(Mis)Understanding the Pivot System

In some ways those of us who admire Donald Reinhardt’s pedagogy and use it in our teaching are responsible for some of the confusion about his “Pivot System.” I’ve discussed before how Reinhardt’s own terminology is partly responsible for the criticism it gets. On the other hand, a fair amount of dismissal of the Pivot System is due to people speaking as authorities on a subject they don’t understand. Today’s rant is brought to you by one of the later.

Simon Foden is the author of eHow’s Understanding the Pivot System on Trumpet Playing. Foden does have a BA in music but I strongly suspect he never studied any brass as he uses terms like “mouthpiece technique” and “mouth shape,” not terms widely used by brass players to describe embouchure. His term “lip mobility” sounds like he read something about lip flexibility and ran it through a thesaurus.

If unusual terms were the only thing wrong with Foden’s article it would be understandable for a non-brass player. Unfortunately, he also doesn’t demonstrate that he did enough research to understand what he was writing about. His very first sentence is wrong. Continue reading →

Guess the Embouchure Type – Denver Dill

I’ve blogged recently about Denver Dill’s new book, Still Playing, My Journey Through Embouchure Surgery and Rehabilitation. Shortly before my copy of his book arrived I got an email from Denver, who happened to come across this site. After watching some of my embouchure vods he was interested in putting together something similar that would show his embouchure. He demonstrates his mouthpiece placement both prior to the surgery and after. Denver also got a hold of a transparent mouthpiece for his video, posted by the West Point Band’s YouTube page. Take a look and see if you can guess Denver’s embouchure type. My guess after the break.

Continue reading →

Does the International Trombone Association Exclude Women?

I’ve enjoyed going to the International Trombone Festival the couple of times I’ve made it, however I had no plans to fly to Paris for this year’s. Now I have another reason to not go, as the organizers neglected to invite any women to participate as featured performers or composers. Abbie Conant, who is unfortunately no stranger to gender discrimination, posted on her Facebook page that she wasn’t planning on attending either:

Why not? Because there are 42 men invited as soloists and 0 women. And all 7 composers are also men. Total: 49 to 0! This is insulting to all women trombonists, all women musicians, and all enlightened men.

She also posted on her web site the following statistics of featured soloists from the last few ITFs. Continue reading →

Appreciating Jazz Part 15 – Contemporary Jazz

This installment of my Appreciating Jazz Podcast series covers the eclectic styles and musicians creating jazz since the 1980s. Focusing on artists such as Wynton Marsalis, John Zorn, and Maria Schneider I try to demonstrate how varied contemporary jazz as an art for has become.

This is the last installment (for now) of this particular series, but I will be returning with a new format an new topic soon. You can download this and future podcasts on my web site (www.wilktone.com) or by subscribing to my iTunes channel.

Appreciating Jazz Part 15 - Contemporary Jazz [ 27:04 | 34.36 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Nogueira Amarga For Middle School Jazz Band

Writing for younger ensembles is something that I’ve been meaning to do more of for a long time, but only recently got around to. This is the third big band chart I’ve written in the past couple of months for middle school big bands. As I know so many middle school band directors in my area I’ve been writing these charts for their student bands. This latest chart is a bossa nova for the Northview Middle School Jazz Band, in Hickory, NC. David Wortman, their director, frequently plays sax with the Asheville Jazz Orchestra. I call this piece Nogueira Amarga. The title is a puzzle. Your hint is it’s Portuguese and it sort of relates to who I composed it for. Brownie points for the first person to guess correctly in the comments. Here’s a MIDI realization.

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Like I did with my earlier two middle school big band charts, I left the solo section without a “placeholder” solo so that the students could use the MIDI playback as a practice track and improvise over it. Click here if you want to download it.

This solo section is mostly a 2 chord vamp (C-7 to F7), with only the last two measures of each solo setting up the transition either back for another solo or to the bridge. It should be a good piece to introduce students to improvisation using something other than the blues scale to help select notes. With C-7 to F7 being the only two chords there are a number of options. For examples, you can play over a vamp of those two chords using Bb major scale, Bb major pentatonic, Eb major pentatonic (same as C minor pentatonic), or F major pentatonic. You can also use it to introduce the C dorian and F mixolydian scales and show how they both are the same notes as Bb major scale.

Trombonist’s Muscle Activity Studied Through Thermography

I’ve blogged about research conducted by Dr. Matthias Bertsch before. He wrote a paper called Visualization of Trumpet Players’ Warm Up By Infrared Thermography that looked at how embouchure muscles got used by trumpet players at a different ability levels. He’s more recently replicated this idea and applied it to the entire bodies of a violinist, saxophonist, and trombonist. Here’s the trombonist’s video.

It’s neat to see which parts of this trombonist’s body heat up most after the warmup and playing for 80 minutes. Her slide hand get’s dark red in the thermographic view, which doesn’t surprise me. I was a little surprised that both arms and shoulders seemed to work about as much and showed similar heat patterns. Thinking more about this, it is a good demonstration of the importance of the left hand grip for trombonists (and probably for trumpet players as well, I’m curious to see similar research done on a horn player regarding the left and right hand positions).

Her hot spots on her face were a little different from what I expected, but not too much. Comparing it to the photographs in Bertsch’s trumpet study you can see that most players seem to do a lot of their embouchure work at their mouth corners. With the trombonist you can see that it looks as if one mouth corner is working a bit harder than the other. There was also a great deal of dark red from the middle of her forehead down to her nose, and not in ways that really resemble the experienced trumpet player in Bertsch’s earlier study. It might be this particular trombonist isn’t so experienced (the less experienced players in the trumpet study showed a more asymmetrical pattern of warm regions). Or possibly that more research is needed to see if the trumpet player’s patterns from earlier can be applied to all players in general.

I find it promising that while this sort of research has been used for athletic training for a long time, it is only fairly recently that researchers like Bertsch have been taking a scientific look to the biomechanics of musical performance. It will be interesting to see where the thermographic technology takes brass pedagogy when the technology becomes cheaper, easier to work with, and others begin to utilize it.

Embouchure Question – Developing Lower Lip Strength

Here is another question emailed to me from a tubist named Michael.

I just watched a few of your videos and they have given me alot of insight. I play the tuba, and I have known for a while that it is my embouchure, and not my air, that was restricting my high notes (since I could play some notes on euph that I couldnt on tuba). Through experimentation, I have decided that the reason is my lower lip doesn’t provide a firm enough surface for my upper lip to vibrate against (im a down winder). I saw that you said miscitto buzzes can help with upper lip str., but do you know a good way to work on lower lip str?

Michael is referring specifically to my vod on free buzzing, I think. In that video I discuss an exercise where you imitate the sound of a mosquito buzzing to encourage working the muscles that all intersect around the mouth corners. As you build strength at the mouth corners you will also be developing strength and control of your lower lip as well, so I recommend free buzzing for you also.

That said, without more information I can’t really suggest anything else you can be doing. It’s very hard to self-diagnose your own embouchure. Just because you think you have one of the downstream embouchure types doesn’t necessarily mean that you really do. Or that you should really be playing with that embouchure type. I personally don’t teach video lessons. That said, if you are able to take some video footage of your embouchure and let me look at it I might be able to spot something useful. If you’re not already doing so, see if you can get together with a private teacher who can take the time to help you spot what you can do to improve but also prioritize things to work on.

Appreciating Jazz Part 14 – Fusion

This episode discusses jazz-rock fusion. By the 1970s many jazz musicians looking for new sounds to explore turned to rock styles for inspiration. Miles Davis continued to lead the direction of jazz-rock fusion and many of his sidemen led influential groups of their own, such as Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, and John McLaughlin. At the same time, rock bands like Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears, began to similarly borrow from jazz musicians and incorporate lengthy improvisations and horn sections that played a more significant role that was typical.

In addition to listening to this podcast here you can also subscribe via iTunes.

Appreciating Jazz Part 14 - Fusion [ 27:08 | 35.22 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ben Folds on Being a Musical Artist

I’ve enjoyed Ben Folds’ music for a while. While I enjoy his piano playing and singing, I personally find his song writing to be particularly interesting. I think he’s developed pretty original original style.

Recently I found an essay Folds wrote and posted on his Facebook page. His post has a lot of great advice for aspiring artists on topics of finding your own voice, hard work, dealing with criticism, and developing technique. He starts off by quoting Neal Young:

“Take my advice – Don’t Listen To Me” – Neil Young

Whether or not your a fan of Ben Folds it’s a good read for any creative artist. I recommend you check out the full post.

Clark County Jazz Festival May 3-4, 2012

This upcoming Thursday and Friday, May 3-4, 2012, I’ll be adjudicating at the Clark County District Jazz Festival in Las Vegas, NV. I’ve already gotten one inquiry about meeting up sometime for an embouchure consultation and will try to schedule some time both evenings if anyone wants to get together for a lesson. If you’re interested and will be in the area, contact me and we’ll try to figure out a good time to meet up.

Wilktone

Jazz, brass, composition, and other things music related.