Mstislav Rostropovich: Monday YouTube Fix

Since January is a good month to stay inside and watch movies, I've decided it is officially Documentary Month.  Each Monday for the month of January I will post a new documentary that I enjoy.

After posting footage of Rostropovich performing the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2 last month I was inspired to watch this documentary on him.  The impact he had on cellists and the entire musical world can be summed up by this quote from Seiji Ozawa which appears at the beginning of the documentary:

"Because of him, I think that I believe there is a God."

-Seiji Ozawa

The concert footage interspersed throughout is phenomenal.  This is a wonderful film on Mstislav Rostropovich that hopefully you will find just as engaging as I did.

Enjoy!

Uploaded by Leksandr Komarov on 2014-02-12.

The Relationship of Attention Spans and Long Notes

"People have short attention spans, Google Generation.  On the long notes I'm going to insist that you keep us with you."

-David Zerkel

Long notes are just as vital to the musical story you are trying to tell as the short ones.  There is a way to play long notes such that not only your audience but also the people playing along with you know exactly where you are headed musically, where you are coming from musically, and exactly when that note is going to end.

Keep us (the audience and your fellow performers) with you on the long notes at all costs.

(Click here for more great quotes from David Zerkel.)

Going Too Far

"The place that you want to get with your playing is to where you are uncomfortable with how far you've gone."

-David Zerkel

The only way to tell if you are playing a passage too loud is to play the passage too loud.  If you are practicing, the only true way to evaluate the sounds you are making is by recording yourself and then listening to the recording.

Whenever students begin studying with me, almost to a person they are uncomfortable at first with how far I ask them to take things like dynamics and accents.  You don't know how much dynamic contrast is too much dynamic contrast until you have captured yourself playing with too much contrast via a recording.

When I first joined Boston Brass I regularly found that I was uncomfortable with what I was hearing on my side of the bell, especially concerning the amount of front to the notes and accents.  But when I listened back, I found that I was simply matching Rich Kelley on the trumpet or JD Shaw on the horn.

The proof was in the recording and it turned out that my comfort level as it related to what I heard on my side of the bell was not only not relevant but had to be actively ignored in my pursuit of simply "making it sound right."

What in your playing do you need to take too far?

Bob Dylan: Monday YouTube Fix

This week's clip is a song that is very special to me.  You know, one of those songs that you hear for the first time and you then proceed to listen to it four more times in a row immediately afterwards.

This song is "Visions of Johanna" off of Bob Dylan's timeless album Blonde On Blonde.  This song is just dripping with IT, that thing you can't ever put into words but that all musicians know about.

The style that Dylan both sings and plays with is just so genuine to me.  It screams at me in a way that less than 1% of music does.  There's just something about it.  You might not like Bob Dylan, but you know exactly what I mean...

Enjoy!

Visions of Johanna Bob Dylan / Bob Dylan ℗ Originally Released 1966. All rights reserved by Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment Released on: 1966-06-20 Associated Performer, Vocal: Bob Dylan / Bob Dylan Composer, Lyricist: B.

And then a bonus version of him doing this same piece with just an acoustic guitar at the Royal Albert Hall:

Artist: Bob Dylan Title: Visions of Johanna Album: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 : Bob Dylan Live 1966 (The Royal Albert Hall Concert) [Live] itunes: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/live-1966-the-royal-albert/id187263073?affId=1930871 Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bootleg-Series-Vol-Concert/dp/B0000247SU/ref=ntt_mus_dp_dpt_22 Link to Mr. Tambourine Man - http://www.yt.g00p.com/watch?v=BUuPo1zHo0k

David Zerkel Master Class Quotes (Part 3 of 3)

Here is the final installment of quotes from David Zerkel's recent master class for my students at George Mason University.  His wisdom immediately permeated my teaching and practicing.  Good stuff!

Click here for Part 1 and Part 2.

Enjoy!
 

• "Breathing is like investing money. In order to make money, you have to invest money. You have to invest lots of air."
   
• "When we're presenting our interpretation, I believe that articulation is one of the most negotiable."
   
• "The practice room is the ideal place to try things out."
   
• "Can you give me a little more pitch on the double tongue stuff?"
   
• "I really recommend doing offline practicing when you're practicing double tonguing."
   
• "The lip trill fairy can visit you in a short amount of time if you do a little bit of work. If you practice the Arban's exercise (quarters->eights->16ths->etc) religiously for two weeks, the lip trill fairy will pay you a visit."
   
• "As you're working on your double tongue always aim for the 5th note."
   
• "As you play music that is less melodically oriented, rhythm becomes more important.  You need to make the rhythmic aspect of this melody important."
   
• "What you're selling melodically here is time."
   
• "One of the main problems with the tuba as an instrument is clarity. Musical clarity, articulation clarity, pitch clarity."
   
• "You sound like a bird singing in a cage that is covered with a blanket."
   
• "I need you to be a more active and windy participant so you can play clearer."
   
• "We have to work three times as hard as any other brass instrument to play as cleanly as they play. -Dave Bragunier"
   
• "You can't evaluate your playing at the bell. You have to evaluate what it sounds like in the hall."
   
• "Your best sound is not always the right sound.  You listen to Youngblood Brass Band. If you played in a lesson with the sound that Nat plays with you'd get punched in the throat and told to never come back."
   
• "I want you to offend me with how short you play. I want you to make me puke."
   
• "The place that you want to get with your playing is to where you are uncomfortable with how far you've gone."
   
• "You never know how much is loving someone too much until you've done it. In life, you never know where the edge is until you've stepped off of it."
   
• "You need to be closer to the line."
   
• "The beginning of Strauss 1 is Belushi jumping into a room."
   
• "In the upper register, work on your spin being a little faster, a little more tightly wound.  Move more air with a quicker spin."
   
• "The higher you get on the tuba, the darker and less distinct it gets. I call it the Woo Register because it sounds like someone is wooing (with their hands cupped over their mouth.)"
   
• "Make sure you can maintain a sense of rhythmic urgency without a metronome going."
   
• "Sound is everything. If you don't sound good, nothing else matters."
   
• "If it sounds good, it is good. -Duke Ellington"
   
• "One of the most compelling things we can do is sell people on rhythm."

US Army All-Brass Big Band - A Stan Kenton Christmas: Monday YouTube Fix

Okay this is awesome.  One of the best big bands in the world, minus their saxophones and with some mellophones thrown in for good measure, playing some of the finest charts ever written.  Here is the Stan Kenton Christmas carols arranged by Hoagy Carmichael.

A note on the instrument in the front row: they are mellophones.  The leader pretty much sums them up perfectly when he said, "The mellophone is an instrument of mostly indefinite pitch."

Enjoy!

The U.S. Army All-Brass Big Band presents A Stan Kenton Christmas: an annual holiday musical tradition featuring many holiday standards arranged by and made famous by Jazz great Stan Kenton.

Happiness Is Simplicity

"Misery is complexity. Happiness is simplicity."

-Lester Levenson

The above quote reminds me of one of my favorite Joe Alessi quotes:

"To play a brass instrument well is an incredibly simple process.  To play a brass instrument poorly is an incredibly complex process."

-Joe Alessi

Even if you are successfully playing something, is it possible to do so with less effort or with a streamlined approach? With this approach, even the best performers and band directors can always improve what they are doing.

How can you make what you are doing more simple?

David Zerkel Master Class Quotes (Part 2 of 3)

Here is the second installment of quotes from the wonderful class that University of Georgia Professor David Zerkel gave at George Mason University in September.

In case you missed it, click here for Part 1.

Enjoy!
 

• "When you start an excerpt, don't just hit the button on a treadmill and then go flying. I turn on the treadmill for at least a full measure before I get on so I'm ready to start."
   
• "I can't tell you how many times I have been at an audition and literally said to myself 'Why am I playing? You aren't ready to play yet.'"
   
• "We all have this idea in our head that it takes perfect playing to win an audition. It does not. It takes playing that is informed and stylish and that the person who is going to sit next to them for the rest of their careers knows the context of the music. They're hiring a musician, not a tuba player."
   
• "I want you to think less about playing perfectly and more about playing communicatively."
   
• "For me, music is performed in words, and sentences, and paragraphs, and chapters."
   
• "Think less syllabically and think longer."
   
• "Our job as performers in whatever we do, as performers, conductors, or people selling widgets, is to keep people with us, to not let them off the hook.  It can't be 'I'm going to play something nice for you and I hope you enjoy it.' You need to say 'You're coming with me. Get in the car. And here's what we're going to do.'"
   
• "Keep moving your bow on long notes."
   
• "People have short attention spans, Google Generation.  On the long notes I'm going to insist that you keep us with you."
   
• "Always motion."
   
• "You can look at the trees in the wind. They are moving. Wind demands motion. Motion happens because of wind. I'm asking your playing to be more windy. I'm asking for you to show me the reaction to the wind."
   
• "When watching a conductor, the information you're getting is the motion between the beats. That's what you have to show."
   
• "There are a lot of times when you get to the end of your phrase and you get an involuntary sound. We need to dictate it and not let the instrument tell us how it is going to be."
   
• "Be sure you are maximizing your expansion when you're playing."
   
• "If you need more air, for God's sake go get it."
   
• "What's going to make people notice that my lung capacity is small? By playing with an involuntary sound at the end of phrases."
   
• "I have a decision to make: am I going to let my sound suffer or am I going to breath in more places?"
   
• "Can we all agree that when we are playing any wind instrument that one of our goals is to play with a resonant sound?"
   
• "Sound is vibration. Resonance is an abundance of vibration. In order for us to play with an abundance of vibrations we must use an abundance of air."
   
• "Jacobs asked me "how do you breath?" I gave a complicated answer and he said 'No, you suck air into your body.'"
   
• "Jacobs talked to me about blowing way, way, way, way WAY beyond your lips.  He then played using air to his lips, then to his valve cluster, then to his bottom bow, then to his bell."
   
• "Think of blowing your air two feet beyond your bell."
   
• "Project everything forward. When you're singing properly your mask (face) vibrates."
   
• "Someone says your sound is huge, that's a compliment. When they tell you you play loud, they may hate you."
   
• "In the upper register the air stream is pencil-sized. In the middle register it is corndog sized."

Empire Brass on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Monday YouTube Fix

Growing up in Boston in the 1980's I was exposed to countless professional brass quintets.  Empire Brass, Atlantic Brass, Paramount Brass.  The city of Boston had the most thriving brass quintet scene in the country and for this young tuba player that was invaluable.  To get to hear my instrument featured in a chamber setting showed me what was possible and inspired me to get to work.

I will never forget the first time I heard Sam Pilafian play.  (When I was 11 and hearing him play for the first time I certainly never dreamed he would take over a gig for me as he did with Boston Brass earlier this year!) His playing was virtuosic, he was completely approachable, and he made me think that I could someday do what he did.  That's a great thing to be exposed to at such an early age!

The Empire Brass appearance on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was a collision of two worlds for someone my age.  Seeing Sam along with Rolf Smedvig, Charlie Lewis, Dave Ohanian and Scott Hartman on the same television screen as Mister Rogers is still kind of crazy to me.

But the best part of this is Sam giving Mister Rogers a tuba lesson.  The other best part is when Mister Rogers asks if it helps to be friends and there is an uncomfortable laughter...

Enjoy!

ft. The Empire Brass Quintet

again the Empire Brass Quintet

David Zerkel Master Class Quotes (Part 1 of 3)

In September, we were honored to welcome world-renowned tuba player and pedagogue David Zerkel to George Mason University.  David is currently the tuba and euphonium professor at the University of Georgia, where his students regularly win auditions of all kinds.  He is also a former member of the US Army Band here in Washington, DC.

The master class he presented was so good that I took down almost 90 quotes! He is a master teacher and communicator and he left my studio energized and inspired.  Because there were so many quotes, I am breaking them up into three posts.  Here is the first installment!

(Click here for Part 2 and Part 3)
 

• "When you played the theme you had a very tentative approach to making music. It was like you were tiptoeing through the melody."
   
• "You would have 15 different versions of breathing and blowing if you were to ask every wind professor at this school."
   
• "Breath control can be distilled down into four words: blow until you stop."
   
• "Your breath should be the same every single time you pick up the instrument."
   
• "Your brain is brilliant. Your lungs are stupid lungs."
   
• "If you spend half of your time having your brilliant brain sending your stupid lungs instructions you won't have the ability to make music."
   
• "Blow to a spot that's right here at the top of your bell. Keep your tone a dial tone."
   
• "Can we get a better connection between the C and the D? When you're shifting it's an automatic transmission. You don't have to put the clutch down to shift notes."
   
• "Whether you're playing one note in one breath or 32 notes in one breath, your exhale is going to be exactly the same."
   
• "I always want to make my tuba playing like singing, because singing is the most natural instrument."
   
• "A 4-year-old at a birthday party sings perfect phrases. It's great."
   
• "Singing is a really simple exhale. That's what singing is."
   
• "Go for your best sound right at the beginning of every note."
   
• "Blow until you stop. Once you initiate don't stop."
   
• "16th notes and 32nd notes are not fast, they are melodic."
   
• "If you do the blow until you stop, the 16th note won't sound different than the long note."
   
• "Play a repugnantly bright B-flat or C when you're 'topping out' on the horn."
   
• "Feel free to use a lot of air."
   
• "For every octave you go up, you double your mph. (Pedal C is 15 mph. Low C is 30 mph. Middle C is 60 mph. C above the staff is 120 mph. Screech C is 240 mph.)"
   
• "Tuba has two primary functions: foundation and time."
   
• "When you're playing an audition, make it really easy for a committee to sing their part, because I promise you that's what they're doing. That's how they can tell if you're good at context."
   
• "Take the Fountains of Ramp vamp up a minor third and then bring it down chromatically."
   
• "I always start with what I can do because starting with what I can't do sucks."
   
• "This time try and make the low E less involuntary when you finish it."
   
• "One of the things that's hard for tuba players, actually it's hard for everyone, is that you need to sell the concept of time when you are playing long notes. It's hard."