| Seven or eight years agp I was at the Midwest band and orchestra convention at the Hilton in Chicago as it is every year. Arturo played during a presentation one afternoon, as mind-boggling as ever. Some poor soul in the audience suggested that he played that way because of special equipment that he had. Sandoval became enraged, plucked a mediocre student horn from an eighth grade kid in the audience and played exactly what he had played on his own horn. It's not what's in there, he said, pointing to the horn, but what's in here, pointing to his chops. I do something like that every so often when a student tries to blame problems in a lesson on his or her horn. I take the horn, put my mouthpiece in (we want to be sanitary) play whatever it was they were trying to play and something more, like a three octave G scale. That usually ends all future attempts to use the excuse of bad equipment. Of course different horns sound better and work easier compared to others, but as Barbara used to say, it's what's on the other side of the mouthpiece that counts.
Michael McLaughlin
He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.
Mark Twain
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Chicago MM |