As of 9:40pm, March 1, 2006, with the conclusion of my recital, the second of three requirements for my Masters was finished. The first part was the class work and the third the writing of a thesis…. However, my point is what I have learned from this recital is that you cannot take it too easy prior to performing the show.

About a year ago, early 2005, I put together the pieces for my recital. Three months later, I found an accompanist. We worked for about eight months to fine-tune the material. Roughly a month prior to the recital, we were able to play through the entire repertoire twice in one day, with a run-through in the late morning and again in the early evening. This was a good feeling for both of us, at this point the endurance was there and so was the music. What hit me hard was the fact that I decided to take it easy about a week and half prior to the recital date.

Do not do this!

I lost some of my regular endurance, my comfortable range dropped about a minor third, and the last few rehearsals were feeling more like labor instead of music. Ok, it is a recital, and you have your teacher, colleagues (especially the trumpet studio all sitting together in a row, purposely in your line of sight), professors, family, friends, and if you are lucky, random people attending the concert. No pressure, right? Well, it is pressure, and my decision to take it easy made me lose some of the confidence that I built in the last year in learning the pieces.

My point, keep to your regular life, do the normal every day playing. If you do an hour warm up, keep doing it and if you do breathing exercises, keep doing it. I decided to reduce some of my fundamentals in fear that I would use too much of my strength and energy and have no gas for the show. Wrong. Regular practicing is the gas station where you fill up to have gas to do a show. The reduction of daily playing made a stressful situation, the recital, even harder. I finished it successfully, with some better then expected moments. The next day was when the recital really hit me. I woke with my body aching all over, especially in my lungs and diaphragm area. This is most likely from an intense focus on my breathing when the playing was not working as smoothly as I would have liked. Four days later, I have finally calmed down and healed from the recital and am back to normal life. I am still kicking myself for taking it too easy, hence this article.

When doing a recital, keep to your regular life schedule and treat it as another gig, although a very challenging one. I have done so many unusual jobs that my practicing schedule is designed to prepare me for the unexpected. However, the recital was expected and it felt like I was not ready for the unexpected. I hope my thoughts help, and remember to have fun when playing. I actually did that a few times in the recital and I think it saved me.

Kevin Miller

Hey Craig!

My name is Jeremy Tarter. I am a trumpet performance major inm the twin cities and I’m really struggling with tongue position when I articulate. Up until about 3 weeks ago, I thought I just had a slow tongue that needed extensive work, but in one of my lessons, I brought up to my teacher that when I single tongue, I hit my bottom lip, meaning I anchor tongue. So my teacher got me doing a ton of tongue exercises with a new tongue placement, the top of my teeth. He says, “Just like an embouchere change, your tongue will strengthen and get used to tonguing up higher like it should.” Is this the right way to go about it? I have to admit, I feel so much better when I’m playing things in terms of endurance and sound quality because my tongue isn’t getting in the way, however, it is impeccably slow right now and frustrating to practice. Do you have any experiences with this or any ideas as to how much tongue work I should be hammering in everyday? Any imput would be wonderful!

Thanks,
Jeremy

Craig, I really enjoy the articles regarding your routine. I especially like the way you list the exact excercises used. Oftentimes I find myself wondering what exercises you use in your skill set and where these exercises may fall in your routine. I realize that, since the articles follow a logical progression in a routine-like fashion, this article may be forthcoming. However, I am still quite interested in shortening the process a little. I also have the luxury of being here in person to ask you, but I decided to send in a comment just the same.

Yesterday I listened to trumpet auditions for an event called the Florida Honor Band. I would tell you about Florida Honor Band, but I’m sure it would bore most of you to tears, so I’ll cut straight to the chase. I listened to a number of young students come into my office to play their audition for honor band. Several of them proceeded to play through their piece lightning fast, but missing most of the notes in the process, and playing with a poor sound and bad time. It reminded my of my high school audition days, and especially of Hurricane.

There was one trumpet player from a neighboring school that would always show up to region band competition playing the etudes twice as fast as everyone else. His sound was fuzzy and I’m not sure he ever respected a dynamic marking with an actual change in volume. But he was fast. So fast, in fact, that the rest of us dubbed him “Hurricane”. I don’t actually remember his real name. He was always just Hurricane to me. The unfortunate thing is that Hurricane never really understood why he didn’t get in the top couple of chairs at the auditions. He would go up there, clearly play everything the fastest, then sit back with dismay as the results were posted, his customary fifth chair secure.

There were a few students yesterday that reminded me of Hurricane, although I think he played much more cleanly than what I heard yesterday. I told them exactly what I would have told Hurricane had it been appropriate: just slow down, concentrate on playing notes well rather than fast; quality over speed. I don’t know if they got it. I’m sure Hurricane never got it. I’m sure his band director and private teacher told him the same things, but I don’t think he understood. To him it was always a race: a race he would win every time, only to be non-sensically relegated to fifth place. Maybe he didn’t understand it, but watching him go through it sure made it clear to the rest of us. For that, I owe him: quality before speed. Thanks Hurricane.

My practice partner is cruel and uncompromising!