techniques to improve your sound?

[FOSSIL]

Thank you for clarifying, Chris. But I'm genuinely interested, what do you advise your students to work on for tone that goes beyond listening to the tone you want and striving to imitate it through unconscious trial and error?

Not unconscious trial and error, that's for sure. It's about awareness....talking about sounds , listening online...but more importantly, listening live. I do play in lessons but I don't expect that my sound is so wonderful that my students want to copy it. We are lucky here to have two symphony orchestras, an opera orchestra a ballet orchestra and a chamber orchestra, so in normal times lots to hear and think about and the RCS brings top players in to do masterclasses.
Many players simply do not listen enough to sound...really listen and think. A sound heard once can live with you for a lifetime if it really hits home....I know that from personal experience.
If my students become obsessed with sound, I find it gives focus and direction to their work. Every student is unique and their journey is unique, and their playing is unique, but they often like the same famous players and develop similar sonic characters.
One of my greatest regrets is that my dear friend Bob Hughes is no longer playing....many of my students love his recordings, but five minutes in a room with Bob live, would be imprinted on their heads and their hearts forever...he was that good. I remember hearing George Roberts warming up in the trade stand room at ITF...he was old and not in the best of health but he still 'had it'....listening sent a shiver up my spine.... the sound that inspired me so long ago was there in the room.....magic.

Chris

[Savio]

Thank you for clarifying, Chris. But I'm genuinely interested, what do you advise your students to work on for tone that goes beyond listening to the tone you want and striving to imitate it through unconscious trial and error?

Not unconscious trial and error, that's for sure. It's about awareness....talking about sounds , listening online...but more importantly, listening live. I do play in lessons but I don't expect that my sound is so wonderful that my students want to copy it. We are lucky here to have two symphony orchestras, an opera orchestra a ballet orchestra and a chamber orchestra, so in normal times lots to hear and think about and the RCS brings top players in to do masterclasses.
Many players simply do not listen enough to sound...really listen and think. A sound heard once can live with you for a lifetime if it really hits home....I know that from personal experience.
If my students become obsessed with sound, I find it gives focus and direction to their work. Every student is unique and their journey is unique, and their playing is unique, but they often like the same famous players and develop similar sonic characters.
One of my greatest regrets is that my dear friend Bob Hughes is no longer playing....many of my students love his recordings, but five minutes in a room with Bob live, would be imprinted on their heads and their hearts forever...he was that good. I remember hearing George Roberts warming up in the trade stand room at ITF...he was old and not in the best of health but he still 'had it'....listening sent a shiver up my spine.... the sound that inspired me so long ago was there in the room.....magic.

Chris

I can write under to this!
Listening people like Chris mentioned also gives a lot of inspiration. It makes us work and think to go for a specific goal. What people need to get their goal is always different. I have always been told to do long notes and slow lip slurs. But others might need different ways to get closer their goals. I mostly teach children so its a little different then grown ups. But one thing is similar; they all need different things.

I still do a lot more of listening with my children then I did before. Today I have an impression people dont listen much? The best is live listening but thats not easy right now. I have listen Chris close and that gave me lot of inspiration and the sound I strive for. Its always good to get that kind of inspiration.

I also listen some to singers to get ideas how to make phrases, articulation and shape the notes. Well, I will never be really good like many of you, but I'm glad everytime I can make some little music. Thats make me still love to play trombone.

Leif

[FOSSIL]

P.S. My lockdown project has been to improve my improvisation abilities on the small tenor....looking back over the year, it has also been a search for sound. I knew sounds that I liked and in trying to get there equipment has changed through the year. I have to make the sound for sure, but equipment can help a lot. That and listening.
Chris

[FOSSIL]

Leif, you make a great sound because you really listen. You know what you want and work towards it. You also sound good because you are a nice guy....that might sound really silly, but it's true...happy people make happy sounds...they can't help it !!

Chris

[Doug Elliott]

The whole aspect of "sound" as it applies to some of the great players AND singers who have immediately recognizable sounds can be broken down into at least five parts.

How they start a note
Sound while holding a note
How they change notes when slurring
How they change notes when articulating
How they end a note or phrase

All of those things (and more) are how you immediately recognize who's playing. And they all need to be considered when working on "your sound."

Leif mentioned "long notes and slow lip slurs" and "I also listen some to singers to get ideas how to make phrases, articulation and shape the notes."
Yes, exactly. It's all about "sound.".

What you do between notes is just as important, or even more important, than how you sound during a single note. That's why I'm not a big fan of long tones.

What Dave and I were discussing above was Reinhardt's "Elasticity Routine" which involves glissing between harmonics in one position. In other words, the ultimate slow slur. That the value of it - to be in control of what happens between notes.

I hope that ties in something that may have seemed out of context, but it's not.

[baileyman]

I was a little hesitant to post the exercise because I was afraid some people might not understand how to practice it without getting a demonstration and corrections after trying it out. Even after Doug showed it to me the first time I recall backing off and Doug had to call me out on it and get me to push and blow harder.
...

This is a common difficulty I have with many published exercises. There is rarely any discussion about the purpose or what to pay attention to or exactly what procedure to apply, and of course no feedback without someone who actually knows those things to help. Sometimes I think the real purpose behind something like Arban scales is to shift different distances in the same amount of time, but of course that cannot be right since originally they were for cornet. In any event, zero discussion there, too.

Incidentally, the one standout who comes to mind in this is Bob McChesney. Great discussion in his books.

[Basbasun]

I practise a lot of slow scales, listening for intonation and sound. Also lots of flexibility, good for my sound. I use some air attacks (hoo hoo hoo) like many of us in Scandinavia learned when Naessen and Traulsen was alive.

Flurato I do when playing Don Quiote. "False tones" I do, not in realation to glissando though. I have meet so many players with sometimes unusual exercises, I am not ready to say that the OP:s teacher is teaching wrong methods. I don´t know how it´s done in the lesson.

[Kdanielsen]

Many players simply do not listen enough to sound...really listen and think. A sound heard once can live with you for a lifetime if it really hits home....I know that from personal experience.
If my students become obsessed with sound, I find it gives focus and direction to their work. Every student is unique and their journey is unique, and their playing is unique, but they often like the same famous players and develop similar sonic characters.
One of my greatest regrets is that my dear friend Bob Hughes is no longer playing....many of my students love his recordings, but five minutes in a room with Bob live, would be imprinted on their heads and their hearts forever...he was that good. I remember hearing George Roberts warming up in the trade stand room at ITF...he was old and not in the best of health but he still 'had it'....listening sent a shiver up my spine.... the sound that inspired me so long ago was there in the room.....magic.

Chris

Couldn’t agree more.

Hearing Alessi’s recording of T Bone concerto changed my life and made me fall in love with trombone as a young player. Listening to him warm up in a courtyard a decade later did the same.

Hearing Jim Markey’s tenor trombone CD blew my mind. I’ve worn out 3 copies.

Hearing my teacher at Peabody (Baltimore Symphony legend Jim Olin) play my horn at our first lesson, and absolutely kill it on probably 15 excerpts in rapid succession has stuck. His sound in the orchestra will always be in my ear.

There are a hundred others.

I think we hear, and we fall in love with these moments of sound, and our imagination uses them to fuel our sound ideas. If our bodies can’t figure it out with our current physical set up, we need to adjust, but I think the love for sound needs to be the foundation of it.

[harrisonreed]

The more I think about it the more this topic seems like "the ultimate question". The answer might as well be 42.

I think more specific questions are needed to frame the answer. How many miles must I walk in another man's shoes? 42.

My "holy crap, sound" moment was hearing C. Lindberg hold a high E for a few bars in the Aho concerto and fade to nothing as the clarinet crescendoed seamlessly into the same pitch. I was in the nosebleeds, and I thought my ears were playing tricks on me. I thought the chandelier was resonating with the E, but it was the clarinet. Hearing him play his warm up vanilla F fifteen years later in Colorado gave me the same feeling. He was at the very back of the stage, almost off stage and it was just the rehearsal, not the concert. The F sounded like he was just a few feet away from me, but it was just a mezzo forte. Ventriloquism.

I had the absolute pleasure of hearing J. Alessi play his gift of a commission to us, the Rouse bone concerto, and it was the same. These two guys sound very different artistically, but they both sound like they are right next to you when they play, even from far away. No matter what the dynamic is.

Tribone concertos are rare, but I've seen a fair few others play them. Some heavy hitters too -- these unnamed people did not come close.

[Basbasun]

About the "false" tones, it can a help for the low range. As everything else you play you should strive for a good tone. Like many other execises it does not nessecary lead to good tone or better range.

[Wilktone]

Just to be clear, I agree that having excellent models to follow and practicing with intense focus on what you want to sound like and striving for that is an essential part of the process. Playing a masterclass for Mark Lawrence and hearing him play for me from a couple of feet away was an amazing experience that helped things click for me. Another one that still sticks in my mind was hearing Steve Wiest play as a guest soloist with my undergraduate jazz band and then the same day getting to hear the Airmen of Note play live. I think that was in 1989. Dave Steinmeyer was playing lead trombone in the band at that time. I recall him soloing on I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. The way he is able to play in the extreme upper register with such focus and clarity is truly amazing. Doug Elliott was in the band then too and I remember him soloing over Children of the Night, one of my favorite Wayne Shorter tunes. I had a bootleg tape of those concerts that I wore out. A Christian Lindberg concert also was an inspiring highlight.

I will also agree that playing trombone is an inherently "knacky" think to learn. There's just a lot of it that takes some personal trial and error to figure things out. We can't reach inside someone's body to help them learn how to breathe or fiddle with the lips while playing the same way we can adjust a young violinist's fingers, for example. But there are certain things we can think about and practice that help lead us towards that. The exercise I posted earlier is one possible method one can take.

The emphasis on having a model to follow, while essential, does appear to end up being framed as the "think system," though. If it's really that simple, then what is the point of even having a teacher? Why not just attend performances and listen to great recordings? For the teachers who are emphasizing this approach, don't you also have some exercises you recommend or suggestions you might make that help lead a student to playing with a more focused and resonant tone?

[FOSSIL]

You know, I have a Martin Imperial 'Music Man' model trombone...It's really rather nice...almost plays itself.
I wonder where all this leaves modern sports psychology?
Is that a waste of time ? Does it do nothing for the athletes ?
My problem is that my students seem to do rather well, so I am not inclined to change what I do. What goes on in their lessons is unique to each student and is between them and me and not up for discussion here.
I am generally busy putting them together as musicians, not taking them apart as technicians, but anything can happen and has done over the last 40 plus years.
Never been drawn to classification of things for it's own sake ...a sort of Dr Dolittle system, if we like hijacking old films...still I'd be interested to hear Dolittle tonguing....
Chris

[ArbanRubank]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Great answer! Hold fast to your principles.

[Wilktone]

Thank you again for clarifying.

What goes on in their lessons is unique to each student and is between them and me and not up for discussion here.

I can certainly understand that it's complicated and probably not worth your time to try to type it all out and explain it here. I'm trying to follow your thoughts, though.

I am generally busy putting them together as musicians, not taking them apart as technicians, but anything can happen and has done over the last 40 plus years.

So would you agree that at times you've found it helpful to take an approach that is not purely based on modeling the sound and having them imitate?

Never been drawn to classification of things for it's own sake

I don't think anyone has been advocating that in this thread, or elsewhere.

I wonder where all this leaves modern sports psychology?
Is that a waste of time ? Does it do nothing for the athletes ?

I find sports psychology and athletic training very interesting and relevant to the discussing of the development of musical skills. I did a deep dive into this a while back. If you're not interested in reading it all the way through, the summary is that it's more complicated than what tends to get filtered out through pop psychology. Athletes do perform better during competition when their mind is kept on the goal, but they still prepare by drilling, working on form, and doing things like strength and flexibility training outside of the context of their sport.

I *think* that is what we both are advocating for, but just that our thoughts are getting interpreted and framed as all of one and nothing of the other. Correct?

Thanks,

Dave

[bellend]

Just came across this on the net.
A virtual masterclass from one of LA's 1st call trumpeters Wayne Bergeron.
Didn't know the poor guy has had throat cancer, but thankfully he seems to be recovering well
I love the way he talks and explains what he does with no side or attitude, worth a watch what ever standard you are, although I'm sure there will be " Experts" who disagree with what he's saying



Enjoy!!

BellEnd

[Posaunus]

... a virtual masterclass from one of LA's 1st call trumpeters, Wayne Bergeron.
Didn't know the poor guy has had throat cancer, but thankfully he seems to be recovering well
I love the way he talks and explains what he does with no side or attitude, worth a watch what ever standard you are, although I'm sure there will be "Experts" who disagree with what he's saying

A couple of my trumpet-playing friends (the ones that like to show off their high range) found this "clinic" to be very helpful. Wayne is a great guy and one of the best trumpeters around.