Edwards 1. The Tenor Trombone Handbook. Buddy Baker

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1 Edwards 1 The Tenor Trombone Handbook Buddy Baker

2 Edwards 2 The Tenor Trombone Handbook by Buddy Baker is an excellent collection of resources for many different subjects. His book covers a wide variety of information about subjects that all connect back to the trombone from fundamentals through performance practices in all the major styles as well as resources that would aid in running a studio at the college level. The first resource encountered is a list of hand-picked solos that the author has rated in terms of how well he likes the piece. They are also classified by grade level from middle school to college level and into the professional range. There is also a small section for method books based on the same level scale as above. This type of list can assist ambitious trombone high school students who wish to broaden their horizons past the PML, and the college junior and senior who wishes to build their recital program. For contests and competitions he lists solos by classifications of chamber works, wind ensemble, and orchestra accompaniments. Included next the pieces names are their difficulty and all ornamentation associated with a piece must be played. When auditioning to win a job with a theme park, it is wise to use three different styled pieces. A technical etude, jazz ballad, and an upbeat bebop style piece that totals no more than three minutes should work and must be carefully chosen in order to show off what you can do. He gives some examples of each style. Small trombone chamber pieces are provided as well in the handouts, and again are compiled with the intention of quality and challenging enough to suit a purpose for playing. Duets are listed on page 12 and ranked by grade or difficulty. This list ranges from beginner level to advanced level. There is also a list of twentieth century quartets by Bruce Kneeling. Lastly, there is a resource for sight-reading materials listed that are good for intermediate to advanced level students.

3 Edwards 3 Baker recommends using Doug Elliott Mouthpieces and includes information about how to understand their system. LT, large tenor, and ST, small tenor, refer to differences in cup size. Their shallowest cup is labeled AA and their deepest cup is labeled J. C lines up with the Bach C size. 100 refers to the rim size which would be one inch and close to a Bach 6½Al. The gold plated rim is quoted as softer and a better feeling on the face. There quite a few handouts on practice starting on page 20. The first defines what practice should be and is more of a motivational poster. Next, the goals of his daily routine are defined. The approach to a daily routine should be regular and consistent, and will be the only way to develop any aspect of playing. He recommends that the daily routine be about one hour of practice time and only then should the player move on to other materials. There is a difference between playing and practice. It is in practice that errors can be removed while errors will only be confirmed in playing. The teacher a player uses is only a guide and it is up to the player to enforce practice in order to obtain success. It is important, especially in college, that a balance is found between playing and practice which is also why it s important to establish that daily routine. Practice time has to be organized and efficient in order to be worth the time spent. First of all, you must organize it in such a way that it benefits the career path chosen. Once that is established, work to become the best one can be towards that goal. The player may only have a maximum of four hours to play every day and exceeding that limit can actually hurt ability. Baker splits practice time into three sections. The first deals with the daily routine, working on weaknesses, sight-reading, orchestral excerpts, difficult passages in both solo and ensemble music, and upcoming recital music. The second section involves working out major classical and jazz ensemble pieces, the far away recital pieces and jury pieces. The last session of the day

4 Edwards 4 should be full of music from other s recitals, competition pieces, music for paying gigs and new literature. Developing consistency is also something that must be included within a practice schedule. Every musician has an amount of time needed to efficiently practice a piece to obtain consistency and most of the time, through inefficient practice preparation, only thirty-three percent of that practice time is obtained. A combination of motivation, active thinking and confidence is needed to achieve 100% consistency. Keeping a practice record my help start the student organize their practice time more efficiently, and a sample one is provided on page 26. It is also good for some to keep recordings and lesson sheets to see how they are progressing over all. The idea above is developed on page 68 with four in depth phases. Once a piece is chosen phase one begins. Recordings, score study, research of the time period and composer and identifications of sections in the music should all be made in phase one. Phase two will be working out intervals, rhythms, technical difficulties and ornament practice. Phase three involves working in the more musical aspects of the piece, adding the fine tuning, and memorization. Phase four is working the consistency in to tempos, pitch, style, dynamics, and musical ideas. It is important to plan these phases out time wise in order to prepare for performances. Incorporating music theory in playing will help the musician achieve a higher level of playing. There is a systematic way to study this through scales. Learn key signatures, circle of fourths and fifths, and triads and seventh chords in both spelling and quality (major, minor, diminishes, and augmented). Slowly develop these theoretic ideas on the horn by thinking through the items mentioned above. Try not to develop the patterns first but think the next note

5 Edwards 5 in the sequence. The idea is to know it, hear it, and then play it and above all else not to practice mistakes. For most young students, the most dreaded part of a college audition is the sight-reading. Even though sight-reading involves performing the unknown, it can be and should be practice and will get better. The musician must discipline themselves to keep their eyes reading as far ahead as possible, count through long notes and not lose place in the music, to not fix any mistakes and keep moving forwards, and most importantly relax and play with the best tone possible. The more these principles are practice every day, the better they will become. In practiced music and ensemble music, it is easy to make mistakes when sight-reading through for the first time. It is necessary to mark music to ensure that these mistakes do not pop up again for two reasons. It is a waste of time to fix a reoccurring mistake and if the mistake is made enough there is no telling if the piece will played right on the performance. There are standard markings that are efficient enough to be able to quickly mark music in any setting and also make sense to anyone who may share a part. This handout would be good to pass out to students entering their second year of playing and an emphasis should be placed on actually marking music. One handout that I personally found beneficial is the preparation of an etude on page 67. It gives a good system for practicing a short piece within a time frame of a week, or the time for lessons. After the piece is assigned, play through it at tempo and figure out where the problems are. The first day after the lesson should include setting a tempo, marking the music with translations of the musical, breath marks and dynamics. The second day involves bracketing the technically challenging spots. By the third day, all of the preparation planning should be taken care of and difficult spots should be works out in a slow to fast manner. All of the technical

6 Edwards 6 passages should be worked out up to tempo by the fourth day and a run through should be possible to better understand the over-arching musical idea of the piece. Expression is added the fifth day and music touches on the sixth day. The seventh day, or lesson day, it is okay to run through it once before the lesson, but not too much time should be spent practicing before. This method, if implemented is a good way to eradicate procrastination. Score study is important on chamber pieces and therefore must be practiced and be a part of the long term practice goal. For rehearsal purposes, number the measures in both the piano part or score and the individual part. Then photocopy the score so that references and study can still be made after giving the piano part out. When rehearsing with the accompanying musician(s), record the session and go back with the score and study what did not go smoothly. There is an excellent handout on page 80 that was written by Richard Bowles on multiphonics. In order to understand how multiphonics can be best performed, there must be an understanding of the overtone series. A single tone is the fundamental of its own harmonic series and is also a part of the overtone series. When a tone is buzzed with the lips and hummed higher through the horn, the sum of those two notes creates an audible third tone. For example, if an F in the staff, which is the second partial in the F overtone series, is buzzed and middle C, the third partial, is hummed the fifth partial, A, will sound. Baker includes resources intended on getting the reader to have a deeper understanding of jazz starting on page 141. While listening to a jazz piece, one must listen with the following facts in mind: basic information about the recording, representation of the beat and how it relates to the style, form and lyrics if any. A teacher, especially one that is not familiar with jazz technique, should attend a summer workshop and study with a local artist in order to perform better at it so that they can effectively teach their students. There is a suggested order of Aebersold s for the

7 Edwards 7 beginning jazz students that starts with volumes 24, 21, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 16. This will help a student get better at playing with background music and begin to hear chord progressions. It is possible on stereo records, and some stereo recordings, to turn down the solo on the track and improvise over the background. Soloing will get better when one learns to hear the chord changes and listens to many excellent players. All of this is rooted in being fundamentally sound on the instrument. The handouts also provide materials and studies on different styles and play along resources along with suggestions for players of all instruments, soloing, and songs to know. Buddy Baker has put together a variety of information in one book that will assist the student and teacher at any level. It provides a foundation to start from when researching topics, the ability to develop better habits and handouts that can be copied for your students benefits. One distracting negative about this collection is the amount of typos in many handouts. Typos aside, the information is timeless, and a refreshing change from the physical pedagogy talked about in the other books.

8 Edwards 1 The Art of Brass Playing Philip Farkas

9 Edwards 2 Philip Farkas is one of the past centuries most distinguished horn players. He led one of the most enlightening studies of the embouchure that many brass players still benefit from. One of the ideas mentioned in the introduction that sticks out to me is the quote from Farkas himself saying that he learned almost everything through dealing with the imperfections himself and to achieve the level of playing and teaching that he did is inspiring. To begin the in depth study of an embouchure two items are needed: a mirror and an embouchure visualizer. Farkas believes many issues in embouchure have to do with the bottom jaw and its position. If the bottom jaw is pushed forward in a natural way to where the teeth are lined up then the airstream has a chance of going straight in to the mouthpiece rather than at a downward angle. If the angle of the mouthpiece and mouthpiece pressure are even then they will promote an airstream that continues to leave the airstream going straight and directly into the mouthpiece. All vibration is created by an originator that has some form of tension being exerted. For lip-reeds, the tension comes from the muscles around the mouth that work in conjunction and against each other at the same time to create the perfect tension needed to vibrate. The more tension created, the higher the notes become and vice versa for the lower notes. It is in this way that he justifies a combination of the smile and pucker schools of thought towards embouchure. It is absolutely necessary for there to enough relaxation in the lips to make the right amount of pucker to defend the lips from mouthpiece pressure, but at the same time tension needs to be created to efficiently change pitch. The next group of muscles to consider lie in the chin and can be the next cause of embouchure problems. A bunched chin is sign of inefficient use of those muscles and must be corrected by flattening the appearance of the skin, which is done by pulling the chin downwards.

10 Edwards 3 Make sure that when this is practiced that the lower lip stays in the correct position with the support of the lower set of teeth which should still be opposing the top set of teeth. The lips must be held against the teeth and oppose each other rather than collapse into the teeth or out into the mouthpiece. Typically vibrations happen at ninety degree angles so it only makes sense not to roll the lips one way or another. If the lips roll into the teeth, the aperture will be blown shut. Lips that fall forward into the mouthpiece will create an inferior tone quality. The lower lip is more of a violator when it comes to these problems than the upper lip so extra discipline may be required to tend to this issue. Page 23 includes excellent examples of what the lower lip looks like when it commits these crimes. Chapter two includes photographs of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra s brass section and compares the similarities in the embouchures by these professionals. It is recommended to look at the mouthpiece placement, chins, jaws, angle of instruments and appearance of lips and muscles. The trumpet players and tuba player have equal parts of the lips within the mouthpiece, while the horn and trombone players are using the two-thirds upper lip/one-third low lip ratio in their mouthpiece. Also their facial features are of the model features for their instruments. Finding a good ratio in how much of each lip to put in the mouthpiece will improve many aspects of a brass player s sound and technique. For trumpet and horn, there is a definite preferred ratio among players. For trombones, euphoniums and tubas this is less so but still worth investigating what works best for an individual. There are quite a number of reasons to consider when coming to a decision about whether to play with wet or dry lips. The objections are summarized as follows: The mouthpiece stick to skin where ever the mouthpiece is placed, dry lips are a crutch for the high register, the lips are going to be moist at some point anyway and it is easier for the lips to become raw at the points of

11 Edwards 4 contact with the mouthpiece. His reasoning for favoring the wet lip is as follows: The player can slide the lips on the mouthpiece if the correct position was not found at first, the muscles are more developed and chapped lips are less of a concern to the wet lip player. All the muscles around the mouth should work towards one goal: The formation of the aperture. Farkas relates the shape of the aperture to the double reed shape. There are positions that are incorrect when forming either the double reed or the lip reed. Too flat an opening will create a pinched sound and no have no ability to play soft in an efficient manner, or even at all. To tall an opening, which is a much rarer problem, will not resist the air column as well and also have failing attacks in the soft range. Certain faults found in playing with a flat aperture include playing bright, sharp, and sizzle develops in the tone. Some solutions to this problem are to make sure that the top and bottom teeth are separated enough, create a flat and smooth chin, and avoid smiling too much and making sure that corners of the mouth are kept in. The size of the aperture is varied depending on the range being played. The tongue is employed in articulations to start lip vibration. The lips must be set with precision to play the note that the instrument has been set up to play. The tongue can do any sort of mannerisms but if the lips are not set up correctly for the right pitch it will not sound. With that being said, the tongue is capable of making many sounds happen. The foundation for all attacks is a normal, firm attack. The motion is up and down, the target is the area where the teeth meet the gums and the goal is to break a long note into several segments. All changes in attack are built off the clean attack. For a sforzando attack, the tongue hits between the teeth and results in the explosion. Legato requires a delicate approach with the tongue. Staccato, meaning short and not as short as possible, is about how the note is released. The stroke should as fast as possible and use only the tip of the tongue so that a small seal is

12 Edwards 5 made. Double tonguing can be achieved through practice of the tih-kih, or dih-gih for legato, syllable. Double tonguing at first feels less than satisfactory due to the difference between the two syllables distance in the mouth. The latter syllable must be approached with more emphasis. The one aspect I think all brass players encounter is excessive pressure on the face from the mouthpiece. This usually occurs when the player needs to play high and can t get the notes out with much success or their aperture is too small and they use the mouthpiece as a crutch because it temporarily works. First of all, there should be some pressure and it will vary based on the mouthpiece and the player. The correct embouchure set up is a prerequisite before troubleshooting the reason why a player uses too much pressure, and in some cases this may fix the problem. Once this is determined and the problem persists, a conscious effort must made to relax the pressure while playing. It is a gradual process and it must be done with all of the correct embouchure ideals. Consistent practice towards strengthening the lips will help wean the player off the temptation to go back to pressure. Farkas says that if pressure must be used that it is only used in emergency situations and not during regular practice. Another type of pressure to look for is termed lateral pressure and is exerted against the mouthpiece in a side, up or down direction. It is also another way to get the register to respond but is still incorrect for the same. It is common among players who play with a receded jaw where their instruments slant down and anchor on the top up. This book describes the breath as a motivator like the bow for string instruments. Air is drawn into the body through expansion of the chest and the need to fill the void. The diaphragm contracts downward and the ribs expand outwards. On the other hand, in order to exhale the body only needs to relax. However, the airstream produce by this relaxing movement is not enough to convince the lips to move let alone the instrument.

13 Edwards 6 The beginner must learn to blow and as it learned the player will begin to develop the ability to sing through the instrument, but in order to accomplish this, a good inhalation must be taken in. This motion is related to a gasp except it is fast and quiet. Exhalation requires a different approach. The muscles in the waist and abdomen are what keep the diaphragm under control enough to accommodate the support necessary to blow through the instrument. It is basically using active muscles to control a passive muscle. Along the way out the air is met by points of resistance. The glottis, or the opening between the vocal cords, in the throat is the first resistance point encountered and can be used in crescendos and decrescendos as a valve. The second point of resistance in the back of the tongue which when arched and flattened can produce different vowel sounds. The third lesser point is the tip of the tongue at the moment of an attack. The fourth point is are the lips, which are adjustable and therefore will do most of the resistance manipulation for playing. The mouthpiece is the next passage and is not adjustable unless changed completely. Finally, the instrument becomes the last point of resistance the air deals with. This study is very neatly organized and does a great job breaking down common brass techniques further than any other book I ve read so far. There are some contradictions compared to Fink s method especially in regards to the size and shape of the aperture, but both players have become successful in not only their performance but in their teaching and their methods worked for the time at which they taught. The main idea comes from years of self-study and fixing their own problems first and then developing the methods that helped them and have them help others become successful, which will in turn evolve ideas in new ways.

14 Edwards 1 The Trombonist s Handbook Reginald Fink

15 Edwards 2 Reginald Fink, the author of The Trombonist s Handbook, studied with the late Emory Remington at the Eastman School of Music. He prefaces his book with some words of wisdom that all teachers take different approaches to the same goal and should often assess and re-assess what methods they use work and do not work. Many of his ideas come from Mr. Remington, but have been infused with his personal experience which is precisely how all teachers should build their methods. The process he describes for embouchure sound similar to an errorless discrimination task by teaching with care so that every faucet is correct from the start. The feeling of M should be felt in the lips. More importantly the corners of the mouth should be felt against the teeth to protect from puffing cheeks and the center of the lips should be puckered. While I feel this set up is true in the low register, the mentioning of finding a balance between the smile and stretch method and the pucker method when extending into higher register would not be worth mentioning to young students. The mouthpiece should be placed on the embouchure as well as in the center of the two lip corners. The mouthpiece should slant downwards, and the jaw should not be pushed forward in any way past teeth alignment. If everything above comes into place naturally, a student can start thinking about their airstream and aperture. The embouchure will recede causing the airstream to shoot downwards into the cup. The aperture is defined by the muscles that pucker. To avoid a scratchy tone, the aperture must be round, meaning that if a student is smiling in the high register and getting a scratch in their sound, their aperture is probably too flat. All of this can be checked with a mouthpiece visualizer. Vibration requires both lips to touch each other at the frequency in at which a certain pitch requires. Though a player should try to achieve the best possible tone with as little

16 Edwards 3 mouthpiece pressure on the face, it is possible to use a pivoting system. For downstream players this means to shift the weight to the lower lip when ascending and vice versa. For upstream players this technique is reversed. This shift should in no way change the embouchure is more of a mental process for success, not a crutch. The pressure applied to the lip should only be enough to seal the air. The key to producing the best tone in to relax the tongue muscle and comfortably open the oral cavity. This can be achieved by practicing sung vocal syllables such as oo or aw compared to ee or er. Opening the oral cavity also helps relax the throat and tongue muscles, which may help the student from closing off a note with a tongue stop. Air support will help tone but it is important to not rely on increased support to make a good tone. Instead, finding the balance between all of these variables is what makes a good tone. Visual charts are provided on pages Lip slurs within a warm up sequence can help to solidify the aspects talked about so far. It is possible to achieve a slur incorrectly so care must be taken in the early stages to achieve these concepts correctly. Mistakes should be evaluated and never be made again. Long tones in warm up should take up the smallest amount of time, as it is easy to coast through them with little evaluation. Tone should mostly be developed through musical performances. Practice simple melodies with the upmost attention to details, and transpose them to work on all tones. The starts or attacks of notes can be diagnosed and remedied through visualization the sound made and troubleshooting from there. First a model must be described and used as the goal. The model should have a clean attack, body and a consistent taper. When working towards the goal note shape a mental picture of every attack should come to mind when assessing while playing or a recording. This procedure will help when tackling legato on the trombone. The first

17 Edwards 4 note in any legato passage should start with the model attack followed by a steady stream of air, swift slide movement and a choice of syllables followed by the vowel to be achieved. These syllables can be Dah, Dow, Dee, law, Low, Lee or even Thoo. Basic exercises on this principle can be found starting on page 28. I found Fink s rules for using the F attachment engaging, due to seeing many young trombonists with valves misuse the valve. Making smart decisions on trombone when it comes to what position to a note is a technique learned over many experiences. He mentions not to overuse the valve for C, B, F and E when it makes more sense to play them in their normal positions. The opposite applies to Bb or A when played trigger flat three and trigger flat four in passages that involve agility better achieved without going to first position. I do want to add that another rule that governs the slide position choice of a note is tone quality desired and it might not be wise to insist on playing Bb with the valve if it is in unison with other players. Fink also has rules set out for alternate positions. One should try to reduce the amount of work the arm has to do, and try to make it where the arm can move in one direction the longest. However, alternate positions should only be used when the tone quality and intonation is good, which usually means using the positions with the shortest amount of tubing. Fifth partial D in first position is usually flat so it more appropriate to play it in flat fourth position. Middle F can be appropriate in sixth position if the slide is already extended. Experiment and foundational studies will open up these options to younger students. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, bore sizes and bell sizes have increased in diameter. Trombones have also had increasing options for their construction that suit the needs of individual styles and players. This has become especially true since this book was published. Consider the metal composition of bells. Red brass tends to the give the bell a darker sound and

18 Edwards 5 was preferred by orchestral players forty or fifty years ago. It was also more common to see valve linkage system utilize a string rather than the mechanical linkages seen today, not to mention the invention of new more efficient valve designs since. Mouthpieces have always followed a trend of using larger sizes than the standard leaving the modern trombonist with a multitude of options available to choose from. Variations apply to rim and cup diameter, cup depth, backbore and taper, and plating. Moving to a larger mouthpiece is often used by teachers to get their students to produce fuller tones and get them to not rely on a smaller mouthpiece. Fink includes a suggested regimen for a practice routine. He actually recommends warming the instrument and mouthpiece to playing temperature for five minutes before playing. The scientific reason interests me and I m not sure it has to do with the reasons he gave. Suggested is ten minutes for lip warm up and then to divide the rest of the time allotted to scales, etudes, solo and a small warm down session. The length of the session largely depends on the skill level. Beginners should only practice for short amounts of time several times a day whereas the college student can develop three separate hour to hour and a half long sessions outside of ensemble playing. Of course every part of each session should be varied with smartly chosen contrasting etudes and solos to play. The most important part is that the routine is set and kept for a long period of time. Having a different routine or no routine at will translate in to performances in the form of no confidence. Lastly, it is good to mentally practice, especially when one reaches their physical limit. Many factors must be studied in order to have good slide technique. First of all, a proper working slide and relaxed right hand and arm are necessary. Since there are many different combinations of notes, each set of notes will present its own intonation problem. The slide

19 Edwards 6 movements when playing legato and staccato or fast and slow are almost the same, and a professional will make the quick passages look just as effortless as the slow. Fink recommends for students who jerk the slide during fast staccato passages to start glissing from first to sixth position to feel the distance and then tongue every chromatic note while using the same feel in the right arm. Facility on any instrument comes from smart practice. Fink first suggest practicing in such a way that it develops the whole piece, the hard passages and confidence. Set a tempo that allows for achieving the whole piece with no errors at least ninety percent of the time. Gradually increase the tempo till it is a few clicks faster than the performance tempo. If a certain approach did not work the first time though, try a different approach. If you stop to correct an error continue though the piece where you left off. Mouthpiece buzzing should only be done for a few minutes a day at first, but it will definitely improve a player s embouchure if done correctly. A middle register note, such as Bb, should be established. Then move on to move to diatonic pitches around the note, and once that is done well a short melody can be buzzed. Once endurance on the just the mouthpiece has been built it is a good idea to practice excerpts from the current material being studied with just the mouthpiece. The visual representations of the overtone series starting on page 76 would be worth showing to advanced eighth grade and ninth grade students. The dotted vertical line shows the slide position all the way in where all Bb s are in tune and the general tuning tendencies of all the other partials. The chart on page 79 gives a good idea of the adjustments needing to be made when performing flexibility studies. This intonation, however, does not apply to chamber music. Playing with a piano presents its own problem. The piano is only tuned in one octave to the

20 Edwards 7 normal A = 440, meaning the rest of the strings are tuned according to their overtone pitch tendencies. Other brass instruments have the same tendencies with their overtone series but due to their valves they are less able to compensate. Trombone ensembles are the only way a student can develop a good sense of intonations within a brass ensemble. This also means that each and every player must be willing to use the correct tendency correction not only for the overtone series, but also the chord tones they play. Furthermore, each chord tone has a specific balance that must be tended to if the chord is to be at this most resonate. This whole process can be very mentally stimulating and exhausting. The high and low registers both take their own special developments that require being sensitive to minute changes in the oral cavity. For the low register, the lips must be relaxed. The shape of the oral cavity controls the tone quality of the pitch. Focus is controlled through the airstream and lip tension and must be experimented with in order to find a resonate combination for one pitch. The high register on the other hand should be worked from the middle register in order to translate the same openness upwards. The high register will sound small and thin if the player uses too fast an air stream and a closed oral cavity. Multiple tonguing is developed through the syllables Tu and Ku used in alternation. At first these syllables should be applied to use on repeated notes in a scale pattern. All exercises should be performed with a metronome to emphasize evenness. Legato multiple tonguing involves the syllables Du and Gu. The key to being proficient on any instrument is learning to relax. The same principle of relaxation is applied to volume and endurance. Rather than force the air column through a small, tense pathway at a faster speed, large volume is achieved by moving a warm, think airstream through an open relaxed space. Tone is an important factor to keep in mind during this study as a

21 Edwards 8 large volume of sound is no good unless it is rich in overtones. Endurance too is rooted in being as relaxed as possible. Strength is developed through routine practice sessions that involve lip flexibility and legato studies that are longer than a few minutes. The player must allow for full exertion in order push limits and build endurance. A good idea to try is to play extreme dynamics in the high and low range and when fatigue persists, play in the middle register. There are good, sequential summaries of how to deal with additional and transposing clefs as a trombonist. After learning bass clef, most trombonists with need to learn tenor clef which is indicated by the C clef. The natural learning process that was learned for bass clef is usually what takes over during this time, but once learn the student can easily read transposed Bb treble clef parts. Next it is customary to learn alto clef though the same process. If not learned by now, the student should grasp the concert pitch treble clef. Reading treble clef in Eb is moderately easy if you replace the clef with a bass clef and add three flats. There may come a time when a trombonist is called to read treble clef in F. After learning so many C clefs this one can become nauseating due to the fact that it puts middle C another line below alto clef. All of these clefs will most likely be encountered at one point in a trombonist s career. The book leaves the reader with some words on being professional. Whether or not one believes they are a professional or not, they must always attend to matters with a professional attitude. Programming exercises in to a routine such as showing up early and every time to a scheduled meeting, playing your best at all times, or not giving in to or being distracting is a sure fire way to develop contacts and future jobs. Also, taking care of one s health, which he gives a few words of advice on, can make experiences for both you and the people around much more pleasant.

22 Edwards 9

23 Edwards 1 The Art of Trombone Playing Edward Kleinhammer

24 Edwards 2 It is with a bit of solemn reflection that I write this essay on The Art of Trombone Playing by Edward Kleinhammer as he has so recently passed on at the age of ninety-four. His ideals within this book are meant for the aspiring trombone student and teachers looking to increase their pedagogical knowledge alike. Though published in 1963, this book has proven to be an excellent reference for basics and advanced methods written in an easily understood format. The alto trombone, pitched a fourth high than the tenor trombone, has a theoretical range on A2 to F5. The tenor trombone and valve trombone are pitched in Bb and carry a range of E2 to about D5 with pedal notes starting on Bb1 and descending. The bass trombone is also pitched in Bb but has a valve that changes the pitch of the instrument down a fourth to F, and sometimes E, when engaged allowing for the octave between Bb1 and Bb2 to be complete. Some German bass trombones are pitched in G. It should be noted that these instruments reflect the standard in the early 1960 s, as vast improvements have been made since then. Trombones use mutes to give a different character to their sound. Straight mutes are generally the most common mutes called for in music and would be indicated by the designations mute, dampfer, gedampft, sourdine or con sordine. The metal straight mutes are typically used in most cases, except for when the music specifically says stone-lined mutes. Stone-lined mutes are usually used in jazz bands and marching band. Cracked notes aren t always to blame on the embouchure. Insufficient air supply to the lips can also be a culprit. The best way to study natural breathing at first is to perform long tones while reflecting on the state of the tongue, throat and breathing muscles. Search for tension and alleviate it. A feeling of pure blowing through the embouchure should be achieved without any squeezing happening to the airstream. Klienhammer references the use of a bellow and compares it to the human breathing system. If one were to place their finger at the opening of the bellow

25 Edwards 3 while air is pushed out, acting as a valve it represents tension in the throat that is rationing the air in such a way that is incorrect. The lips should be the first point of resistance the air encounters. Correct breathing involves the player taking full, relaxed breaths in an efficient manner through a good posture. One can study these ideas through a mirror to monitor what is right and wrong. One part of the exercises included I don t agree with, especially for beginners, is to inhale for one beat, hold for one beat, exhale for one beat and then rest one beat. Holding air in the lungs will cause any person tension and may develop bad breathing habits. Once a basic command of the muscles surrounding breathing has been achieved, the player can begin to study playing exercises that require breath control. Subito and gradual dynamic changes are good first exercises, because you can watch for tongue tension in the attacks. The next step would be to learn how to compensate for the vacuum and compression of air created by the slide on long position changed as this will definitely have an effect on the support for the lips. Kleinhammer s approach to embouchure has many similarities to Wicks methods. There is a school of thought that says a player should use two-thirds upper lip and one-third lower lip in the mouthpiece, but the player should do what fits their dental structure and sounds the best. As for the shape of the embouchure, it is best to use all of the muscles surrounding the mouth rather than just the ones used in smiling. This keeps the cheeks from puffing out and the gives better control over tone quality. The proper placement of the mouthpiece on to the embouchure should never be done thoughtlessly in the beginning. It is recommended to carefully study the placement and formation relationship between the mouthpiece and embouchure while expending the tonal range starting with the middle register.

26 Edwards 4 Vibrato is only validly produced in two way according to the author. First through slide vibrato and second through jaw vibrato. The use of vibrato must be developed through listening to when, where and how the professional trombonists and singer do it in their repertoire. Concepts can be practiced through long tones, and when practicing first position, slide vibrato should not be attempted. One chapter I enjoy greatly in this book is the study of mouthpiece buzzing. Kleinhammer provides four challenging etudes to buzz that employ different faucets found in trombone playing. The first is slow and not rhythmically challenging so the player can start to audiate simple intervals better. The second etude involves chromatic and wide intervallic jumps as well as dynamics. The last two etudes are very challenging and require an excellent fundamental basis and endurance to get through. The idea is to sit at the piano with these exercises and slowly run through them checking pitch every so often. To develop the kind of tone quality you are looking for, consistent practice towards a clear concept goal is needed. Richness in sound comes from overtones present in the partial so it is necessary to record at a moderate volume as much as possible to monitor this development. It is easy to produce more overtones with full volume sound, so the player must take care to find the right tone without over blowing. Having superior tone will also give the player more control over blending within an ensemble. The best place to start is in the middle register and gradually expand in to the high and low sequentially. When addressing volume, the player must keep a few techniques in mind. When playing loud, there should be no stiffness in the tongue, throat and palate that creates an ee sound. The lower lip should still be kept under control. Soft playing on the other hand requires more of a thoo attack that allows the lips to relax and vibrate. The air support should be present and

27 Edwards 5 stronger than one would think. Gradual crescendos and decrescendos on long tones in a relaxed manner will help develop this. Once the common range is well developed, the player should continue to extend their range extremes slowly in both directions. There are a few examples that require the tenor player to have a range to F5 down to the pedal F. The bass trombonist will see pieces that go as high as C5. Before moving on to these extremes, however, the middle register must be studied thoroughly, and be performed with a relaxed body and excellent tone quality. The high range is the hardest part of the entire range to achieve and maintain due to the muscular demands as well as sensitivity to the close partials. Using a mirror and an embouchure visualizer starting in the middle register, the player can gliss upwards looking for unnecessary tension in any muscle other than the ones used in the embouchure. Since the embouchure is the pitch originator it should do all the work. The lips should turn slightly inward to accommodate the smaller aperture and the mouth cavity should still be open. Kleinhammer enforces that the feeling of the syllable should not develop into an e but instead should be a whoo syllable. The more relaxed the lips stay through this register, the more overtones that will be retained. Tones will split and be unstable as the strength is built while playing. Scales and arpeggios work nicely to build this strength. The low register requires a very relaxed embouchure, the thu syllable for articulation and at first a larger volume of air. Downward scalar or arpeggiated motion in a loud manner will be good exercises to start, and then an expansion into long tones played with dynamics. Teachers, especially band directors, are guilty of over emphasizing the use of the tongue to aid in any production of the sound. Students get the idea that it is okay to build pressure behind the tongue in order to produce accents or forte pianos instead of relying on air support,

28 Edwards 6 and tend to get cracked notes and uneven note shapes. That being said, the tongue should be used in a manner consistent with normal articulation and the variance should come from the air and breathing muscles. The faster a passage needs to be tongued, the lighter the tongue action should be. The tongue should be rested, forward and down in the mouth. Staccato playing is done with an unchanging embouchure otherwise percussive sounds with emit at the beginning of each note. Legato requires an ever constant airstream that varies in volume to accommodate register changes, as well as light tongue technique involving the du syllable. In order to build any consistency, the player must develop a daily routine. Kleinhammer recommends using the breathing exercises from chapter two as a pre-warm-up, and then the rest of the warm up as follows: glissandos and octaves on a mouthpiece visualizer, arpeggios, lip slurs, articulation, long tones with dynamics, interval studies, scales and exercises with combinations of two techniques. This warm up is one of the longer procedures I ve seen and I would think it could be split up within different practice sessions throughout the day. Not all trombones have the same intonation and it would be good to take the time to go through your range with a tune during a long tone warm to see what tendencies are present. Tones in the harmonic series of every position are best thought of when related to the fundamental note. This way the player can gauge the adjustment of a pitch based on the exact position of those fundamental tones. A chart is provided on page 89 with the general tendencies throughout the range. The study of rhythm the most important aspect of any musician s journey in that it will make or break him. The good news is with diligence any rhythm thrown at the player can be read with precision. Pulse is what rhythm rides and in order to be successful, the player must develop an internalization of the beat. Pieces have the time signature to tell the player how to interpret the

29 Edwards 7 pulse. The player will have to get used to playing in different meters. Lucky for the player, rhythms can be singled out mentally first because rhythms can be a physical overload for the young trombone student. Rhythms require accuracy and the player needs to be able to define the difference between dotted eighth sixteenth patterns from triplet patterns among other tricky statements. To do this, a subdivision of the pulse must be consistently thought about during the reading of rhythm patterns. The trombone is the tool in which a musician uses to express his musicianship. The musician will study the score, recordings of the piece and other pieces by the same composer as well as the background on both composer and piece. From there the interpretation can be made and musical decisions can develop. All decisions should reflect the personal style of the musician but they also must sound good. Kleinhammer shows the amount of breakdown to passages that should eventually become instinctual to the musician, but must be practiced and heard many times before mastery is made. This is a good reason for recording practice sessions. The goal is to make beautiful music. The first step Kleinhammer lists for stepping closer to perfection is to maintain the standards of yesterday and improve them. Second, develop excellent fundamentals and make this second nature. Third, be aware, acknowledge and face the idiosyncrasies and be disciplined in finding ways to deal positively with them. These steps can apply to any pursuit one takes in life, and even though most of the information is outdated in this book, there are many valid points to take away. It s good to learn and understand where the people that came before were and how ideals were built upon to take us to the level that we are currently working to improve.

30 Edwards 1 The History and Practice of Ensemble Music for Lip-Reed Instruments Dissertation by Willard Starkey (1954) 1

31 Edwards 2 History is one of the most important factors in music to consider as one prepares any piece. One can learn to understand the use and common performance practices of pieces and instruments through this sort of study. Understanding the development of brass instruments, or what are referred to as lip-reed instruments due to some being non-metal, is just as crucial as understanding the time period in which the composer wrote for. Willard Starkey compiles many sources of information about these developments and lines them up with historical importance as well as providing a plethora of examples of music and composers relevant to each part of the study. The dissertation starts by exploring lip-reed instruments used before the thirteenth century. The most imposing problem with any sort of historical account across civilizations is understanding accurately what the name given to any one instrument actually meant. Many early translations referred to any instrument as either a trumpet or horn, and even voices were called trumpets in some cases. Upon reading through this section, I had to constantly remind myself of the major difference between the trumpet and horn being cylindrical versus conical bores. Starkey provides an excellent chart with these differences on page 8. There are indications of different sized trumpets. Tuba and buccina were part of this family ranging from about three feet to eleven feet in length. Many terms were used to describe these instruments in this family, including the term posaune which is later the German word for trombone. This and other discrepancies has caused historians to say that the trombone was in use many centuries before its confirmed use. Further complicating the situation is the slide trumpet being mistaken for a trombone among some historians, and Starkey mentions that it cannot be positively confirmed that a slide trumpet was in use before the fifteenth-century. The use of lip-reed instruments was primarily for communication in military and hunting scenarios. Rome organized the first guild of trumpeters for use in their ceremonies. This group of men were highly valued within society and often could be excused from offenses committed. The next societies to form guilds were medieval European cultures, but this was done to keep a high 2

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