My first year as Principal Trumpet in the Chicago Symphony had enough big repertoire in it to tantalize, terrorize, and titillate anyone with aspirations of sitting in that chair.  It just so happens that I was anyone.  It never really felt like sitting, however; more like roasting, but that is a story for another time… 

Amongst all the big concerts during that year there was one that stood out right from the time that I saw the press release for the new season: a concert featuring both Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale with Pinchas Zukerman as soloist and conductor.  This concert was to be done 5 times: Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday matinee, Saturday night, Sunday matinee.  Looking across the landscape of that season it seemed to me like the Himalaya Mountains: many high peaks, but only one Everest.  This concert was my Everest, my biggest chance to soar, my biggest chance to crash.  I did not want to crash, so I set up a strength building routine to make sure I was in the kind of shape I would need to be in to be able to play a concert that I wasn’t even sure was possible, to say nothing of well thought out.  Oh yeah, did I mention that I had never played either piece before?  Yes, my debut for both of these pieces was to be under the bright lights of Chicago Symphony Hall, playing with one of the world’s greatest violin virtuosos, while sitting in God’s very own chair.  Other than that, I was pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

The first step I take in working towards a goal such as this is to figure out what the biggest challenges will be.  For this concert there were big challenges, but they weren’t widely varied.  The biggest issue by far was to be able to get through the Brandenburg with enough gas in the tank to be able to have all the touch and finesse required of the Stravinsky, especially over a period of five consecutive days.  The other big issue was transitioning from piccolo on the Bach to C cornet on the Stravinsky and making the stylistic and technical shifts that went along with the change.  As far as the pieces themselves are concerned, once you are past the strength issue (assuming you have really good control over the lightness of sound required), the Bach is really quite simple.  The Stravinsky requires a lot more from the player in terms of wide ranging musicality and technique, but it is certainly manageable with good preparation; that is, of course, if the face hasn’t been shredded by that little ditty on the first half.   Thus, we come back to the lynch pin for this project: strength building.

The routine that I finally developed was based on an exercise that Bill Williams, currently the Acting Principal Trumpet in San Francisco, told me about.  It is a very simple scalar exercise where every step of the scale is a whole note.  Start out in the key of G major at a tempo of 70-80 bpm.  All notes in this exercise should be slurred, and each sustain should be held until you can no longer sustain the same sound and volume that you started with.  The exercise begins on a G in the staff and moves upward 5 notes (all in one breath) to D, which is sustained.  After a normal breath, you begin again on D and move upward 4 notes to G, which is also sustained.  Breathe, start again on G and proceed down 5 notes to C – sustain – breathe – C down 4 notes to G – sustain – breathe – G down 5 notes to C – sustain – breathe – C down 4 notes to low G – sustain – breathe – G up 5 notes to D – sustain – breathe – D up four notes to G – sustain.  Congratulations!  You have just completed one repetition of the exercise.  In order to build the kind of strength that is demanded of a professional trumpet player, though, you will need to be able to play through many reps of this exercise.  It is the strength gained through the repetitions that is the key to a truly strong foundation.

The first thing to determine is how many times (reps) you will play this exercise when starting out.  I started with three, but for most of my younger students I start with one.  It is important that you start with fewer reps than you can actually handle, building from a position of strength rather than weakness.  Regardless of where you start, you will be adding reps regularly, so having a high rep starting point is of negligible importance.  I added one rep per week, but you may find a slower pace to be more beneficial, especially with younger players.  Again, it is better to be conservative with the speed that you add repetitions.  Do, however, make sure to keep adding them on a regular basis; if you flounder around forever at 3 reps, you won’t get any stronger; you will have to push yourself in order to see improvement.  Each repetition should be followed by a short period of rest, somewhere between 45 seconds and 1 minute, and once all reps have been completed you should have a longer rest of 45 minutes or more before playing again.

When playing through this exercise, there are a few guidelines that will maximize its effectiveness.  First of all, pressure should be fairly light, but feel free to use some pressure while playing this exercise; it will be needed to stabilize the embouchure, especially at louder dynamics and in the upper register.  Secondly, the mouthpiece should remain on the lips at all times, although the embouchure does not need to remain active during the breath.  The breaths should be normal breaths, like those that you take with the mouthpiece still in contact with the lips, but with the corners opening to allow the air to come in.  Thirdly, this is a sound exercise.  You should always be attempting to make the most beautiful ringing sound you can.  Fourthly, experiment with changing the dynamics.  If I am doing three reps I may do one forte, one piano, and one mezzo forte.  This helps train the embouchure to deal with the changes in volume and still maintain maximum efficiency.

Once you are up to approximately six repetitions, you should start raising the key of the scale in half steps, but reduce the number of reps to three, then build them up again in the new key.  So a typical plan would be as follows: build up to 6 reps in G – raise the key to Ab and reduce to 3 reps – raise the reps according to your rate (mine was one per week) until you reach 6 reps in Ab – raise the key to A and repeat the same process.  Keep raising the key in this manner until you reach high C on C trumpet.  Six times through this exercise in C major will mean that you have a strength base to do just about anything you want, at least for playing trumpet in an orchestra.

“But you haven’t said anything about the piccolo trumpet!” you cry.  True enough.  That is because the true focus of this article is achieving the base strength that is needed to handle a concert that demands the highest level of physical capability, such as this one.  The achievement of that base should be your highest priority when training for such an event. However, in addition to the benefits that the strength base provides, you will need to ensure that the strength you are developing translates to the scenario in which you plan to use it.  For this reason I started doing the last repetition (or two sometimes) of this exercise on the piccolo trumpet.  Because of the immense demands of playing an exercise such as this into the upper register, I revised the exercise so that all notes are half notes with the “sustains” typically held only eight beats.  The starting note/key you pick should be one that is challenging to you, but that also allows you the ability to play through it successfully.  Before digging out your piccolo and playing through this exercise, though, I highly recommend that you develop a solid strength base.  I typically won’t involve piccolo at all in this exercise until I am able to do at least six reps in G major.

I firmly believe that strength building needs to be involved in every trumpet player’s routine, on some level and in some manner.  This exercise is another, among many, that is designed to take your long and disciplined work and turn it into the ability you seek.  Like those other exercises, however, it demands that you provide the work in order for it to show results.  The good news about investing time in this exercise is that its results have been proven under bright lights and extreme duress.  The results of my labor stood up to this difficult task, and the concerts came off very well.  By the end of the week, I felt that I could play anything, and I felt that I was getting stronger, not weaker.  It is only from riding on a well developed foundation of strength that such a feeling could be achieved — a foundation that has been achieved through daily work and discipline over long periods of time.  Having made this investment and having achieved the benefits of that labor, however, I can guarantee you one thing: it is worth every ounce of sweat invested.

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As I sit here waiting for the radio feature to play on KALW, (in case you haven’t heard, there will be an hour long interview/special on me and my music on KALW San Francisco public radio tonight at 8pm PDT. To hear it, visit this page and select “Listen Live”) I am struck by what an eventful day it has been. I coached the brass section out at the New World Symphony for the first time this year, received 4 perusal scores in the mail for some amazing (yet devastatingly hard) modern trumpet concertos, and then have the radio interview coming later tonight. Throw in a few good hours of practice and you have a pretty damn good day!

The New World coaching was an intense 2 hour immersion into audition preparation and philosophy. Those guys hung in there and asked some fantastic questions over the course of the long lecture/discussion. Hopefully it helped them de-mystify the audition process somewhat. The afternoon was followed with a couple of great lessons with more excellent questions. All in all, my time on the beach was draining, but very rewarding.

And when I got home, I had the four perusal scores waiting invitingly on the front porch (I can’t help but laugh at the thought of someone stealing the package, ripping it open, and looking with wonder and disgust at what they had collected as “loot”). The pieces are:

• Turnage – From the Wreckage
• Gruber – Aerial
• Gruber – Busking
• MacMillan – Epiclesis

These are intense pieces and even just looking at the score is daunting. Like always, though, a little time to reflect and process can make even the most complex and difficult things possible. It’s a remarkable process, really. The piece by Gruber titled Busking is a new and fascinating piece. It is written for solo trumpet, banjo, accordion and strings! I haven’t really had a chance to dig into this one yet, but my first impression is a good one. Look for more thoughts about this piece in the future. There’s lots more to share (and posts will be more regular if it kills me), but for now I will add writing for my blog to the list of rewarding activities today. No complaints. Now, hopefully I didn’t make a fool of myself in this interview…

If you began the Stamp routine when I first posted Stamping It Out (part I), you may be wondering why you have wasted your time on all this silliness while you could have actually been getting something accomplished in your practice routine. Don’t worry, that is normal. I felt the same way when I first began this routine, and I put it away for months before coming back to it and giving it a second chance. You must have a great deal of patience while learning to play these exercises correctly, but we all know patience is a virtue, and it will not go unrewarded.

In this last installment of the series on the Stamp book, we will be looking at exercises 4a, 4b, and 5. These exercises are the key to being able to play centered and balanced throughout the entire range. All of these exercises should be played softly and with absolute ease. If you feel the need to force, or if you feel out of center, you should stop the exercise and repeat the bar.

Exercise 4a should be played faster than most people think. This exercise has the potential to suck the most time out of our practice day with the smallest return on investment. I play this exercise at dotted half = 60-70, and if you have played these exercises before, then that is likely much faster than you have been playing it. I see no reason that this exercise should take a substantial amount of time, though. It is built on one primary idea: suspending the bottom octave from the position of the upper octave. This is focused practice on the concept of thinking down while you are going up, and thinking up while you are going down. This exercise can really help you get the feel of playing the lower octave with the same embouchure, or same position, as the upper. I find this technique easier to apply at a faster tempo, as indicated above, than at a slower tempo. When playing this exercise, be adamant about keeping the embouchure in position when you make the jump to the lower octave, and be sure to rest at least 2 beats between bars. If you have had difficulty keeping the lips from collapsing into the mouthpiece as you descend into the pedal register, then this exercise will be a great resource for you. Really visualize that you are jumping up an octave, rather than down. Strive to maintain a focused sound in the pedal register.

Exercise 4b continues the odd numbering practice of this book, as I don’t see these exercises as anymore related than others in this warm-up. Whatever you number it as, though, I find this exercise to be the most important in the entire warm-up. Obviously, it is simply an extension of #3, but it is through this extension that you will likely see the most significant improvement in your playing. I like to play this exercise at quarter = 100-120. However, if you need to take some time on the ascending arpeggio in order to stay centered, then you should definitely do so. Make sure to play this exercise softly, and with no hint of force. Rest at least 4 beats between bars. Repeat any bar that gives you difficulty or knocks you out of balance. If there is a place to spend extra time in this warm up, then this exercise is it. The last line of the exercise covers a full 3 octaves to high C, then has you play a pedal C after a caesura. What you do during this caesura is extremely important. Play a nice centered and resonant high C, then freeze the embouchure, take a breath through the nose, and play the pedal C on the same embouchure set that you played the high C. If you can do this, then you are truly playing on one embouchure, and you are much closer to being able to play over the entire range of the instrument with a pure, centered, and resonant sound.

Exercise #5 is the last in the basic warm-up. This exercise blends elements from 4a and 4b. It is extremely important to play the first note of each bar with a “high” setting. Remember, the first note is high, the last note low. If the lips are allowed to begin this exercise too relaxed, or puffed into the mouthpiece, then you will not be able to play through that bar with a controlled, centered, and resonant sound. When you reach the top note of the bar, release the note and freeze the embouchure just like the last line of 4b. Breathe through your nose and play the pedal C on the same “set” as the top note. Like 4a, I prefer to play this exercise at dotted half = 60-70. Be sure to rest at least 4 beats between bars and with the mouthpiece off of the lips. I simply extend this exercise to as high as I can go, rather than using the extensions indicated on the rest of page 7. You should try both and see what works best for you. Be cognizant of the amount of mouthpiece pressure you are using as you ascend into the upper register. If you feel you are using too much pressure, you probably are.

At this point, especially after you have been doing this warm-up for a while, you should feel ready to face whatever the day throws your way. The next thing I prefer to do in my day is skill set exercises, such as articulation, lip flexibilities, Clarke, and more. However, if I need to jump in and play something at this point, I am more than ready to do so. Once you have developed the skills required to move through this routine effectively and consistently at the tempos I have indicated, then this entire warm-up should take only a half hour, or even less. For those days when you are pressed for time, I recommend cutting the following exercises, the first one in the list being the first to be eliminated:

• 4a
• 5
• 2 (lips alone)
• last half of #3 on the mouthpiece.

By cutting these exercises out, you can trim the time required down to about 15 minutes. It is very important to realize, though, that this should be done only occasionally and out of necessity. It is critical that these exercises be included in the basic warm-up on a daily, or at least almost daily, basis. Remember to rest after each bar for a moment with the mouthpiece off the lips, never force or stretch, and always play these exercises with ease and grace. By doing so you will see your playing rise to new heights, and you will be able to concentrate more on the music you are making, and less on how to play the trumpet. I hope you have enjoyed this series on the Stamp Warm-Up. This routine has proven to be invaluable to my students and me. I hope they prove to be equally valuable to you. Good luck!

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If you have been playing the Stamp Warm-Up for the first time over the last couple of weeks, you are probably either already feeling some benefit from it or you are cursing the day you ever started this exercise.  If you are in the latter group, take heart; it will get better with time, and these exercises will improve your playing.

In this article, we will begin to look at one of the principles that is a cornerstone to the Stamp philosophy: thinking down while playing up.  To speak more precisely, you will always be thinking in the direction opposite to the direction of the notes.  If the music has a D going down to a G, then you will think D up to a G.  “What kind of voodoo is this?” you may ask, “How is this supposed to help my playing?”  Perhaps a more detailed description will make this clearer. 

Imagine that you are playing facing a tall brick wall (if you have an actual brick wall, that will be even better).  Assign each brick its own unique note. The top brick on the wall is pedal C; the bottom brick is however high you are able to play; Bb, C, or A should be right in the middle.  Before you play any note, find its location on the brick wall, and then place the note there when you play.  Thinking in this manner improves three things: 1) As mentioned in the book, it helps to keep you from playing sharp in the upper register and flat in the lower register.  2) It keeps you balanced when you play, preventing you from puckering out too much when you are in the lower register, and from stretching too much when you are in the upper register.  3) It gives you a more concrete placement of each note before you play it.  When playing the trumpet, we have almost no visual feedback or guidance.  If you play the piano, you know where every note is; they are all laid out in front of you.  The same thing is true of string instruments, albeit to a lesser degree.  With the trumpet, however, we have almost no visual help.  But if you visualize the place each note resides on your virtual (or hopefully real) brick wall, then it will reinforce to your body where each note goes, and what is involved in placing it there.

Stamping It Out (Part I) left off with buzzing on lips alone through what should be marked #2 in the book.  Now we will begin the mouthpiece buzzing section of the routine.  Before buzzing #2 on the mouthpiece, I like to take a couple of minutes and get a good buzz established on the mouthpiece.  Buzzing on lips alone and buzzing on the mouthpiece are very different things.  Do not be fooled into thinking that you do them in the exact same way.  Buzzing on lips alone involves a great deal more lip tension than buzzing the same note on the mouthpiece.  For example, if I buzz a Bb in the staff on my mouthpiece, then remove the mouthpiece from my lips while playing, the corresponding lip buzz will be roughly an octave lower.  So for me, the mouthpiece adds roughly an octave to my lip buzz pitch.  This will vary from player to player, but with everyone I have done this test on, they lip buzz at least a fourth lower after removing the mouthpiece.  For this reason, I like to buzz a low Bb on the mouthpiece several times before playing #2 on the mouthpiece.   The sound should still be started using the “pooh” attack as discussed in part I.  Play a Bb on the piano, imagine the “brick” that corresponds with the note (fairly high up the wall), and then buzz the Bb on the mouthpiece.  Allow for the tension to diminish, and listen for a warm resonant buzzing sound.  Repeat several times until you feel comfortable and centered on the Bb.  Then, begin #2 on the mouthpiece.

As you buzz through #2, you should place each note according to its “brick.”  As the musical line ascends, the placement of the note on the wall descends.  Conversely, as the musical line descends, the placement on the wall ascends.  This is what is meant by “thinking up while playing down.”   You should perform this exercise with a metronome at roughly quarter = 60.  Begin with a “pooh” attack and sustain the fermata for at least two and a half beats.  Observe the marking over the three eighth notes after the fermata indicating square corners.  This marking indicates that you should not allow yourself to slide from one pitch to the next, but instead move crisply and quickly.  Remember that you should move through this exercise diatonically rather than chromatically.  So the first one is Bb-C-D-Eb-F, etc., the second is C-D-Eb-F-G, etc., and the third is D-Eb-F-G-A, and so on.  Continue with this exercise as high as you can go without excessive pressure or strain.  Be patient.  The range will increase with time.  Speaking of pressure, take note of how James Stamp describes holding the mouthpiece in the book.  This is an excellent way to hold the mouthpiece to help reduce pressure.

The next exercise is #3.  This exercise is the centerpiece of the Stamp routine, and great care should be taken to apply all of the concepts mentioned up to this point on this exercise.  During #3 we venture, for the first time in the book, into the pedal register.  It is imperative that we play pedal tones in the “correct” way if we are to receive the intended benefit of them.  This “correct” way, though, can be difficult to understand.  The main points to remember throughout this exercise are to keep embouchure movement to a bare minimum and to concentrate intensely on placing each note on its corresponding “brick.”  When you begin the exercise, feel the position of your face, the expression you are holding.  Think of this as your trumpet face.  Keep the same face as you play through the entire exercise.  Many people allow themselves a large shift, or allow the embouchure to collapse into the mouthpiece when descending into the pedal range.  Don’t allow this to happen to you.  Train yourself to play into the pedal register with the same embouchure, the same face as when you play in the middle and upper registers.  The key thing you are trying to establish with this routine is to play in all registers with the same embouchure, thus improving accuracy, efficiency, control and quality of sound.  If you allow yourself to shift or collapse while descending into the pedal range, it will undermine the whole purpose of this routine.  Remember, even though the book is titled Warm-Ups, we are using it as a part of the foundation routine as outlined in Fundamentally Speaking.  You should not think of this as a warm-up, but as practice on the true fundamentals of playing the instrument.

Exercise #3 is to be performed in its entirety, first on the mouthpiece, and then on the instrument.  I like to begin this exercise at approx. quarter = 80, then increase the tempo to approx. quarter = 100 for the second half of the exercise, which ends with the ascending arpeggios.  When buzzing on the mouthpiece you will likely experience a natural break somewhere between pedal low G and pedal Eb.  This break will be a zone where it is difficult to get the sound to focus, and perhaps where it is difficult to make a sound at all.  Be very patient when playing through the break, and be absolutely adamant about maintaining your same embouchure.  Keep the same “face” as you descend.  This point is absolutely critical.  If you are unable to make it all the way down to pedal C without shifting, then simply go as low as you are able.  From there, skip to the corresponding place in the second half of the exercise and play it through to the end.

After completing #3 on the mouthpiece, you may find it helpful to do some long tones or lip bends (to be discussed in a future article), to help ease the transition from buzzing to playing on the instrument.  Mouthpiece buzzing, while closely related to playing on the instrument, is indeed different from playing the instrument.  There is more lip tension involved in buzzing on the mouthpiece, and that lip tension can be flushed out quite effectively by doing lip bends or long tones.  There is no need to spend more than a couple of minutes on this before beginning #3 on the instrument.

In spite of all of your efforts, it is likely that you will not play the pedal notes in the most effective way when you begin.  This will result in your finishing the exercise feeling like you can barely squeeze out the F at the end.  This will change with time, patience, and diligence.  It took me about a month before I started feeling good at the end of this exercise, and you could well experience the same thing.  Hopefully, this advice will make the path a bit easier and quicker for you.  Good luck!

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I woke this morning to the tragic and shocking news that Fred Mills, former cornerstone of the Canadian Brass and Trumpet Professor at the University of Georgia, was killed last night in a car accident.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Fred. He was one of those people looming in the trumpet community who I hold in the highest esteem, one who leaves a deep impression on those he touches, but one who I had never actually met. I always knew that at some point I would get to meet him as we both journeyed along this narrow, trumpet-filled musical path. Sadly, I was wrong.

I still remember the day I first heard Fred Mills play, though. My Dad came bounding through the front door one afternoon with a gleaming new record (yes, a record) under his arm. “You have to hear this,” he said. So I listened. And I listened some more. In some ways, I feel like I never stopped listening. It was a recording of the Canadian Brass playing the Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor by J.S. Bach, and if ever there was a landmark recording in the brass world, I would say that was it. The recording was sensational; the buzz surrounding the recording was off the charts. Up to that point, I had never heard any brass group play on that level. They seemed to set a new bar for what was possible on a brass instrument. The level of virtuosity, especially in the trumpets, was staggering. The recording inspired me. It made me aware that there was so much more I could do on my instrument than I was doing at the time. I was a good high school trumpet player when I first heard it, but after hearing it, I started to truly understand the limits of simply being a good high school trumpet player. I knew there were bigger mountains to climb and a lot of talented people climbing them; if I was going to be competitive then I would have to raise my game. It was that simple.

That recording opened my eyes both musically and professionally. It inspired me to dig deeper and to try harder. Of course there were reams of fantastic recordings and performances that followed, but for me, that recording was it. It was a defining moment.

So on this day of sadness in our trumpet community, I would like to extend my sincerest condolences to Fred’s family and friends. They have suffered an enormous loss. And to Fred… Well, if there were some way to turn back the clock — watching the paths of our lives retreat into days gone by — I would go back and make a slight detour, just a little jaunt out of the way, to a point where our paths crossed, and to where I could extend a hand and offer the warmest and most sincere thank you I can muster. His work touched people all over the world in ways that he could never have imagined, and I for one, am incredibly grateful.

Rest in Peace Fred Mills. You will be missed.

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