We're All Creatures of Habit

So do you grab the soap or the shampoo first in the shower? I'm personally a soap first kind of guy.  This is not for religious reasons.  It is not a family rule that's been handed down through the generations.  It is not for any practical reason.  And yet every single day, 365 days a year (I have a rule to never bathe on February 29th,) I grab the soap before grabbing the shampoo.  Without exception.

This is because I, like all of us, am a creature of habit.  Everything you ever do on your instrument, on the podium, on stage, anywhere is establishing or reinforcing a habit.  This is why it is imperative to play with your absolute best sound possible at all times.  As in every time you ever play a note.  Whether you are "testing" a note an octave lower in order to get a higher pitch in your ear, you are noodling around while a conductor is talking to another section, or you are "just" warming up, you must play with your absolute best sound possible or you are more likely to play with the same sub-par sound next time.

We are all creatures of habit, both on and off the horn.  When realized, this can be harnessed and used to take great strides in our craft.  If not, we are doomed to repeat our past failures.

(More tomorrow on the myth of breaking bad habits.)

The Next Chapter

After over 13 years as the tuba player with Boston Brass, I am officially stepping down on January 1st to pursue other opportunities.  At some point, you realize that your present situation is a part of your past and not a part of your future.  This realization is a very liberating moment and enables the fear of change to be overtaken by its necessity. In my time with the quintet, I have performed in over 40 states and over 30 countries on 4 continents.  It's really incredible when I stop and think about it.  The places I've seen, the people I've met, the food I've eaten, the halls I've played in...it will take a lifetime to sort through the memories.

I have put many things on the back burner during my time on the road and I am very excited for them to step to the forefront.  I have multiple business ventures that will be unveiled shortly and there is a long list of things my wife and I have not been able to do as a result of my schedule.  I just can't put these things off any longer.  Lance LaDuke is also stepping down from Boston Brass.  He and I will be partnering on a number of business fronts moving forward which we are very excited about.

I'm thrilled to announce that I will remain an Educational Ambassador for Jupiter Band Instruments.  My solo playing and teaching engagements have taken in off in the last few years and I hope to continue that momentum.  I am eager for the next chapter.

Thanks to everyone for your support and stay tuned here for what's next.  To quote my favorite band from Vermont:

"This has all been wonderful, but now I'm on way."

Cheers,

Andrew

Carrie Manolakos Covering Radiohead: Monday YouTube Fix

There is so much great music available on the Internet that I can easily take it for granted.  This clip leaves me breathless every time I hear it.  You know those rare moments in music, when you realize that you were holding your breath as a listener even though you had no idea you were doing it? This is one of those clips. At the Savvy Musician in ACTION Retreat down at the University of South Carolina, I had the opportunity to get to know fellow Thought Leader Justin Kantor, the co-founder of Le Poisson Rouge.  We were talking about all of the incredible performances that have happened in the space he created and this clip came up.  I watched it on a big screen and was left speechless.

This is how you cover a song.  You make it your own with an interesting arrangement, you play it with an incredible group of musicians, and you GO FOR IT! Somewhere, the guys from Radiohead are smiling from ear to ear.  I'll never hear the song Creep the same way ever again.

Enjoy!

Charles Lazarus Master Class Quotes (Part 3 of 3)

Here is the final installment of the wonderful Charles Lazarus trumpet master class at the National Trumpet Competition at George Mason University this past March.  I always love going to the NTC master classes and this was one of the best I've ever seen.

In case you missed them, here are Part 1 and Part 2 of the quotes from his class.  So many nuggets of wisdom!

• Minnesota Timberwolves physical trainer: "It takes 10,000 repetitions for someone to learn how to swing a golf club or shoot a basketball. But if you are trying to relearn something the right way, double that."
   
• "Slow, methodical practice. You can slow things down. You can add a note at a time. You can play an entire phrase and slowly take one note away at a time. You can change the rhythm."
   
• "There are eight aspects of practicing: high, low, loud, soft, fast, slow, articulate, slur."
   
• "There are three ways to play them: through the range, interal studies, isolate the ranges."
  
   
•  "I’ve started writing a practice book 20 times but then realize that everyone’s needs are going to be different.  It’s just important that you touch all the bases every day."
   
• "I’m a big fan of short practice sessions, often."
   
• "Adolph Herseth told me he never practices more than 30 minutes at a time."
   
• "It is better to practice 15 minutes, 4 times a day than playing for one hour straight. Then you have to wait 23 hours until you play again and there is a lot of muscle memory."
   
• "Joey Tartell can play quadruple high Q’s but still get a great sound on the Haydn."
   
• "I recommend that you practice with straight tone.  Add vibrato later for musical reasons."
   
• "If you’re phrasing, you can’t really fail. You can miss a note but people won’t really care."
   
• "You can tell by how I’m playing that E that it’s going to go somewhere."
   
• "You don’t need to open up so much to play the low notes. I think of my embouchure as adjusting to stay the same."
   
• (After playing call and response with student on one lick in time) "That one was statement/statement. The first ones were statement/question statement/question."
   
• "For most of my range, I try to stay set. I don’t stay completely set but I don’t over adjust."
   
• "I like to sometimes think of the (previous) note as the beginning of the inhale."
   
• "You played the G like you were testing the note. There’s no testing."
   
• "(Instead of a metronome) I like to practice with the shakers on Garage Band."
   
• "Internalizing the rhythm is the hardest thing for playing orchestral excerpts by yourself."
   
• "In soft lyrical playing, people frequently don’t articulate enough."
   
• "Playing trumpet you want to be fluid and sometimes we can get position oriented."

Time to Get Honest Up in Here

You’ve got to start thinking outside the box. When you have a problem (with your playing), really admit it and address it. You have to be honest about it. You are only as strong as the weakest link in your playing. - Marty Hackleman

Looking back through old notes I was reminded of this call to action.  What is your weakest link?

Lessons Learned from The Savvy Musician in ACTION Retreat

Last week at the University of South Carolina, David Cutler (author of The Savvy Musician) hosted a life changing retreat for everyone who attended.  It was titled "The Savvy Musician in ACTION Retreat" and featured 57 participants (or arts entrepreneurs as they were called) from 21 different states and Canada.  The participants ranged from undergrads to full-time professionals working in every aspect of the arts.  The faculty consisted of five Thought Leaders (of which I was one) from around the US as well as a number of amazing professors from USC. The retreat, as with so many great things in life, is hard to summarize.  In a nutshell, 57 people split up into 10 teams and had to come up with an arts based business model that would both provide impact and be sustainable.  They had basically two days to figure out everything including a name, a logo, where funding was coming from, their target customer base, a comprehensive marketing and social media strategy, and how to pitch this idea to three actual business leaders from Columbia, SC.

Some of the teams were working until 5:00 am the last night in order to finish their presentations which they began setting up at 8:00 in the hall! It was an intense atmosphere for both the teachers and the participants.  I left more energized about my future than I've been since I was a kindergartener dreaming of becoming an astronaut.

What an amazing experience! Thank you to all who were there.  I learned so much from all of you.  I had one student there from George Mason, Andrew Dougherty, who told me he will try to convince the entire studio to come down next year.  I sure hope they do.

I could do a dozen posts (and still might!) just on the things I learned from fellow thought leaders Justin Kantor (of Le Poisson Rouge), Jon Ostrow (of CyberPR), Lance LaDuke (of Boston Brass) and David Cutler.  But one of the coolest parts of the 4 days was when each of the arts entrepreneurs got up in front of everyone and said one thing they had learned over the course of the four days.  Here is a sampling of quotes from that decompression session.  There are so many nuggets of inspiration and motivation in here that I don't even know where to begin.

• Make your goals bigger and the steps to get there smaller.
• Find somebody that knows more than you and just ask them.
• Be willing to pivot instead of hanging on with your claws until you die.
• Doing things perfectly is not nearly as important as getting things done.
• Don't be afraid to pivot and make a change.
• Good leaders need to know what it's like to be a follower.
• Trust your team. They can do great things.
• Dream big and don't apologize for it.
• Life begins outside your comfort zone.
• Knowing and understanding are two different things.
• Choose to go all in.
• Don't let your idea for a project get in the way of letting something become what it needs to become.
• I was reminded of the power of small.
• It's OK to ask for help.
• Having a sense of humor when things blow up in your face is a good thing.
• There's no shame in passing something off to someone who can do it better.
• There's an incredible amount of power in diversity.
• Attempted humor is a great stress relief.
• It is a value to be able to improvise well.
• Focus.
• The more energy you put into life, the more you get out of life.

Charles Lazarus Master Class Quotes (Part 2 of 3)

Here is part two of quotes from the wonderful master class that trumpet great Charles Lazarus gave at the National Trumpet Competition this year.  In case you missed it, here's part one.  I can't believe how much I learned from this class.  I'm awfully happy that I braved all those trumpet players! I'll post part three on Friday.

• "As basic human beings, we react to rhythm. Rhythm is a very primal and fundamental thing that humans react to."
   
• "Rhythm gives you the framework to coordinate all of the physical things that have to happen in synchronicity when playing the trumpet."
   
• "Rhythm, more than anything else when you’re playing, dramatically affects your physical coordination."
   
• "Most missed notes are early.  Some are late, very few missed notes are on time."
   
• "I subdivide everything I play, all of the time if I’m playing well.  If you hear me kack, I probably am not subdividing."
   
• "Why did I biff the E? Because I wasn’t subdividing and I tried to play the E before it was time."
   
• "Heldenleiben duh duh-duh splee-ah  - the splee would be before the downbeat."
   
• "Every single day you should play with a metronome, especially in your warm-up."
   
• "Play with a metronome every single day and then turn it off. Learn to internalize it."
   
• "If you are a jazz player and you can’t tap your foot on 2 and 4, that’s a problem."
   
• "I ask myself three questions if the sound is terrible and the feel is terrible: 1. How did it sound? What do I want it to sound like? 2. Am I phrasing? Am I taking in air and phrasing with that? 3. How is my time?"
   
• "I’ve found that if those three questions are addressed, any technical problem can be solved."
   
• "Don’t worry about aligning your wheels if your engine won’t start."
   
• "You need to address those three questions before you go looking for the magic mouthpiece. You have to have your priorities straight."

Stefan Dohr: Monday YouTube Fix

What can you say about this guy? Stefan Dohr is on everyone's short list for best horn player in the world. Like, everyone's list. And seeing as how he's not even 50 yet, he has a long career ahead of him. Dohr is the principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic and teaches at the Herbert von Karajan Academy. He is a special talent to say the least.

This video is of him playing one of the most famous horn solos in the orchestral repertoire, from the 2nd movement of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, sure makes this excerpt sound easy. The best players in the world give the rest of us the feeling of "Hey! That doesn't seem that hard. I bet I could do it."

If only it were that easy. Get ready for some effortless and spectacular phrasing.

Enjoy!

Charles Lazarus Master Class Quotes (Part 1 of 3)

I had the privilege of attending a wonderful master class by trumpeter Charles Lazarus at this year's National Trumpet Competition at George Mason University.  Charles is one of the best musicians I've ever met.  He can play not just well in a frustrating number of diverse styles but amazingly well in said styles.

His diversity is legendary.  If you were to hear him play a baroque trumpet solo, you would assume he does it full-time for a living.  If you were to hear him play with a brass quintet, you would assume he did that for a living.  Same with him playing with the Minnesota Orchestra or playing as a solo jazz player.  Really, he'll either drive you mad or to the practice room.  One or the other!

I had heard he was a great teacher but had never had the opportunity to see him in action until this master class.  I came away with enough quotes to share in a one hour master class that they are being split into three separate posts.  Some of them resonated with me to the point of being shared in almost every lesson I taught the following week after spring break.  I hope you enjoy these great Lazarus quotes as much as I have.

• "No matter what you play, Body and Soul or Mahler 5, people only hear the sound that comes out of your bell."
   
• "If your focus is on your sound, you will get to your end result faster."
   
• "If you give a beginner a tone to try to match, they will sit up straight and their sound will get better."
   
• "Technique is the ability to control your sound on any given note. At any given dynamic, 100% of the time. It is very easy to forget that when you're working on a lick."
   
• Doc Severinsen: "I spent days and days and days trying to imagine the sound I’m trying to achieve.  I came up with my ideal sound and then I go for that."
   
• "Not to say there’s not a physical side (to playing), but you have to know what your goal is."
   
• "Rather than air support I like to think of tone support."
   
• "I like to think of breathing as phrasing.  If you keep the air moving, your lips will vibrate."
   
• "If you take in a full breath, there is some natural compression."
   
• "If I want to get a fuller sound, I actually back off."
   
• "When I talk to you, there are certain words that I emphasize. It is the same with phrasing."
   
• "When you phrase, the sound and style will make sense to people."
   
• "Our lips are like the string and our air is like the bow."
   
• "If you’re phrasing with your air, you are going to take in enough air and you are going to keep it moving."
   
• "If your chops are feeling stiff, keep the phrasing and the air moving."

Excellent Definition of Technique by a Master

"Technique is the ability to control your sound on any given note, at any given dynamic, 100% of the time." - Charles Lazarus

Considering the tone that comes out of the end of Charles Lazarus' bell, it is not surprising that he nails this directly on the head.

The most important thing to do when working on your high register: play with your most beautiful sound possible.  The most important thing to do when working on your multiple tonguing: play with your most beautiful sound possible.  The most important thing to do when working on extreme dynamics: play with your most beautiful sound possible.

I think you get the point.  If you want to play the trumpet like Charles does (or any other instrument), this is some of the best advice you will ever receive.

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This quote is from Charles Lazarus' master class at the National Trumpet Competition this past March.  I will be posting a full list of quotes from his excellent class later this week.  It was one of the best I've attended in a long time.