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Originally Posted by camelbrass Manny,
In the US is the generation that you came through into orchestral playing as 'correct' as some of the younger players today appear to want to be or are we looking at a function of specialist schools and huge competition and a desire for those young players not wanting to dilute (corrupt) their skills? |
Wow, Trevor...
And I thought I was the only one who thought that.
The major difference that I see now in this generation and mine, trumpet-wise, is how early the whole orchestral or jazz orientation seems to be pushed on today's players.
It seemed to me that when I was a kid (by that I mean high school, not college) I barely knew what an orchestral excerpt was even though I did play three of them for my Juilliard exam. I had not a thought about owning a C trumpet. When I prepare my students for college exams I wonder: are they going to give this kid a hard time because he plays a Monette mouthpiece? Why do they they need so many major orchestral excerpts? Can't they just play one of the solos from the back of the Arban's to show musicality, versatility, and technique? Why are the Haydn and Hummel required at this level? Couldn't they require something else that doesn't start and stop so much, that is almost it's own accompaniment? Isn't the Hindemith a bit heavy for this age?
In other words, we have a generation of kids that are learning to play the three H's: Haydn, Hummel, and Hindemith up to their expositions and not as complete solos for the sole purpose of winning auditions! It drives me nuts, I hate it. Versaltility is being ground out of them with this "single-minded" approach you referred to. I've only had one student since I've started to teach high schoolers again to play out of the Charlier. I really do consider it to be a college book. My kids study out of Arban, Clarke, Sachse, Arban's bass clef, Rochut and they have a Schlossberg book for when we need some work on warm-up and sound production. I feel it's all I need for a good, basic trumpeter and we play out of many different duet books to learn styles.
The duet component is huge for me. One day it's Amsden, then Broiles, Rubank, Brisbois... whatever. It's s big musical world out there and the one lesson I learned from Mel Broiles is that you have to be as ready as you can for whatever style you are asked to play. I feel that high school is the time for the fun, flashy, musical cornet and trumpet solos and then in college you settle down to learning the important composers once you've had a chance to grow up a bit. In college you hear more artists of other instruments and it can really color how you interpret trumpet music.
Fewer books, more styles.
ML