Shakes

Title: Exploring the Shake Effect on Trumpet

Introduction

So what other effects, apart from hard tonguing, are we using to achieve that kind of style?

The Shake Effect

Well, I used an effect called a shake. A lot of people ask me:

"How do we shake on a trumpet? How do we shake a note?"

Basic Technique

The simplest way is to literally shake the trumpet like this. By doing that, I'm blowing straight through the note, but I'm shaking the trumpet against my lips, which causes that weird kind of bleating sound.

A More Effective Method

In my view, a better way to achieve this is by using the airstream and the tongue. Previously, we've used the airstream and the tongue to help with:

• Register
• Vibrato

Now, let's try using these techniques to perform a shake.

1. I'm going to play an E on the top space on the fourth line of the treble clef, just a plain old E.
2. As I play that E, I'm going to flip my tongue back so the note flips up to the next harmonic, which, of course, open, is a G on the top of the stave.

Practice the Shake

• Try doing that. As you play up the note, move the tongue back and just push with a bit of air.
• Now we need to increase the speed of this technique.
• We also need to learn how to make the note fall back to the E.

Let's practice this with the syllable:

"biya" (moving the tongue backwards and forwards)

• Use the airstream: push, then release it so the note falls back down.
• Gradually speed that up, and we get a shake.

If we increase the airspeed even more, we can achieve this further up the range of the instrument. With years of practice, you might be able to do that too.

Applying Shakes in Music

This is how I use shakes within music to help tell my story. I work out where there's maybe a long note where there's time to do it.

"We can't play a shake on a semiquaver. There just isn't time to do that."

Identifying Long Notes

So let's look at the music for long notes where a shake might be beneficial. My eyes immediately go to:

• The second line up from the bottom.
• In the last bar, there's a quaver F followed by a dotted crotchet F with an accent marked.

"It's like a V sitting on the side."

Let's try doing a shake on that second F. I think it works quite well, as it gives the note some emphasis and provides somewhere to land on that third beat with the E flat, which of course is marked with a dot, making that short.

Exploring Other Long Notes

If we played that long, the shake wouldn't work in this context.

Let's look for another long note that maybe isn't marked with an accent. Again, on the same line, in the first bar, we can see:

• An E
• A G
• An A
• A G in quavers tied over to the crotchet G.

Let's try doing the shake on the long note, the G, which is tied over from the quaver to the crotchet.

Conclusion

I'll play that whole phrase and add the shake so you can hear again that I really make sure that I land on that beat.