| I knew a guy named Brian Tomlinson who had incredible range and endurance. I NEVER saw him get tired or chop out. Not even when I went and heard him play a Latin Band gig where he was in the double and tripple octaves constantly. For him, it was as if the longer he played, the stronger and more powerful he got. It was almost freakish. I have mentioned him before here - he's the guy that I knew where the first time I asked him to demonstrate some of his prowess of range, blew the clearest, cleanest double high C I have ever heard...on a Bach 1 1/2 C mouthpiece...on a Bb bugle...with no warmup. He had total control over it - he could play it soft if he wanted to, but he could also part your hair with it.
Brian was a proponent of the controversial Superchops method, and whether or not it was actually Superchops, it worked for him. Two of the claims that have always been made about Superchops are effortless range and vastly improved endurance. He had both to spare.
Do I think that Brian could have done a 14 hour practice day and then gone and played a show at night? I don't know that he would have ever gone out of his way to practice for 14 hours, but I do think that he could have practiced for much of the day, possibly played a couple of Army band gigs, and then had the same kind of range and endurance at an evening gig.
The only area where I thought Brian could improve was his sound. If he was screaming double octave stuff, like in a big band, rock band or Latin Band environment, his sound was perfect, but I'm not sure how well he would have fit in to a legit environment and I never really heard him play in that sort of setting.
I thought that I would toss that up here because I do believe that there are some freakish people where playing is so efficient and effortless for them, they really have no endurance problems where there chops are concerned. I think that Brian's arms and shoulders would have given out from holding up his horn before his chops would have.
__________________ Patrick Gleason
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