Music Lesson

Instructor: I don't bite, I promise.

Question for Reflection

• What would be your biggest wish in your playing?
• What are you making your priority in your work?

Student: Not to push on as hard.

Instructor: You mean pressure?

Student: Especially when I'm nervous.

Instructor: Yes. That's what can happen. The breathing goes, and articulation as well. I think there's one word that would really do it for you if you worked more on the centering of the sound.

• Because I feel way too often you're playing just a little bit off the center, and that means you have to pay extra for every note instead of getting a lot for free.
• We'll see how far we can get with this now in a short while.

The Importance of Centering

The sensation of playing a note in the center is like a clean stroke, a clean hit. When you achieve this:

• Intonation is not a problem anymore.
• We use far too often... I mean, I don't know if you can hear it, but when you get to your sounding D, you're very often very, very flat. And then sometimes you hit this octave.

Instructor: The pimp.

Instructor: Yeah, and you didn't even pull the trigger. I was watching you. So it's obviously not a priority with you.

• There's so much that the sensation of centering can improve.
• We're going to start off a little bit, only five minutes with just the sensation of centering.

Building Centering

Instructor: Is it the word you?

Student: What would you work normally to develop centering?

Instructor: I bend notes and wait until the sound becomes more resonant.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah. That's the sound way. But then there's also the feeling of immediately creating a boom.

Relating to Sports

Instructor: Do you play any sports?

Student: No.

Instructor: To anybody who's played tennis or golf or anything like that, you know exactly when you've hit it, and it becomes effortless.

Instructor: Let's do your G.

• So you just try to release it.
• If you imagine throwing a ball to the wall, boom! And it comes back.

Now it's stuck and it's going. It doesn't really know. You have to risk.

The beginning was so much better because you were trusting what you wanted to hear. But then you became control again and went like that.

Instructor: Once it started to travel that way, just let it listen again.

Trusting Yourself

Listen to the end of my sound. I'm never pushing it in front; I'm letting it go backwards and it will play itself.

• You know, I'm not doing anything. Absolutely nothing.
• Don't feel that you have to blow, because as soon as you start to do that, it's going to go out of center.

It's like a bell. Boom! Once it's done that, it sounds until it starts to go that way. That's all that's needed.

Correct Tongue Positioning

Instructor: Same note as me. Can you think of your cavity here as being... you know, the tongue being flatter?

• Sing, you know, so this stays.
• If your tongue goes there, there's no space for the note. It starts off very, very sharp.

Instructor: Pa. Hear it? That's better. Don't try to push it in any direction.

The whole thing is to boom!

Learning to Listen

Instructor: Can you hear the difference?

• You're doing good.
• Don't go boom. Think of the bell.

Really think of it. Really.

Instructor: Yeah, really! It's a quarter tone sharp. Boom! Sing it.

That's it. You have ears, but you're not trusting them at the moment.

Deepening the Practice

Instructor: Play. Boom! This is what you really have to develop: that feeling for the center of the note.

• There's something that happens in your tongue action that makes the notes very sharp at the beginning, and then you have to look for it.

• Yeah, no open. Once I'm founding, I'm just bouncing like a tung, tung, tung, tung, tung, tung, tung.

Don't let your tongue make you stop, you know.

Avoiding Excessive Articulation

Instructor: Is that a thumb? Bum, bum, bum, bum.

Now also that the whole system is the same. It's all open.

• And don't, you know, don't cut sausages with the articulation like that.
• One more time, beginning.

Metaphor for Sensitivity

Instructor: Just because it's a metaphor does not mean you have to play every little note.

• I would really like you to feel just those two notes.
• Good. And then don't... when you... it's this.

When you sustain, it's like you suddenly go bam, ba bam, bam.

Instructor: Let it go. Don't control it.

Listening to Tune

Instructor: Yeah, good. One more time.

Can you hear which ones go in front? Which one?

Student: Yeah, yeah. Where you have the dot.

Instructor: I think mentally when you see the dot, you've got...

• Much better.
• Doesn't matter that it's too much out of tune; you must hear that and not accept it.

That is a quarter tone flat.

Instructor: Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Importance of Active Listening

Not really. It makes me uncomfortable.

• Most people don't listen.
• You start to tell them to listen to themselves, and then they listen after they played and think, "How was that?"

But real listening is listening before.

Singing and Playing

Instructor: What is this note?

• Everything you play, you should be able to sing.
• I'm not going to make you do it now, but every interval.

Because if you're trusting the trumpet to do that for you, it's the wrong instrument.

Instructor: It's a piece of plumbing. It's not going to... I mean, for him, it's easy. He sees it, it's a boink, and he gets the right note.

But we can't do that. We need to hear it.

Air Management

Instructor: Don't do the little chickens.

• Short but long. Always air going out.
• Never take away mentally.

The dots truly disturb it.

Recognizing Disturbance

Instructor: Yes. The thought is going that way and the air is going that way.

Student: Yes. You discovered something?

Instructor: Yes, same.

• The chickens are coming.
• Don't allow them in.

I can almost see in your eyes when you are singing in here or not beforehand. Your eye and your thought have to be half a bar in front of what you're actually playing.

Then you will really be singing it.

Moving Forward

Instructor: Let's go, let's go.

What's a good place there?

Okay, try to be ahead.

Student: It works. It really works.

Consistent Practice

Instructor: One more time.

• So, yeah, that works.
• You have to write it on the wall and do it all the time.

What's the character?

Student: Cheeky.

Instructor: A little bit mysterious.

Student: A little bit cheeky.

Instructor: Good.

• Be ahead. That's what I mean.
• Sorry, I confused you.

One more time. Sing, sing, sing.

That really works. And sing everything. Everything.

Using the Piano

Instructor: And really do that in your practice, also sing it.

• And if you can, with the piano so you get the right pitches.
• You were playing some wrong notes.

Student: Is that a misprint maybe?

Instructor: Yeah, it should be F. It's a misprint; it should be F sharp.

Okay. Can you go from there?

Final Notes

Instructor: No chickens. No chickens.

• I don't remember the notes, so that...
• That's a misprint too.

Student: Yeah, but you do it.

Instructor: You're doing that; it's all F sharps.

Student: No, it's right.

Instructor: Yeah, that one's enough.

Oh, yeah. Somebody who was making the transposition at Alphonse le Duc had a little too much wine at lunchtime, yes, I think so.

And there it's there; it's natural.

Technical Adjustments

Instructor: You need to get a pipe.

No, there is right; there's not.

Sure. Yeah.

Straight from the octave place. That's the only little technical thing you have to change.

Stop that motion. You need to keep the muscles going that way.

Because I see as you go higher up, the singing really works, you know?

Instructor: So please continue doing that. But as you go up, I can see that it goes more and more like that instead of just keeping it, you know, as much as possible.

Final Tips

Instructor: I want you to look here.

You see this? This here? That stays always.

Student: I've been told quite a lot to keep my corners in. Is that something different?

Instructor: No.

Well, yeah, that is something different.

I mean, the corners should remain fixed; that's the good intention.

But if keeping the corner leads to a sort of smiling position where you pull all these muscles, they need to work towards the middle.

And if you pull them like that, they can't do that, and then this gets all thin here.

Instructor: And what happens then? You play and you were saying you push a little, you press a little bit too much, and then you thin the muscles out, and you get this.

Conclusion

• No blood.
• No blood, no vibration, no sound.

So it needs to stay the same.

• A little sharp.
• Absolutely the same.

Can you do just that? Scale up and I'll...

Student: Is it all right if I...

Instructor: Yeah, sing. Sing, sing.

Student: You can hear it now?

Instructor: Yeah. You have to play it with an idea. You come from the climax and then you go away and so on.

• You know, it's like this Bohemian folk song coming at the end, all relaxed.
• You need to have that idea one more time. And then we finish.

Sorry, but you hear? You must hear this.

And it relaxes there, just at the C.

Instructor: Trouble. Sound. Troubles, Troubles, Troubles, Trouble, Trouble, Trouble.

Yeah, very good fighter. I like it.

Instructor: Yeah, good. So those things really work on them.

Thanks. Good luck.

Student: Thank you.

Instructor: Yeah, thank you. And thank you.