Intro to Dah Di Yah (out of tempo)

Gerard Presencer
Gerard Presencer

Lesson time: (3min 14sec)

Gerard Presencer introduces the "Dah Di Yah" articulation out of tempo, breathing the notes on a legato airstream so the tongue supports the air rather than driving it.

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This lesson is part of the course Internal Approach to Playing the Trumpet
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Lesson transcript:

Music Lesson: Dadai Daya Articulation

Moving on from our previous lesson, we've warmed up the single tongue that needs to go into the articulation system of Dadaiyadaya.

Rubato Practice

This gives us the time to actually work on the Dadai daya out of tempo before we start to give it some musical meaning.

  • We're going to play something rubato.
  • Like with the earlier exercises in the course, we'll put a fermata on the first note so that we can crescendo into it.
  • So we speed up our air.

Even though we're now going to start to think about using an articulation, we're still considering legato to be the best way of doing things.

Legato Exercise

  • First of all, let's play this legato four times.
  • As I crescendo, just before I hit the peak of the volume of the crescendo, I move off.
  • This means I peak in crescendo on the G.

You can hear what I'm doing with my dynamics.

Articulation Practice

Now, I'm going to do the same thing using da da ya da ya, maintaining the same dynamics and approach as the legato.

  • Let's join those two together.

Moving Forward

Now we're going to do another one, this time playing up a little bit further.

  • Although we're starting on an F, this is actually something that I would play over G dominant, similar to a G7.
  • This gives you an idea of how we're starting to think about relating this to music and harmony.

Structured Exercises

For this exercise:

  • I'm going to play it two times legato
  • Then two times with the articulation, really trying to emulate the feeling of the airspeed control that I've worked on within legato.

Now we are ready to use tempo!

About the instructor

Gerard Presencer
Gerard Presencer

Over the past 25 years Gerard Presencer has carved out a formidable reputation as one of the most respected trumpeters on the European scene. He exploded onto the international scene aged 18, when US3 asked him to play the solo part on Blue Note's Cantaloupe Island (re-imagined as Cantaloop Flip-Fantasia), which became one of the biggest selling jazz records of the 1990s. Since then he has performed with a who's who of international jazz artists, and continues to push himself and his instrument, moving outside his comfort zone in order to develop as a player and writer. In other genres, Gerard has recorded as a session musician with artists such as Sting, Jamiroquai, Zero 7, James Brown, Ray Charles, Joni Mitchell and Jonny Greenwood. Gerard has also been an essential member of Charlie Watts' various jazz groups over the last 25 years, touring the world and releasing several albums with the jazz-loving Stone. As an educator, Gerard was Head of Jazz Studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1999 to 2010, and is currently Head of the Brass Department at the Jazz Institut in Berlin. In this course he shares his internal approach to playing the trumpet - the mental and physical habits behind a great sound - so you can develop tone, control and musicianship from the inside out. read more

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