.gif)
Lately, I have been constructing a warm-up/daily routine from the Allen Vizzutti method books. I have found this to be a good routine for addressing what I call the foundation of trumpet playing (see Fundamentally Speaking for more detail) in a simple and concise manner. While discussing the benefits of this routine may be of enormous interest to some, that is not what I am going to discuss right now.
A few days ago I was starting my day with the first buzzing exercise in the book — G up an octave to G on top of the staff, and then down 2 and a half octaves to C — when I suddenly remembered a master class with Allen Vizzutti at TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association) many years ago. While I did find the class inspiring and informative, I am not going to discuss that right now either.
No, what I am going to discuss is the odd phenomenon of having too many eager music educators and trumpet players in one place. You see, when Vizzutti began his class he started by talking about warming up, so one of the first things he discussed was the aforementioned buzzing exercise. He described it briefly, then set about demonstrating it. After he finished the simple buzzing exercise, a strange thing happened: the entire room erupted into rambunctious applause complete with whistling. I sat there befuddled. Yes, it had been a good buzz, there was no doubt about that. But the buzz was not difficult to execute, nor did it seem to have any intrinsic musical value that would elicit such an outpouring of emotion. No, I think the reason for the uproar was simply that the buzz had come from Allen Vizzutti. To me, that is a strange phenomenon.
It is rather like watching one of those cooking shows, like Emeril or Rachael Ray, when they take a teaspoon of salt, make some cute comment while dumping the teaspoon of salt in the dish, then stand back and watch as the whole room explodes into applause. My question is this. Is it really that exciting? Is it really that incredible? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to wait and see what the dish actually tastes like before selling your soul for a serving? Wouldn’t it be better to actually hear Allen Vizzutti play some music and get excited about that instead? He did that, by the way, and he played beautifully, but that somehow didn’t elicit quite the response that his smooth, break-free buzz had. It sometimes makes me think that maybe, just maybe, we as music educators and trumpet players occasionally put the emphasis in the wrong place, that perhaps we have a tendency to place too much emphasis on technique and not enough on music. But it isn’t often that I feel this way, and when I do I simply put on my old record of legendary trumpet players buzzing scales on their mouthpieces. There’s nothing like a great buzz to remind me what is truly important in music.
Or, Vol 11, “the great master’s of the trumpet play pedal tones”. Always a favorite!
Roy