd share my response with everybody. Here you go!

Q: Can you suggest some exercises or routines for the following? Playing on a horizontal airstream?

A. When it comes to thinking horizontally, I find that the old Stamp idea of thinking up as you go down and down as you go up is right on the money, and I've got a few tools I like to use to work on that. In my fundamental practice I like to find exercises that I can invert the shape of, and end up with a pair of matching exercises. I then try to play one while thinking very clearly of the other in my head. For example, the following pair of exercises from Alan Vizzutti’s book New Concepts for Trumpet:

The goal of all this is to keep everything right at eye level, never feeling the need to reach up or down. Either a strict inversion of an exercise or just finding something with a reverse contour can be helpful. Intervallic passages can often end up with an opposite shape by displacing some notes by octaves. 

Q:...Range?

A. Range is a byproduct of quality sound production. If your best sound consistently tops out at a high B-flat but you can squeak out a high F, you should spend your time figuring out what you need to do to play a great-sounding B-natural. When you get your sound production really dialled in, range will follow along with endurance.

Q:...More clarity in articulation?

A. Articulation is about two separate components, sound production and the tongue. Clarity problems can result when either isn't working properly, or when the two aren't coordinated. Is your tongue interrupting the airstream cleanly and consistently? Perhaps your notes just aren't responding how you want them to? Or maybe it just sounds messy and everything is fine when you break it down into components? All of those scenarios mean something different is the trouble. When you can diagnose the specific cause of the problem you know what to focus on.

Q:...Maximize my practicing with limited time?

A. With limited time to practice, having a clear plan and discipline is the way to make progress. If you need to get as specific as breaking your 25 available minutes for the first session of the day into 5 minutes of buzzing, 10 minutes of sound production on the horn, 5 minutes of flexibility, and 5 minutes of articulation, commit to that and keep your eyes on the clock to keep yourself honest. It's amazing what you can get done when you actually stay on task! With limited time to practice there's no reason not to have very intense practice sessions that contain very little rest, you'll have lots of time before your next session to recover.

Hope that's helpful to some of you. Feel free to write in with any other questions, I'll be happy to tell you what I think!

tkTKTTKTTKTT TT

September 19, 2017

We've all got holes in our playing. Big or small, we know some of them well and some sneak under our radar. 

A big one for me is a sluggish right hand. I realized it for the first time several years ago getting back in shape after having broken my right pinky in a bike crash. I knew that it'd take some time to get strength, speed, and coordination back, but in the process I realized for the first time how far behind the rest of my playing my right hand was. I'm working on it every day. 

Another small hole for me has always been two fast thirty-second notes before a string of triple-tongued eighth-note triplets. Think the loud fanfares in Mahler 1 or at the top of the second page of Pines of Rome. Slowing down the articulation for the second note of the first triplet has always been a huge stumbling block for me. 

Well next week I'm playing Mahler 1, and I've taken this as an opportunity to work on both things. I've been using these simple practice variations, the same thing for both keys the fanfare is in. [Edit for clarity: it's the D-flat major version that's so tough for the right hand. It's great to have the two right next to each other, so if the D major is fine but D-flat major stinks, you know what the problem is.]

First the original as a reference, then a basic skeleton. Add triple tonguing, then get to those pesky 32nds. This is the place to really work on making sure the fourth and fifth notes are slow enough. Then a variation using the same fingerings as the real passage, but shrinking the intervals to reduce the flexibility challenge; this is the place to make sure your fingers and tongue are coordinated. The last variation adds half of the flexibility challenge back, then you're ready to go back to the original passage.

So many challenges like these 32nds aren't really that big of a deal, but it's easy to skirt around them over the years. A bit of focused work can sort things out most of the time, but the critical steps are to identify it, understand exactly what's going on, and decide to do something about it. 

I've decided this season to redouble my efforts seek out as many of these holes as I can, and find ways to fix them. How have you noticed and fixed things in your playing? Please share your experience in the comments, I'd be interested to hear. 

Getting Back in Shape

December 4, 2018

These last six months have been a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime experience. I had my open-heart surgery on May 22nd, and with just a few bumps in the road I seem to be more-or-less through to the other side of this experience. I'm posting this blog entry on both my main trumpet blog (accessible from the links up top of the page) and as the last entry on my heart surgery and recovery blog that I've kept, which you can find here.

Coming back to playing the trumpet after this long off has been exciting and interesting. I sure missed it, and I still miss being at work playing with the orchestra. The most important thing though is to make sure that I get my playing to a strong and very healthy place before I do get back on the job, as it's hard to make adjustments when the schedule is so heavy. 

Since I got some good advice from my teacher Andrew McCandless in my undergrad, I've always believed strongly in the power of taking some time off. Be it a day when you're feeling beat up and your schedule permits it, a week over the Christmas holidays, or six weeks over the summer, I've found that I always come back recharged, feeling fresh, and ready to play my best. It has been my experience, and especially that of my students, that taking well-earned time off is the time when long-term gains are realized and habits can be tweaked in a positive direction, and it's this last idea that has been of particular interest to me this time around.

Physically speaking, I don't think there's a great deal of difference between taking six weeks or five months off (given that I've healed up well and playing the trumpet hasn't exposed any problems with my recovery from surgery). Mentally though, there is a huge difference. All my deeply entrenched habits are looser, more malleable, which is a great opportunity but also a minefield. It'll never be easier for me to fix things, but if a new problem creeps in to what I'm doing it'll become a dominant habit very quickly. I've specifically targeted two long-time weaknesses of mine: starts, and my right hand. 

For as long as I can remember I've had trouble starting first notes, and I've done a lot of work to understand the problem and fix it. My goal was to only do it the right way from day one back on the trumpet, and I've had a surprisingly easy time of it. Now it's my habit, and don't take it for granted. Aside from being diligent with everything I start, at the end of my first session every day I now have a little routine to really solidify what I've developed. I play the first few notes of Mahler 5 and Pictures, I start a couple of passages from the scherzo of the Barber Symphony No. 1 which is coming up in a few months, and I finish with the solo from Copland's Outdoor Overture, which is especially telling due to the downward slurs at the beginning. 

I think most trumpet players have a lazy right hand, especially the third finger. I was able to do some focused work before I started playing the trumpet again; right-hand work doesn't mess with a healing sternum. In everything I'm playing now I'm trying to be very mindful of being strong and direct with my hand, especially routine things that I do every day like flow studies and the great Clarke-style piccolo trumpet studies by Chris Gekker, which are particularly good for the right hand. 

The plan is to work hard between now and the end of the year, take a bit of time off as I usually would over the holidays, and consolidate all this good work I've been doing for my return to performance in January. I think it's a good, healthy plan and I really believe that I'm going to sound better in the near future than I have in the past. 

Please don't hesitate to reply to this post to ask specific questions about getting back in shape after a hiatus like this. There's so much nuance to it that's hard to articulate without the focus of a specific question.

Nutcracker Video

December 8, 2020

Listen to my favourite part of The Nutcracker as you've never heard it before: for 23 trumpets (or similar). Watch in HD video and audio at https://youtu.be/UzglIL_Fy6g.

Big thanks to Donovan Seidle for his mosaic video advice, and Nathan Chandler for mentoring me on audio recording and mixing.

For more new content...

February 16, 2022

If you’re looking for more content, updated relatively frequently, head over to my instagram account here, where I’m posting bits of my practicing on a regular basis!