After private teaching all day yesterday in Brum and then getting stuck on the M42 for 3 hours in the sleet and snow I didn’t even have chance to call home to eat before getting to the show last night. After which my journey home was augmented by the closure of the A38. It ended up taking me an hour rather than 20 minutes to get home.

I’ll be sure to post something a little more inspirational when I’m less fatigued tomorrow.

I’m playing Me and My Girl in the midlands all this week and I can only imagine what horrors are in store. I’m not referring to the companies production, which are are always pretty good, I’m referring to past events that have taken place over the years.

Fire Alarms

In the last show there was a fire alarm which stopped the performance and forced us to evacuate the building. Mark (a fellow trumpeter) and I continued to play with conviction until the MD stopped wagging. When the show did eventually start up again we had to stop for a second time as a member of the audience had managed to block the fire engine in with their car. It turned out to be a great performance as the audience were sympathetic and really got into the show.

Trumpet Breakdown

In the show before that my pal Dan (who I lived with when I was at the Conservatoire) came along to play on a show. Unfortunately one night the exhaust fell off his car on the A38 so couldn’t make it to the show. Enter Mark and his promotion; to sight read Dan’s part that night

Wrong Mouthpiece

The one before THAT the trombonist ended up bringing the wrong sized mouthpiece for the trombone he had with him. Cue Steve (the other trombone) to save the day. By jumping in his car and speeding home he managed to grab the appropriate gear to salvage the night.

It’s always an exciting show company to work with. I just have to make a check list before I leave, inspect my car for potential things that could fall off and carry an extra large bottle of water into the pit in case of a fire. There are other positive things that happen in this company though - take a look at my post on The Copacobana Love Note

Quite a few people have been emailing me to ask me all about my new theme and design of my site. I’m more than happy to answer any questions and give some suggestions but I thought it might just be easier to point you to a post made at Upstart Blogger. This is a site that’s run my my good friend, fellow trumpeter and former tutor Ashley Morgan. Ash got me into blogging nearly a year ago and 279 post later I’ve got a great looking site a respectable audience size and lots of stuff still to blog about.

So if you’re interested in the birth of my sites theme and if you want to know anything and everything about blogs and blogging go to Upstart Blogger.

I hope you find this useful and interesting.

I was playing a gig yesterday which involved a little walking and playing. The group had to walk an indian wedding from the car into the temple. Simple right?

That is until some old granny behind me stumbled over her dress and grabbed the first thing that she could to stop her from falling… me. One minute I’m playing the next I’m playing but have some old woman’s arms around my waist. She fell over with a fair bit of force and was at such an angle that her face was pressed into the small of my back.

It’s a good thing I practice what I preach! If you look at the Lip Flex’s Post I made a few days ago which demonstrates a good playing stance you’ll see that either of the red men would have eaten their mouthpiece and broken there backs should a pensioner decide to tackle them from behind. Thankfully myself and Mr Green Man were fine and I didn’t even miss a note. Not to say I didn’t have a mild look of confusion on my face and see a the look of horror and amusement in the rest of the band’s eyes.

See?? A good posture not only improves your playing but could save your life

I’m out on a gig today but I’ve prepared this post for you:

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.

Using The Right Tools For The Job

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.

Body Position 2

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.

Body Position

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.

A Brief Look at Chops

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