Well so much has happened since I left London.

First of all my new place is awesome!! Complete with my studio to record, work and practice. A must for any professional musician (I’ll get some photos up at some stage) and as a result my regular practice routine is beginning to get back on its feet and advances in my playing with it.

As for gigs my diary’s been nicely full since my return to the midlands and through some persistent networking I’ve secured some corporate work. (More on that in future posts and possible video/photos to accompany).

My teaching has been going well too. My star pupil has achieved his grade 8 at 14, my other rising star has nailed his grade 6 at 10 and all my other pupils are destroying there exams and evolving into strong trumpet players. So much so that I’ve been noticed by the head of music at another private school who saw my pupils play. The school has a very strong music department they have offered me some teaching work with the trumpeters and groups at their school.

All in all I’ve been pretty damn busy.I have missed keeping my site up to date though, so I will try and get back into regular blogging. It won’t be daily like it used to be but I’m going to try and set up a routine to get a couple out every week.

So welcome back to mattrobertsmusic.com and keep reading!

AND NOW YOU CAN WATCH IT IN FULL SCREEN!!!

I’ll be working on quality for next season but it’s still nice to have the option

Enjoy!!!

Eurobusk 07; Episode IV from Matt Roberts on Vimeo.

And a big thank you to Josh for pointing me to Vimeo.

I was hoping for a couple more, but because of the season (and that schools have more germs in them than most biochemical labs) they were taken ill last week and weren’t able to play today. But my advice for young musicians taking their exams isn’t simply; don’t get ill. Although that is sound advice. It’s simply based on three unusual things that occurred with my pupils in todays exams.

1) Make sure your mouthpiece is clean – so when kitchen towel is put into it, it doesn’t return completely black for the pupil don’t remark; “Oh, it’s much easier to play now”

2) Don’t give your teacher and accompanist a heart attack by playing pieces twice as fast as you’ve ever played them before. Even though they were perfect!! …Just don’t.

3) Make sure your watch alarm doesn’t go off half way through your piece so the accompanist has to double your 2 bars of rest for you to turn if off before carrying on.

Apart from that they all did really well and I’m looking forward to their results! And now of course they can burn their exam pieces.

For musicians we all know that sex, drugs and Rock n’ Roll (Feel free to insert your particular genre into this space) are our potential down falls. For trumpet players though, there is a 4th addiction that can be just a s dangerous.

My post yesterday made me think about a few guys that I’ve gigged with in the past and their obsession with the technology they use to play – Especially their mouthpieces. Don’t get me wrong, these players are perfectly nice guys but they are little misguided in my opinion.

One chap I’ve played a few shows with has a case for his mouthpieces. I don’t mean a little mouthpiece sized case. I mean a briefcase case!! When he opened it I wondered if he was some sort of James Bond villain or an assassin. He has a several stems with 20 or so different cups and the same number of different rims. They lined they top and bottom of this case and fit together a little like a sniper rifle you might see being taken out of a case in the movies.

Unfortunately he spent so much time working out the optimum cup depth and rim size for each piece of music he was unable to hear how poor his production and tuning was.

It’s such a shame that some people take technology to such an extreme and lose sight of what it made to do. Spending so much time on gadgets and other gismos (like boosters, thicker valve caps etc) makes them forget to put time into practicing their craft. The thing which will really help them reach their goal.

It’s dangerous in other ways to. Shifting mouthpieces mid gig is detrimental to your development. But so many potentially good players do it looking for an instant. Answers rarely lie in technology as the tech is made to enhance abilities that you already have. They can’t work miracles nor give you things you’ve never possessed.

I have 2 mouthpieces. One for lead one for everything else. The best players often only have 1 and can create everything that they need with their air stream. I’d like to be able to grasp that ability myself one day but unfortunately it can’t be bought.

If you play a lot of gigs that need you to play in the upper register then you’ll no doubt use a mouth piece that is more suited to the job. If you do other work that requires you to stay within the stave but create a nicer tone you’ll most likely have a more appropriate mouthpiece for this job as well.

Taking from what Eddie Severn taught me; you should always warm up on your regular mouthpiece (rather than lead). I’ll take this one step further and say if you practice lip flex’s constantly on your regular mouthpiece and expand your range to that of when you use your lead mouthpiece you will have advanced your abilities. Therefore when you use your lead mouthpiece you will see a dramatic difference. As always these are my thoughts – take it or leave it.

It’s important to keep everything constant when you practice. It’s a very analytical technique but by changing a single variable and keeping everything else constant you can observe that one variables true effect on your playing. In other words; ditch technology that enhances your playing in order to improve your core abilities.

I think I’ve posted enough on this for now. I’m gigging all weekend so won’t get as much chance to persist in my flex’s as I had hoped but I’d like to post on this again when I’ve had some more time to reflect and also recommend some good exercises and books that I find useful.

Looking back to the Green Stickman in the last post you can see the ideal body position for blowing. However because of the stick man nature he is looking pretty rigid and tense – as is the life of a stickman.
The posture in essence is accurate but it’s important to remain relaxed. Stand tall and proud to relieve any tension that restrict the muscles and therefore your air stream.

Muscle Position

For those who aren’t 100% on their biology the diaphragm works like this:

By a collection of muscles pulling the diaphragm down it creates a vacuum which allows your lungs to draw in air. (You must remember the bell jar experiment?!)
Simply put; pulling the rubber sheet (representing the diaphragm) down cause the balloons (lungs) to fill with air and pushing up causes the expulsion of that air. This it why it’s so important to leave the muscles as free as possible when in your natural playing position. They have a lot of work to do and are more efficient when they are free from unnecessary tension.

You should find the strongest position for your body to generate the best air flow possible. Be aware that a bad posture will result in fatigue and possible long term playing issues. For Example:

You often see these sorts of styles of playing and it’s easy to fall in to them even if they don’t physically suit you. In theory these types of playing cause restrictions in your Diaphramatic (lower), Intercostal (mid) and Clavicular muscles (upper). If you look at My Studio Page you might see a hint of 1.1 in my Abbey Road Picture – this has now been corrected and was more because I thought it looked cool for the photo at the time

Be Aware

This can turn can give you the physical sensation you are looking for in the torso which is the reminder that you are blowing properly from the diaphragm muscles*
However, the posture restriction means that you are not using your muscles to their full potential. Some of them are being used to make sure you don’t overbalance and fall over.

I’m sure your seen this a thousand times but I’ll expand on this position in the next post.

* The diaphragm is an involuntary muscle – Don’t get confused when you see this term. It actually refers to a collection of muscles that work together within the torso that create the air stream.

So not to focus too heavily on chop/ embouchure position his is the ideal scenario.
1) Poor Technique

2) Good Technique

Keep in mind that each individual is physically unique hence why this is the ideal way for 90% of players to play as it’s theoretically the most balanced and strongest position to blow. If you’d like to know more you can see a previous post I made on chop position – Trumpet Technique No. 1.

N.B – This is a very simple and summarised look into technique… I have to save something for my book when I become a seasoned professional

I have the opportunity to focus on my practice over the next couple of weeks so I’ve decided to focus on a single area of playing; Lip Flexibilities. I’ve decided to approach it in a training style i.e. making observations and finding what’s effective, why and then drilling them.

This is very much how I approached double tonguing (a former weakness). I decided to play the Green Hornet in a concert with a full symphony orchestra and therefore I had no choice but to master the technique.

Rather than performing a concert full of lip flex’s I’ll be posting about my progress. This should keep me on track and hopefully force me to become stronger rather than look like an idiot (which is the other possibility )

My Experience

I was classically trained but have a great potential for playing lead. However, my stamina has always been the issue. I’ve managed to improve this over the years but it’s finally time that I stopped running away from one of the weaker areas of my playing; Lip Flexibilities. These are a must to expand your upper register and improve the general flow and air control in your playing.

I wasn’t introduced to lip flex’s until I was 18 and met John Dickinson (Royal Northern). It was clear to him how he could improve my playing very quickly (tone, range and consistency). He grilled me for months on basic slurring exercises until I started to produce the right sound with a strong technique.

Since my time at the Conservatoire this has been a weak area for me. Although I can play flex’s to a high standard I think it’s time that this particular skill caught up with the rest of my playing as I suspect the ability will have an all round positive impact on playing.

There are lots of things I can discuss because of the research and work that I’ve out into lead playing but for the purpose of these I’ll be focusing mainly on the air flow rather than chop position (although this is mentioned briefly) and I’ll be writing from a perspective of someone who had mastered the basics of lip flexibilities.

N.B – This is a general guide and should NOT be taken religiously (i.e. followed to the letter). I hope that some these observations may be useful when you look at your own technique however without seeing someone play it’s impossible to create an absolute technique guide.

The star of the night was my top pupil James with his flugel solo in Chuck Mangione’s; Feel So Good. His musical maturity out ways his 13 years of age and can only really be appreciated by hearing the performance. – Well you’re in luck!!

I’m going to try my best to clear the audio/ video to put on my site and I’m also hoping to clear a couple of photos that I had taken of myself with all my trumpet students on the day. (Obviously you have to be very sensitive with these things so this might take some time but I hope to be able to show off my pupils on the site soon!!)