mazzrick

Dear Ed et al,

I was practicing today and I was working Slavische Fantasie, which I know some of you know, by Carl Hohne. I've played this piece for a while now and I felt like I had at at the best of my abilities. For those of you that don't know it, there's a fast slur-2 tongue-2 section 16th notes at about quarter=160+ and it's fairly cornet-solo-ish and in F major.
So, I wasn't happy enough with how I was playing this fast section and I decided to try an old trick that I'm sure we've all heard of but I'd never actually tried. So I took three coins and placed them on the valve caps and tried again. Of course I had initial problems keeping the coins on the valve caps, but after a few minutes I was able to. Obviously, after a bit, my finger coordination was better and the playing was cleaner... but the surprising thing to me was that the sound was better, more centered, clearer, and richer.

So I started to think about why on earth my sound was affected so evidently when I played with coins on top of the valves. I had noticed before that I could play this fast section better on my rotary trumpet, which has slower valve action and that to me made very little sense.
What I've concluded is that the upstroke of the valve was what was throwing off the centering of the sound. The upstroke is smoother and less jarring on the rotary instrument maybe because the springs are horizontal to the buttons instead of vertically below as on piston trumpets, to explain that phenomenon. I've had a valve alignment done on my piston trumpet recently, so that's not the issue. But when the coins are on the valves, I noticed that my fingers were more deliberate on the upstroke and don't allow the valve to spring upwards haphazardly causing that "boing" type feel that happens if you let the valve flick up. So I started playing with more "delicate" fingers and this whole passage comes off much nicer. However, this whole experience contradicted my previous idea of "banging" the valves down or at least amended it to slamming them down but not letting them slam up.
So I just wanted to share this and also open it to discussion. Is my reasoning logical? Any other explanation for this? For those of you who have great finger technique, does this ring true with you? Is it this delicacy or precision that using the coins is supposed to teach? or is it another point entirely? I guess I never really thought of the outcome of using the coins, just that it was supposed to help. So... thanks and enjoy.

Matt

Sterling

What a great idea! I have difficulty keeping my ring finger from flailing away from my third valve. I would bet this coin trick with Clarke studies would be a nice addition to my daily warm up. As to why it is different on your rotary, could it be that the length of the stroke is shorter than a piston valve?

mahaberio

Matt,

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who has finger troubles! I've used the coin trick off and on for a while and I think it's a really good tool but I find that when I use the coins I compensate too much when letting the valves lift up and it gets kind of sloppy. What has helped me more than anything is paying attention to my finger position when I play. I have kind of a screwy third finger (minor joint deformity) and I have to have a very precise hand position to keep my third finger even. I also find that when my fingers are clean the rest of my playing sounds better too. I think it's perfectly logical. It's probably more mental than anything else because when we have a passage where a specific issue is tripping us up it tends to snowball and it sounds like there are a lot bigger issues than fingers. When the finger thing or tongue thing or whatever it is gets worked out we simply play more confidently and it's much easier to realize the concept we have in our heads of what we want whatever passage to sound like.

As for the rotary thing, on monday I'm finally done with about a month and a half of playing nothing but rotaries in orchestra for this Brahms festival we've had going on. The slower valve action on the rotary trumpets that we have here have always tripped me up because they don't seem to be able lift up quickly enough for technical passages to come out smoothly. Perhaps this is just an issue with the particular trumpet I'm playing on and luckily there aren't any technical passages in Brahms that would necessitate fast fingers.

-Matthew

ecarroll

Matt,

As you know I started teaching right hand technique a few years ago as being integral to sound production for two reasons: 1) a quick stroke allows us the stay in the center of the note for a millesecond longer, allowing more time for the sound to bloom and 2) I started noticing that many of my students weren't depressing their valves all the way (particularly that pesky 3rd). Imagine what that was doing within the valve block to their bore size.

Back to your experiment -- which coins do you prefer, dimes, Euros, or Looneys? :)

(Note for those of you that don't know Mazzrick: Matt's a McGill graduate that's been touring recently with the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra and will be in New York in January with the Lucerne Festival Academie Orchestra (Boulez). He's the real deal.)

Best,
EC

Vulgano Brother

The pre-Euro German Pfennig is an ideal coin to use (and also useful for checking mouthpiece diameter). Besides forcing the fingers to stay on the valves during the upstroke, we are forced to keep the pressure on the valves "vertical" during the downstroke.

There may well be a physical advantage in the valve stroke, but it may be that the added concentration adds to the "here-ness and now-ness" of our playing. A fun test would be to continue using the coins, and see if the positive effects wear off over time, as the stroke becomes natural.

trptguru

For tough finger passages I have also tried using the left hand. Put a metronome on way under tempo, and try it. It actually makes your right hand better, or at least it has worked for myself. It very well could be a mental thing of listening to my left hand play poorly, thus making the right sound much better. Has anyone else tried this one?

jcstites

Hi Matt.

I am going to try this...hopefully it works as well for me.

Puffy A

Just tried the coins on some clarke studies... Terribly revealing!!!