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Musicians as Actors

A former teacher long ago used to regularly remind me that musicians are like actors. Music is full of character and a good musician worth merit can change styles at the drop of a hat.

In order to be understood from the audience perspective, French horn players are very much like stage actors. They need to speak with clear diction and with an intensity that can be heard clearly in the back row.

I recently saw a post by Alecia Bateson at Professional Auditonee and noted some excellent bullet points about character in acting.

  • Work to further ratchet up the stakes. It increases tension and drama.
  • Search more deeply to find a way to connect to something that may be foreign to personal experience.
  • Establish a deeper internal comprehension of the character. Spend more time “in” the scene.
  • Don’t allow the drama of one’s life to overshadow the instructional functionality of class for others.
  • Argumentative behavior can be ineffective and damaging.
  • Listen. Don’t talk (unless acting).
  • Watching others can be an excellent ordered exercise.

Expanding on this a bit for musicians:

Work to further ratchet up the stakes. It increases tension and drama.

Sometimes in a concert, the group’s energy level get raised a notch or two. The tempo might be a little faster or slower than before, the dynamics might be louder or softer. A prominent line may get stretched or morphed in some other way that constitutes a risk with a big reward.

In order to be on this bandwagon, you need to be musically flexible and able to play prominent passages under extreme circumstances.  In opera, this happens almost on a nightly basis – singers are wont to stretch and pull depending on their vocal strengths at the moment.

Most importantly, be alert for change and go with the flow. In other words:

Establish a deeper internal comprehension of the character. Spend more time “in” the scene.

and

Listen. Don’t talk (unless acting).

Even when not playing, or in long tacets I enjoy watching other musicians perform. Why not? I have the best seat in the house!

Watching others can be an excellent ordered exercise.

This is one thing that I enjoy about chamber music, attending concerts, watching YouTube or playing in group lessons – watching other musicians at play can be as educational as listening.

Search more deeply to find a way to connect to something that may be foreign to personal experience.

When I first heard traditional French hunting horns for example, I was not immediately enamored. These days, I wonder about trying out Rossini’s Le rendez-vous de chasse in this style.

Being open-minded to new things might a open door to new way of expression.

Besides, why speak in the same manner and dialect all the time?

Smokin’ Graas

With thanks to Valerie Wells – here is more information about hornist John Graas. A very active musician in the 1940-1950’s, Graas carved his own path in the music business, primarily in jazz and commercial music. After reading his biography, I thought, ‘what a great example of a creative, entrepreneurial musician taking charge of his career!’

  • John Graas biography

    In the video below – John Graas performs as a member of a staged session. His solo begins around the :57 mark. Be sure to check out Graas’ instrument [a 5 valve single Bb], which is also highlighted at the very end of the video.

[Article updated JE 2021]

Thinking Over the Daily Regime

As you start the New Year it is always a good time to re-evaluate your daily routine. Two recent posts on other blogs caught my attention for their comments on the daily regime.

The more recent of the two posts is from the blog of Michael Gilliand, who is Adjunct Professor of Horn at Missouri Southern State University and Principal Horn with the Fort Smith Symphony in Fort Smith, Arkansas. His recent post “So You Want to be a Professional Hornist?” is one I found on the shared RSS reading from Bruce Hembd on Horn Matters, and includes the following on the section on the typical daily regime.

Typical Daily Regime for the serious student which was garnered from Kendall Betts, former principal horn of the Minnesota Orchestra during a master class:

• 20-45 minutes F horn warm up such as Farkas.
• 30-60 minutes etudes, some or all on F horn, such as Kopprasch, Kling, Gallay, Belloli, Reynolds, and others.
• 20-45 minutes technical routines such as scales, arpeggios, broken arpeggios, chordal arpeggios, Clarke, Arban, Singer, or other technical materials.
• 20-45 minutes long tones: pppp; ff>pp
• 30-60 minutes repertoire: solos, excerpts, orchestral parts, etc.

Gilliand in particular is a strong believer in F horn practice to improve accuracy. He comments in his post further that

For young students work on the F horn is extremely important. Work on this side of the horn truly aids endurance, more natural slurs, better intonation, smoother piano not attacks, and more tonal color due to the sounding overtones. Truly, work on the F horn will provide one with some difficult practice. After one has work through the first four or five Kopprasch Etudes the results will be clearly evident.

He included as an example this graphic from the original edition of the Kopprasch etudes; for more see my article on the Original Kopprasch Etudes.

[This year I hope to bring out several new publications that relate to the type of music you could use in a daily workout such as the one described from Kendall Betts; more on those as they near publication.]

The second post is from Julia Rose, Associate Principal Horn of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, a great article on her recent re-evaluation of her warm-up and mid-range. As a brief personal preface, I find that I have to warm up a good while in the mid-range before I can work out from the center. The Farkas warm-up mentioned above for example starts too fast for me. Julia has some great thoughts along these same lines.

Ever since college, I have been doing Doug Hill’s maintenance session. Doug was my teacher in college at the University of Wisconsin, and like Doug, I believe the maintenance session can be a major factor for improving and maintaining on the horn. Sometimes the term “warmup” is used interchangeable with “maintenance session.” If one merely wants to warm up, one can do that in 10 minutes. If one wants to work on range, breathing, scales, arpeggios, attacks, etc. during the warmup, then it should more correctly be called a maintenance session. It is usually done at the beginning of the day, but it can be done anytime.

Anyway, Doug’s maintenance session is, shall we say, rather ambitious…it starts out slowly with an attack/release study in whole notes at various pitches, and then launches full-force into a whole series of arpeggios of every dynamic and speed all over the horn, really testing the outer ranges. It has suited me well for many years, but ever since I’ve turned 30, it’s felt like my middle register has become the most problematic range of my horn playing. But I figured it was just a high horn thing, and I’ve never attributed it directly to my maintenance session.

Julia had a recent embouchure injury she had to come back from. With this in mind and jumping ahead a bit in her post she continues

So, once things were healed up, I went with the idea. I took a good look at my maintenance session and decided that I needed to make it more suitable to my needs. You see, Doug’s maintenance session is a really good one, and it suits many people very well, but I have always accepted it blindly because it created such improvement in my playing at the time I really needed it (in college). I needed help with my high range and fluency back then. Now my needs are different. My high range is always there, my low range is there, I know my scales and arpeggios. What feels like is NOT always there is my middle register. It felt stiff and unresponsive much of the time. So, doesn’t it make sense to focus on fluency and flexibility in the middle range?

So, borrowing some exercises from Wendell Rider’s excellent book “Real World Horn Playing,” I’ve started to play most of my maintenance session in the middle register, using open natural harmonics, saving a couple Doug Hill arpeggios for the very end. I’ve been doing this for about a month now, and like I figured, my high and low ranges are there, but now my middle range is becoming much more comfortable. Not only that, but I have more chops left over for subsequent hours of practice. Before I was just burning my chops up and stiffening them during my first practice session. What strengthened my chops back in college is stiffening them for me now.

In short, maintenance sessions are all well and good, but every few years, one needs to step back and evaluate one’s strengths and weaknesses, because they will change over time.

Between these two posts there is a lot to think over in relation to the warm-up and the routine and the New Year. Be sure to check out their full posts and give the whole topic some thought, it will pay off.

Vacation Beards and 2010 New Year Resolutions

Fuzzy chin, smooth lip.
Fuzzy chin, clean lip.

Irritation and humor.

During a week of vacation like this one I can boycott shaving. I let it all go for one whole week and see what happens.

Playing horn with a fuzzy lip however is unbearable. Even during vacation, I shave one small patch — a spot right between and a bit above the two crowning peaks of the upper lip — in order to keep playing comfortably.

Bristled hairs may look manly but inside the mouthpiece they irritate my vibrating lips – it feels like cactus needles.

Carefully shaving this small area helps prevents this irritation and any resulting swelling that can occur afterward. Not at all men need to do this, but I definitely must.

Even in my fuzzy-chin self-portrait above,  my upper lip is clean. Click the image for a larger view … if you must.

5 New Year Resolutions, 2010

While shaving this little patch yesterday, a list of resolutions for the New Year came to mind.

In the tradition of New Year Resolutions, a list is tabulated. This list — whether written, oral or just in your head — functions like a benchmark. The New Year Resolution list is a quest for long-term self-improvement, for putting oneself on a better path.

In this spirit, I firmly pledge:

  1. To practice with more diligence and respect, the Kopprasch etudes (…except the long, boring ones).
  2. To clean my mouthpiece more often (…before the crispy critters begin to appear and multiply).
  3. To respect conductors more and not criticize them as much (…unless they really deserve it).
  4. To observe and implement conscientious intonation towards other musicians around me (…unless they are wrong, of course).
  5. To complain less about working conditions at music gigs (…only if they serve coffee and cookies).

Have a happy and prosperous New Year!

Backstage: Angels Seen on High

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During Arizona Opera productions I like to regress to the green room of symphony hall to relax. During an intermission break at a recent Nutcracker production in the same hall I was surprised to find the same room being used as a preparation area for Christmas angels.

I snapped this quick photo of the scene:

(Notice the rack of wings in the left background.)

To keep track of all the angels (and all the other dancers) the ballet company brings its own portable check-in office. It gets delivered via truck and forklift to the loading dock area.

Playing the Nutcracker is an annual/semi-annual event for me. While the composition was reportedly one of  Tchaikovsky’s least favorite, I enjoy it and never tire of performing it.

The Last of 2009, and Looking Ahead

And so, after a period of hiatus I have returned.

Over the past few weeks, I have been making major adjustments to my life and career, and so blogging has taken a back seat. In short, I have accepted a position as a web developer at a local college.

While I still maintain music positions at the Arizona Opera, the West Valley Symphony and at Glendale Community College, I have taken advantage of this new position to finally let go of the miscellaneous gigs that had lost their luster – gigs with little or no spiritual or financial rewards.

It has been a great relief to do this.

The new web development position is creatively very interesting – very much on par with the same creative juices required to think about music. Every day I am presented with new challenges and problems to solve.

To our regular readers, I would like to give you all a huge thanks for your support and to wish you all a pleasant and happy New Year.

Brief Review: The Efficient Approach by Richard Deane

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Richard Deane is Third Horn in the Atlanta Symphony and also teaches at the Brevard Music Center over the summers. He has just released a new book, The Efficient Approach: Accelerated Development for the Horn.

I was able to read one of the first copies off the press thanks to one of my students who went to Brevard this past summer, Derek Wright. My first impression is this is a book that is certainly worth reading. In several ways Deane thinks out of the box and presents things with a different angle than that seen in other books. A focus for Deane is developing a balance of what he calls “the three technical cornerstones of great horn playing: air pressure, embouchure support, and resonating space inside the mouth.” Topics covered include especially the embouchure and breathing, and he presents at the end a daily routine.

One thing that caught my attention was his recommendation to find balance in the embouchure. There is a book that has a following today called The Balanced Embouchure by Jeff Smiley. Richard Deane however is using the term only in the general sense that he wants players to find balance in their embouchure mechanics, not that they use the specific type of mechanics of tongue position and lip rolling advocated by Smiley. Deane overall remains more related to Farkas (advocating for example a flat chin) but has some new twists I don’t recall seeing in any previous publication, such as describing three types of embouchure; einsetzen, ansetzen, and hybrid.

Overall this book is certainly a good addition to the library of the horn player and teacher well worth purchase. The 65 page publication is available directly from the Atlanta Brass Society Press.

UPDATE: Also, in the sales page we now find these quotes in support of the publication as well.

“…any number of complex things are explained – air, sound, embouchure use, warm-up – very succinctly, leaving out unnecessary complexity. A brilliant accomplishment” – David Jolley

“…an in-depth analysis of efficient production by an outstanding artist/teacher of the horn….practical, through, and clearly presented.” – Randy C. Gardner

Congratulations Richard for a great publication.

Mirafone presents Deskants and Tubens–the Wilder Nonet

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A regular reader (thank you!) sent a tip on a link to a recent episode of the Wilderworld podcast. This one features a recording of the Wilder Nonet in a promotional version put out by Mirafone. This link will get you to the podcast, and the description is as follows:

From Mirafone presents Deskants and Tubens, featuring Members of the Horn Club of Los Angeles (Mirafone SZB-3216 7″ for demonstration only, excerpted from LP Angel S-36036) Conducted by Gunther Schuller.

“Wilder’s Nonet for Brass was composed in the spring, 1969. Direct and to the point, it readily invites listening of the most pleasurable kind. It has been described as a spectacular tour de force for the instruments, including two ‘descant’ (high F) horns, two normal French Horns, four Wagner Tubens and bass tuba”.

Arizona State currently owns an example of one of these Mirafone compensating descants horn in B-flat high F seen in the cover art. These early double descants are not considered to be the best examples of the type of instrument but check out the podcast, you can hear the descants and tuben very easily. The work has the following movements:

1st Moderate
2nd Song
3rd With Good Humor
4th Swing A Little

PSA: What is up with Baritone Treble Clef Parts?

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We get questions that are not always horn related and in the fall I had a question about baritone treble clef parts. I believe the person asking the question was not a brass player and perhaps had no decent methods class as well. I started off by answering,

Those parts are different ways to notate the same pitches. Why there is a treble clef part is because some players will switch to baritone from the trumpet after developing a level of competence on the trumpet. They would play the treble clef part just like a trumpet part with trumpet fingerings and it sounds an octave lower than it would on trumpet.

The bass clef part on the other hand is in C and the player thinks of the fingerings differently. Coming from trumpet a concert B-flat is a written C. For the bass clef player the same note is a written B-flat.

I hope this makes it clear.

It did not. They wrote back again, I explained more about the topic. As I said, it is just two different ways to notate the same pitches, the treble clef part being played just like a trumpet part but with sounding pitches an octave and a step lower than written.

This type of notation is used in British style brass bands top to bottom as well. Basically all the parts are written in treble clef to use trumpet fingerings so that players can move from instrument to instrument if needed easily.

A similar idea actually underlies the odd notations of the Wagner tuba; the B-flat parts actually can be read just like baritone treble clef with trumpet fingerings if that is something you can get your mind around.

Lawson on Lacquer and on Freezing

I was recently pointed to the Lawson Horns website looking for some information in their print publications on trying mouthpieces and leadpipes, but those do not appear to be online at this time. But there is still some useful information to be found, including notes on the topics of lacquer and of freezing of instruments.

As to lacquer, many pros like unlacquered horns and at a high level a player can begin to notice the dampening effect that they note for some types of lacquer in the following quote.

Lacquers come in two primary varieties: natural and synthetic. With respect to an unlacquered horn, which we normally don’t recommend as it lacks any protection from oxidation; the natural or air- dried lacquers have little or no effect on the instruments playing qualities. However, the synthetics, usually urethane, shrink during baking somewhat and can be expected to dampen the instrument about 3-5%. They are, however; easier to apply, look better and last longer so they are usually recommended for student instruments. Natural lacquer, while not lasting nearly as long, will still provide some protection for a couple of years so it is more costly to maintain.

Freezing instruments was a bit of a fad not long ago that seems to have faded out to a point today. I remember talking to my father, a chemist, about this and he was a skeptic that the temperature differences between room temperature and the frozen temperature were enough to do much of anything if the instrument were dissembled and completely dry. I am sure there are believers out there [UPDATE: See the first comment, for example–I personally don’t have a strong position on this topic] but Lawsons tends toward the skeptical.

Freezing and other types of metal treatment have from time to time been promoted. Here again, the question,’ Does it work?’ , is not so easy to answer. We ran a study where a computer ‘played’ an instrument (ask for our article “Acoustic Primer” or consult Art Benade’s terrific text book, “Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics,” 1976, Oxford University Press, for how this is done and what the result’s mean), both before and after freezing with liquid nitrogen. It was clear that the amplitude of the fundamental mode of resonance of the mechanical, not airborne vibration, had increased, but actually decreased for the upper modes. So it can be expected that freezing influences the mechanical vibration of the instrument’s walls but does it have any musical significance? This is perhaps the most important question that must be answered. Even with all of our computer technology, a computer cannot tell you if something ‘sounds’ good. For a highly technical discussion of how we poll musicians and what musical attributes they seem to prefer, ask for our publication in the ‘Journal of the Acoustical Society’ on “Mouthpiece Correlations…”. We have found through extensive blind testing that they seem to prefer a musical instrument with strong resonance but even playing resistance throughout its range; i.e., no weak notes or ‘wolf’ notes. Freezing tended to increase the vibration below the lowest note played so any effects are possibly ‘felt’ by the musician through his hands but there were no measurable differences in the airborne vibrations. Additionally, a former representative of the Copper Development Assoc. has claimed that in recent tests the crystalline structure of brass alloys reverts back to its original state over a period of time after freezing.

There is more in the site and the list of publications available points to great resources worth requesting from Lawson Horns.

UPDATE 2017: The Lawson site is just a memory now, the links have been removed but glad to still have the quotes.