| While there are many examples in the rep of difficualt soft entrances, Brahms used to give me the most grief. Almost every piece by Brahms has a spot or 2 that has a delicate entrance. The most frustrating thing is that no one will even know that you're playing unless you miss it! How about the last note of Brahms 3? Or the end of Brahms 1 second movement? Or the soft E in Brahms 4 first movement? Or the chorale in Academic? Or the repeated D's in the First Piano Concerto? I could go on and on and on....
For me 2 things helped. First finding a trumpet that responds really solidly in all registers at ppp, with a pretty covered sound quality. I've settled on a Ricco Kühn C for Brahms and other classical and romantic German composers. Also, using a deeper mouthpiece helps me a lot, too. Something I can push against a little bit without the sound brightening up or getting much louder. Lately I've been using a JK 4B, and have in the past sometimes sued a Schilke flugel cup on a trumpet shank - I think they call this the F1 nowadays.
The second thing is working soft practice into my daily practice. Only 10 minutes a day will do it. The most important thing is to not make a big deal of it. Just play some Clarke's really soft in all registers for a few minutes, and try to get softer each day. After 2 months, the soft entrances get much easier!
JU |