June 2008

I’m off to another Soul Gig on Saturday and it’s another blind one. I hope the group is as good as last weeks. At least it’s not in Wales, although the difference to Stratford is still a little harsh. Especially as I have a gig in Huddersfield first thing on Sunday morning.  - I’m going to be destroyed.

Having said that, I don’t really care. Busy is good!!! I’ll make the most of it while it’s happening : P

*Not far from Master Musician Release - Are you excited?!

Hey Jason,

Thanks for sending me your email Jason. That’s a pretty hard question to answer but I’ll do my best : ).

I guess I can just tell you the things that I find tricky between the 2 genres. I think that you will have to draw your own conclusions based on your own strength as a trumpet player.

Orchestral - The discipline needed to be a good orchestral player is different from the discipline you need on the jazz side. You have to be an incredibly consistent player. Sometimes you can wait for 10 minutes with nothing to do and then out of nowhere you have to hit a phrase, first time, no splits no mistakes, one chance - It can be pretty high pressure. I can get the job done in an orchestra thanks to my training at college but I wouldn’t say that I was the worlds most fantastic orchestral player.

My friend Chris; who was the only other trumpet in my year at college and now working with The Royal Shakespeare Company - I think?, was an ace orchestral player. 100% reliable, had the right feel for the music (which can easily be overlooked) and a great deal of confidence to back it all up. (However he wouldn’t mind me saying that he wouldn’t go near improvising or jazz playing with a barge pole : P) .

Key Skills

Consistency - Getting it right the first time and every time.

Accuracy - Getting every not perfect

Confidence - Knowing that no splits shall leave your bell : )

Discipline - Making every single note as beautiful as possible.
Strong Technique - To support the music that you play.

Big Band - There are two main types of trumpet player in Big Bands and these ARE NOT mutually exclusive.

Lead Players - This takes years of practice and a great deal of understanding on how the body works and how notes are formed. The key factors are research along side trial and error. Playing high needs the knowledge of how to achieve a solid technique whilst still having the drive to pursue it. You’ll find that a lot of the top books (Arban, Dr Collins, Vizzutti) tend to tell you the same things but explain the process in a slightly different way. I find myself drifting away form your question but I think you have to understand that building yourself into a lead player takes a different approach to the sheer grafting that classical and improvisers do. I’ve been on this road for a couple of years and am very envious of those people who fell into this ability by luck or biology (i.e. the way there body is built). Still, they don’t know how they do it so they can’t teach it : ) (or fix it if it goes wrong) .

Improviser - These guys graft harder than any other trumpet player. Often not strong at reading but with an incredible ear and ability to duplicate phrases at first listen. A slightly more mathematical brain is required to be an improviser (in my opinion). Unfortunately you also have to put up with the unfounded reasonings of some who think that improvising is easy because ‘you make it up as go along’. However great trumpeters have an ability to strip the music away to it’s essences and effetely compose live music over the top of it. - Pretty cool.

Simply I think the Key Skills for a well rounded Big Band Player are:

Understanding - Reading into and reasoning why things happen when you play.

Dedication - To build on the knowledge you’ve attained

(Whether it is biological factors for playing high or to listening to new albums, transcribing and applying what you’ve learnt)

Confidence - Togo for the solo’s or the money notes

Discipline - Backing off when you need to (Lead), leaving space when you play (Impro)

Strong Technique - Giving you the abilities you need to us (lead), Enhancing the sound and range of your solos giving you more that you can do.

Summary

Well I hope that wasn’t to confusing for you and that you might find something useful in this post. In my experience no genre is easier or harder, only the approach to mastering them differs. Unfortunately I think that there’s not enough trumpet players who appreciate that both Jazz and Classical training is mutually beneficial. Wouldn’t it be great to have the control, consistency and discipline of a classical player whilst having the knowledge (both musical and physical), range and imagination of a jazz player.

This is what I strive for in my playing. Whether I’ll every achieve it doesn’t really matter. All I can do is try and improve along the way. That’s all you can do to.

All the best Jason.

I’ve been a fan of Enormous Since I was thirteen. When I first heard ‘My Type’ I found myself having to sit down and learnt the trumpet solo. It’s safe to say that Enormous weren’t just a hit with me but a massive hit with my mates too. I brought their CD on our Music Tours and the guys loved them. There’s something very cool about having 30 music kids singing “She’s my Type, She’s not very bright!!” whilst floating on a boat down the River Rhine : ) with German’s looking on in confusion.

These kids weren’t musical idiots either - quite a few make their living from the music industry. From working as pro musicians (like me) to teaching music and composition to my good friend who is now taking his music doctorate. In fact I know that this soon to be Dr of music still has the old crackly bootleg* tape of Enormous stuff I gave him when we were at school.

* Sorry guys. I was a kid and I’ll make sure they all buy your upcoming album to make up for it : P. We got a lot of fun out of listening to your music though - So I Regret Nothing!!!

You can now imagine how happy I was to hear that Enormous are making a return to the music scene - and I say it’s about time!!

I rediscovered the guys through a podcast I heard at Big Arena Records where Davey Lawrence aka Napoleon Fantastic (singer/songwriter for Enormous) chats and sings some pretty incredible songs from the forthcoming album; Electric Baby Grand.

I was going to put a link to the podcast itself but to be honest I’d rather you check them out for yourself at Big Arena Records. If you like what you hear you can check out Napoleon Fantastic’s Blog.

I hope you enjoy!!

(Don’t forget that my own Podcast is in production and until that’s finished there are plenty of videos and music you can listen to around my site as well as the Master Musician Animation coming to mattrobertsmusic.com within the week.)

Toodle Pip!!

I bought a pair of these on the run up to a gig this weekend - Soul Bands are usually Ear Splitting their very nature.

Obviously as a professional musician I need to look after my ears so I carry a pair of foam ear defenders in my trumpet case.

You know the ones. They’re 75p a pair and obliterate all sound. Unfortunately this makes you sound like your playing under water. The tricky thing with musicians and ear defenders is that you need them to protect your ears whilst at the same time allowing you to hear your surrounding and most importantly yourself.

Simple Comparison

As you can see the Audio Relief Ear Defenders protect your ears from damaging upper and lower frequencies whilst allowing you to hear yourself and the group. Unfortunately chances are you’ll never find a stylish set of ear plugs whatever you decide to go for.

Quick Note: Do be careful when putting them in as I think I pierced my brain on the first attempt.

All in all on it’s first testing this seems to be a very good product and a musicians must. Especially at the low price of around £12. To find out more go to audiorelief.com.

My gig last night was with The New Disciples Of Soul in North Wales. The venue was a nice place called Ruthin Castle where we were playing for an RAF wedding.

The group was pretty hot. I had a bit of a mediocre night myself, played well, did the job but didn’t do any thing spectacular - which sucks : ) . The band were tight and the lead singer was killer (so I hope that I’ll get a call to work with them again). It’s always rewarding playing with guys who know their business and what they’re doing.

The audience seemed to really enjoy the evening. It was a shame that they were running so late but this is always the way with weddings.

All in all; Good Food, Free Drinks and a Great Band - Good Times!!

The Studio Page is brand new to mattrobertsmusic.com . I was sorting through some photo the other day when I realized that I didn’t have a section on my site for my studio work. I hope you like the page.

I’ve now finished Master Musician (going up next week) and I’ve added a new page which will be up tomorrow.

Not to forget a New Track that I’ve added to my Virb Player called Trumpet Soloist Samples. So you can check that out as well. It’s a few sample clips fomr the solo recordings I made last year that I’ve finally get round to mixing down.

My next aim is to carry on and mix down the other recordings that I made from that session. These include music from the Quarter Tones, Ben Kennedy, Sarah Broder and The Fanfare Lads. The problem is it’s such a time consuming process I can either do the Eurobusk footage first or the mixing. I haven’t decided which yet. I’ll let you know.

Before this months I’ve probably only been to Wales 3 times in my life but now it’s becoming a weekly thing. I’m depping  a soul band gig in north Wales on Saturday - making it 3 times in 3 weeks.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a blind gig (i.e. not knowing the band of any if the people). Hopefully thay’ll be good guys and  if not I hope they’re a good band!

I’ve purchased some new ear defenders for this gig as Sould Gigs are always very loud. I’ll review them after the gig so you can see if they’e worth buying. They apparentkly neutralise harmful upper and lower frequencies whilst still allowing you to hear yourself play. Sounds great, but you know what these things can be like.

Last week I joined some of my old college friends (sax players and pianists) to watch the last few episodes of Lost back to back. I really crashed the evening as the guys did this on a weekly basis and asked me along for the finale.

The planning was fantastic, from the tea and biscuit breaks to the guys bringing all their own best bits of kit to the flat resulting in a monster TV, a great sound system and the episodes ready to go on laptop. Class!!

Unfortunately I had somewhere I needed to be so I had to miss the last three episodes leaving me with the nightmare situation of now running away from people who want to talk about lost. 

now realize that posting this story on the net will no doubt lead to a whole load of grief from my friends who follow my blog. Death awaits those who give me spoilers : )