trumpettrax

Ed,

When preparing to play a certain piece of music, do you have to do any research to know "how" to play that music? You may not have to do it now, but did you have to learn that at Julliard? An example might be this: you are going to play a piece by Vivaldi. Do you research Vivaldi and learn how he intended his music to be played and then research that particular era to determine style etc.? I really don't know if I'm asking this correctly or not, but I hope you get the gist of it. I'm probably never going to school to be a performance major, but thought that if there are things I can or should do to research and study on my own I would like to do that. Any suggestions would be helpful. I've never been a big reader, but really just started and I'm really enjoying it.

Thanks for your time,


Trax

ecarroll

Trax,

I understand what you're asking and doubt that I learned very much about the music that I was playing while at Juilliard. I was busy doing other things.

Read all you can about all styles of music but listen even more. Let's take your suggestion of Vivaldi as an example: listen to good period sensitive performances of Venetian music of the previous century (particularly Monteverdi) to understand where Vivaldi was coming from. Note that he was an innovator introducing an entirely different form and also that music from the Baroque sounds vastly different than music from the late Renaissance. Next, listen to as many works of Vivaldi as you can. Ask yourself why Quattro Stagioni sounds so new and invigorating compared to the double trumpet concerto. Look at the symbolism found in a Renaissance portrait and contrast this to the sumptuousness of something similar from the Baroque. Note how architecture changed as well.

Connect the dots. It's wonderful to start with this music (I'm in love with Venice and try to visit every year, incidentally) and then move deeper into the subject. Our repertoire is a river . . . moving slowly and relentlessly ahead. One of the greatest joys we have is our ability to dip into the stream at any point and muck around.

Music has always been about change. Listen carefully and you will hear it.

...then play it that way.

Best,
EC