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