Patric_Bernard

Stickam - American Elegy Solo

This is me playing after about a week off of actual playing, so Here it is... always a favorite solo of mine.

rowuk

Hi Patric,
I had a couple of minutes and checked out your videos. Good job. I don't see why you wanted to mess with your embouchure. It is hard to judge considering internet video quality, but I didn't see or hear anything the caused an alarm to go off! Your sound seems very good and even over the whole range! If I were to offer help on what you posted, it would be to get a metronome (or some PC metronome software) and work those tunes out STRICTLY with the metronome first. You are doing some timing things that can become bad habits. Once you have the pieces down mathematically perfect, expressive playing becomes more logical.
Great job in any case!
NEVER forget to take that BIG, RELAXED BREATH!!!!!!!

et_mike

Good job Patric... sounds good!

Patric_Bernard

Well the American Elegy solo is supposed to be in free time. But I see what you mean with the others. A met is something that I usually just use for exercises, I'll start applying that to music as well. (I'm used to having a conductor haha)

rowuk

Patric,
"free time" is not free.
There is a natural pulse to everything in life: a 28 day pulse for the moon, a 24 hour pulse for the earth, a years pulse for some flowers, your own body pulse which is relaxed when you are - and faster when you are not.

When you practice things in strict time, you are not limiting freedom. You are training your fingers to move on purpose instead of by chance. My suggestion is to get your technique developed so that everything you play is "on purpose" and not because bad habits have crept in. After you can play the pieces in perfect time, you can play them with your own individual feeling, because you have trained your body to obey. That obedience is audible in a natural sounding flow of the music. If certain things are not developed, the flow gets some unnatural bumps.
If you are interested in jazz, you will find out what "groove" and "time" really means. To play in a way that sounds relaxed, a lot of HARD, DEDICATED WORK is necessary.
You are on your way - go for it!

Bear

so I take it you received the Silent brass then? Lol, good work. I agree with Rowuk, sounding good but get a metro. That was my big problem in most of my playing. Just remember, there is no such thing as a free lunch. HAHA. Take care.

francolinni

Yo RO! Great advice,especially the part about bad habits. Been there, done that. I think it comes ( in part) from playin alone too much.When I start playin with my nephew's band they wanted to kill me. Had been about 4 years of just goofing on my own. Was I a mess! Franco

Eeviac

Sounds good - I can't play that good yet.

Bad habits - I don't know much about trumpet, but in a sport I did, I was deeply embarassed to see a kid imitate a dumb mannerism I did for a while, because I was one of the "ones to follow" that's given me a real aversion to doing dumb habits in public! Or in private for that matter!

bigaggietrumpet

Not bad, man, not bad at all. That octave jump towards the middle of it (I think it was on a g) was pretty clean. Only 2 things I would say:

1) Metronome, as mentioned above (not just the elegy, but the intro to Carnival as well was a little off at first, you pulled it around eventually).

2) A lot of this is probably the Silent Brass, but remember to continue to support your airstream even at the softer dynamic levels. It sounded like the pitch was trying to go flat on you. Part of it might have also been your trying to use vibrato at that point as well, but just remember to be mindful of your pitch center as you get softer and support that air.

Patric_Bernard

Thank you all. All great advice that I will carry on.

Rowuk, I love jazz and know exactly what you mean. How a comfterable jazz sound is very uncomfterable to play, trying to be a little bit behind the beat, and how Funk and things of that manner have a very heavy downbeat.