Quote:
Originally Posted by Strad37  So is there any excersises that you would recommend? My instructor has been having me do long tones and lips slurs right now but he has also been telling me something that Bobby Shew told him when he took lessons with him. He told him that if he was going to be able to play the upper register on a gig that he would have to start practicing it more at home. Does that pretty much mean that I just need to start playing more of it to build endurance or should I be trying to pace myself a little? |
I practice long tones, flexibility (lip slurs) from Schlossberg and Thiecke, evenness of fingers, sound and range from Clark (first exercise) and various other things. There's a lot of dive into here. It sounds to me like your teacher is doing a good job and you should stay on board. Just keep working on good trumpet playing and be aware of how to play well in a lot of styles. As Joey Tartell beautifully put it, "Trumpet is trumpet, and music is style!" When you work on range, make sure you have a good trumpet sound...even at double C. It's important to listen to great players as often as possible and to try to incorperate qualities of their sounds that you like into your own sound. It is from here where you will find out a lot about yourself as a trumpet player and musician. There are a lot of lists of great players on this site, and others. Perhaps your teacher can provide you with some examples of players he likes! Everything starts with a concept of sound. Once you have that, you will know where it is you are going.