Transcript Summary
Before you start, I forgot one thing, and that is that Claude's real secret to success is his wife.
And Jenny is really the one that gets this camp together, makes it go, and allows him to be an egocentric, tremendous man.
Stand up, Jenny.
I'm really happy to be here, and I'm happy to see so many new avenues of work, and so many repeats.
That shows that something must be getting across and out of place.
I'd like to mention first, before we go any further, Dr. Mellory, and this is a new book, and it will be here at the store, Tuesday.
So if you're interested in the book, you're welcome.
I've got a lot of things here to organize, but everything is, the first day is always, everything goes wrong.
Well, finally we get here, and if we get out by midnight now, why don't we do a go?
First of all, I want to mention the purpose of this camp.
Although history of the camp would be better, I don't want to mention it, but this is our tenth camp, so that's just our tenth anniversary.
So we've got a lot of little things this week that will be pretty interesting.
And we have people here, we'll have twelve here from Japan, some of them will be here in the morning, until morning, but eight of them will be here tonight.
We have Canada, Philadelphia, so we still have people coming from all over the country, which makes us extremely happy.
So, Carl and I were talking one day, we got the house, I'd been giving clinics all over the country, and Carl said, well why don't we start something like that here?
There's no camp out here, something different.
Because you have the International Public Guild, you have the grass camps all over the country, you have the New York Conference, which is a great conference.
Charlie Cohen, a great friend of mine, and they're all great, but it's different in the respect that they're all performance.
You go there to hear someone play, but you can go here to play anywhere.
You listen to them play, and it's actually great, but you hear expoundment, everybody's idea.
You go to a camp, or what do you call it, a seminar, and a guy gets up and he expounds his ideas.
Then another guy gets up a little while later, and he expounds all his ideas.
Another one expounds all his ideas.
Then they have a mouthpiece neighbor come in, and he talks about the mouthpieces.
Finally you leave, and you're more confused than ever before.
And I've seen this again and again.
So Carl and I talk about it, and he says, let's start a camp out here.
I said, well, Carl, it's going to cost a lot of money.
He says, well, that's all right.
So anyway, we did get a start.
But we had some great guys to work with, and that's where Dave Edwards came on the scene.
And that first camp, fortunately, because everyone's supposed to bring everything.
So towels, which we all did.
The only thing is that Jenny was in Montana at that time.
Jenny had to stick up for some basic rule.
She was in Montana, so when I got down in the shower, I almost said, I don't have any towel.
So I charge down the hall, I says, Dave, can I use our towel?
So he says, sure.
So that was the start of the very first camp.
And we had a lot of fun and a lot of students.
Let me have the hands and see how many are here for the first time.
Oh, that's a lot of people.
How many have been here three years or more?
How many have been here four years or more?
How many have been here all nine years?
Well, I don't know.
They'll be here tomorrow.
Masashi and Yuko from Japan.
Nine years.
All the way from Japan and then every year.
And they always bring a beautiful bunch of guys, very interested people from Japan.
Every year.
Well, this is really something.
When you stop and think, it's this.
It's this.
You got people right down here in Los Angeles that don't even bother you.
And they need the camp.
Because when they get out of this camp, you're going to have a lot in your head.
It's all absolutely true.
No hotspots, no different ideas.
Everyone is here to help you.
All of the staff.
If you have a great staff, a bunch of people.
And they're going to help you.
They're going to help you.
They're going to help you.
They're going to help you.
And the staff is a great staff.
They're very informative.
They're here to help you.
Any questions?
You can ask anybody.
Same with the counselors.
They've all been studying for years.
And they're all fine players.
So ask them questions.
Discuss with them.
Nobody's here to put you down.
And don't worry about that.
I've had people call me and say, I'm not that good a player.
player. That's where you should be then. There's nobody here going to put you
down. They're only here to help. Now the court is in the camp. Did you meet, first of all,
did you meet everybody? Did you meet David Evans? Hey. There's David Evans. He's
going to do his classical work with you during the week. Fine trumpet player. Carl Lee. I know you met him, but he's up here talking. Where'd you go from out there? Dr. Miller. I'm very fortunate to have Dr. Miller. He's a fine trumpet player. He's an excellent trumpet player. Everybody, it's sad, but everybody's
judges a trumpet player about how high they can play. That doesn't mean you have good trumpet players out there. I get a kick that if someone wants to argue, play a little tiny mouth piece, and he's sitting there just screaming high notes, the
the back of the book and say, will you come up and play this? He won't get four bars. Because playing high notes isn't everything. High notes are important, but let me tell you what they write at the start. High notes are inevitable if you play correctly. I'm going to talk about that quite a bit all week long. The counselors, let's stand up. These here are
the University of Penn. Stand up. Tracy, is Tracy here? Here's Tracy. That's the counselor for the ladies. Is Rhys here? Who else are in this? Michael Peters? You've met a lot of good guys over here, I'm sure.
Another one of the staff, Bruce Hayes. Stand up, Bruce. Bruce is a marvelous trumpet player. How old were you when you went to Vegas? He went to Vegas when he was 19. He was playing first trumpet with the Goons just a few months later, at 19. So now he's up in the Bay Area teaching and playing and doing a good job.
So this is what can happen if everyone can do the same thing. Now did I miss anybody that I wanted you to do? It's here. You had some problems today and some of them are coming in tonight, so you get to do that.
Now the purpose of this camp, actually it's not to make money. If it was, it would have been great. It's a non-profit organization. We didn't intend it to be. But nevertheless, the camp goes on because our purpose is education in the right manner.
The whole purpose of the camp is to help you become a better player, a more mature player, and to help you to play easier. And that will make your work a player. That's the whole purpose of the camp.
And now it's a sad situation that some will benefit. Some will come through the whole camp and they will learn. They'll take it to heart and they'll carry it on and be better than others.
We're missing the whole camp. We'll go away and forget everything and go right back into all the things they were doing before. So take your notes. Let's see, most of you got notes back. Take notes. Listen, if there's something you don't understand, ask. That's what we're here for.
Today, it's really a situation of mass confusion about making a brass instrument work. How many of you have struggled over different years in the past? Being honest, how many have struggled without an instrument?
And torture. Like one writer made a remark, he said trumpet playing seems to be, or a trumpet seems to be an instrument designed for sheer torture. And that was in a national magazine.
That is true. When you see these young guys playing, the eyeballs are out to here. The red, blue, purple, some of them actually pass out. That's not fun. It's not fun at all. It's got gone hard. And it is torture. I know. I went through it. I went through a lot of torture.
The situation hasn't changed. Today, one bit from when I was a little kid. Thousands upon thousands playing those instruments. Take the trumpet as a good example. How many virtuosos can you count?
Just think about it. How many can you actually stand up and name right off? Virtuosos. You can count it on your hand. Now isn't that show that there's something missing somewhere? Thousands playing the instrument.
The virtuosos you can name on one hand. And did you watch those virtuosos playing? Do they look like they're struggling? Are there all the eyeballs coming out? Did they turn red to purple? It looks like it's not been good. And there isn't, if you play correctly.
That's going to be hard for a lot of you to believe because all of your life, it's been a struggle. But there's a reason for it. Now then, let's have schools. I'm passionate about the schools they have. Colleges, universities with music programs. You have more teachers than ever. You have better instruments than ever before.
And it seemed that you'd find someone that would play like the old virtuosos did. Yet, a century has passed since the virtuosos of the 1800s, late 1800s. Yet, most players today struggle to even come close to what they do.
Don't think about that. There's got to be a reason. You've got the same thing to work with they did. You've got a mouth, you've got a tongue, you've got a jaw, you've got ears, you've got a head if you use it, you've got lungs.
What did they have to do with that? Like, Charlie Cole was talking to me one day here. He's got another subject in mind. And he says, hell, it's got to be something spiritual.
I said, Charlie, that's a bunch of baloney. There's nobody up there watching him to play any more than anybody else. It's the fact that he learned to play correct along the lines, almost.
Now, there's a lot of these great virtuosos that don't know why they play that well. They have the faintest idea. I don't like to name names though, but there's one that I wish I could.
Great virtuoso. So the International Trumpet Guild decides they're going to prove something. So they asked him, they said, can we, oh, they said, if you move your tongue, will it play?
You go high, does your tongue change? He said, no, my tongue never moves. Oh, wow, they like this. Now they've got something to hang on to that will be different than what I said.
You've got to be able to play with your fingers. That's the International Trumpet Guild. Now they've got a cool point there.
He said, do you mind if we fluoroscope you for the play? Yeah. So he sat it up and he put it in the fluoroscope, and the fluoroscope came back, boy, that tongue is going all over the place.
And he said, oh, that's not me. He says, that tongue doesn't move. And I said, well, can we take another picture? Sure. He says, this time we're one.
And it stayed there. And he looked at it again. And he's not moving. And that's just what happens. Many of the great players have no idea. They have to start out.
Some way or another, they just started right. They started using their tongue in the correct manner. They breathed, you know, to say the virtuosos.
So we have absolute mass confusion. Now when they give a clinic, they'll say what they heard somebody else say.
So it's like one guy stated recently, and of course all these remarks come back to me. He says, well, the only trouble with Gordon is he's too dogmatic.
He says, he says there's only one way to play. He says there's one, one way. He says, I say there's one, one way. Gordon says, he's right.
There's two ways to play. There's a right way and there's a wrong way. And under the wrong way, well, there's many facets that grows and grows.
There's two ways to play. There's a right way and there's a wrong way. And under the wrong way, well, there's many facets that grows and grows and grows.
Most, most, later on, like father in New Jersey, they bought an instrument, they get a mouthpiece. Someone tells them to get this mouthpiece and they get it.
Now they put it up there and they go and play. That's all they think about as far as making an instrument work. From then on, it's force, force, force.
Never using your hand to think maybe there's some way that this thing works. It's only a piece of pipe. You're not going to force it to work.
You're never going to press a valve down or buy another horn or a smaller mouthpiece and have it work. That's just magic. You're the one that has to learn how to do it.
Now then, I want to get on to a little different subject tonight so I'll quickly jot it down a few days if I can close it.
How many of you have ever heard, good to see you again, how many of you have heard of it? You've got to learn to play correctly. How many have heard of it?
Isn't it strange nobody learns how to play correctly? The guy comes in, he says, I'm going to have to reflect. Well then why don't you teach him how to play correctly?
Teachers of music? That's okay. A lot of good music teachers. But how do you play that instrument correctly? That's the thing. And if you could play it correctly, you wouldn't suffer with it.
Most never learn to play correctly. As a result, they're always suffering. Vince, we're from Canada, will tell you stories about that, about professors up there and what they teach and what they write and how dogmatic they are about it.
You know, it reminds me of an article I read in DC. I'm going to read it to you. He says, some men won't give up anything rather than what they want to believe and hate you for telling them that there's nothing to believe.
Even if you prove it to them, they will continue to believe and hate you for proving you're foolish. Sometimes they give up, but they will like you no more. That's absolutely true.
You can go up and tell some people, maybe someone's been playing for 30 years, and say, you're playing incorrect and you shouldn't do this or that. They don't like you for that. I've had students come up, and they're the worst, they hate us.
Students of all the teachers, the ones that have been playing for 30, 40 years. One that comes to my mind, he's been playing for about six months. I said, well, you're doing a great answer. Well, no, not as much as I should.
Which means he's not doing well. I said, alright, let me see you do the Clark step. He's holding the horn all round, he's loosening his hand, he's got the fingers wrapped over the bow, and he's trying to practice the Clark step.
He said, my technique never gets any better. I said, well, why don't you do it the way I tell you then? I said, I tell you what to do. You go home and practice it like you have the same thing for the past 30 years. I said, do you think it's going to change because I said three or more?
And that's what happened. They don't want to change. Now, why did all this start? This acceptance of all the wrong ways that has come down in all the schools, all the teaching, why is it that this wrong way has come down all these years?
Until now, the wrong way has accepted this truth, by Jesus. Push out your stuff. Both will die. All these false teachings that still hang on, waste them out piece, two thirds on the wire, one third on the hammer, all these are ruinous teachings.
Now they're so entrenched that that's supposed to be the truth of the matter. Well, it had its roots way back. The band movement actually had its roots in the traditional Western Europe. That's where the band movement started.
Now, when we take a look, the foreign-born musicians were extremely important to the development of music in this country. They had to, because they were developed over there. Some of them like Gilmore, Leedy, Arbuckle, Fred Ives, Creador, Liberati, phenomenal players.
And this week, before the camp's over, you're going to hear some of those players. And you're going to do just like Carl did, the first time I played one of the records for him, he fell clear off the chair. He couldn't believe it. And these guys were playing back in the 1800s.
Now, when he came over here, of course, everything settled on the East Coast. The East Coast got the edge on the music education. It went up around Boston and up into Toronto. All those great hornet solos and European musicians were in that area.
Well, a lot of them came over here to teach. They wanted to make a living by teaching in the United States. The United States, outside of the East Coast, was a pretty wild country in the 1800s.
But look here, as early as 1785, there was bands in this country, in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Now, when you figure that Arby's book didn't come out until 1864, what about those brass players?
They didn't have much to learn with, did they? So they'd get the brass instruments and learn to play them by fingering them up and then force them to work the best they could. And of course, they would teach. And what would they teach?
Always the lip. Get a strong lip or you'll play it. The high lip would be strong enough. You could have a lip strong enough to lift that piano and never play above a low C. The strength of the lip doesn't have much to do with it. Of course, it has to be strong in a sense. We'll get into that this week, too.
All right, now, just about to get into this. Arby's book came out in 1864. St. Jacob's came out in 1870. There's never been a book written that can top those two books. Everything written today is based on what's in those books. Those old-timers over there knew how to play.
They followed the same thing that was followed for men. They taught music. And they'd say, well, this is going to make good excellence for the lips. And a flexible style of tongue, things like that. That doesn't tell you how to play, does it?
It doesn't. He doesn't even bother to read the instructions. You should read every word in the book. Of course, now it's dangerous because the revisers come into it and change the original text. So now it's a little dangerous. I'm going to explain that in a little bit.
If you know, by 1889, this is still 1800s. By 1889, there were 10,000 bands in the United States. That's a lot of bands, isn't it? They all had trumpet players because most of them maybe had one reed, one clarinet. The brass came out on top. The brass players had French horns, everything.
I don't care if a town in this country, every town heaven that there was, had a brass band. And it became the culture of that town. It's a shame, but tell me the story, really, because that would be great today.
He brought me part of it. So you can see how much of it is a great band culture. Today the children's made everybody lazy, you know, go out to see those things like they should. But nevertheless, 10,000 bands in 1889. Now that meant a lot of
clarinet players. When you ever saw the people, who made up those instrument players? You got out west, it was a pretty rough country. Cowboys. They heard your cattle, built fences, put up wire, did roundups all day. Let me come back and get that little clarinet out and practice a little bit and play in the band.
I would not have wanted to be a leader in those days, because I never wanted to be a leader anyway. I hate the name leader. But nevertheless, Larry Sousa, after his shot, had a picture of an old band of toys and something like that.
A bunch of old cowboys. We only had one of them that had a six-pounder in the post. I don't think it would be very healthy to be a leader in those days. But it's very interesting to see those things.
Now at this time, there was no teachers to speak of, maybe on the East Coast. The post, there was a little bit. But even though there was Lee Lee, who was probably one of the greatest that there was, there was Liberati, and those guys came over and said on the East Coast, but they really didn't teach you how to play the instrument.
They wrote some wonderful books. Lee Lee had a great look on him, but not one word of how to do it. Liberati made a few statements that are very indicative today. We'll bring those out when we get a different subject.
If you want to see all the people, how many of you seem to show a music band? 76 drum bowls. That is just the attitude of the bands in the early part of this century. It was marvelous.
I've seen a bunch of drumming bands. In fact, I knew the guy that wrote the show. They were starved. One of them was a two-player in KFI in Los Angeles when I first came out.
And he was the one, he and another guy got together and had this idea. They went back to New York. They wrote this show. And one guy told me one time, he said, I saw their office back there.
Of course, most offices in New York are not as nice as those old, old buildings. He said, they got this little room there, and they're sitting behind in this reception room, and they're talking about how can we raise $55,000 to try to get this show?
Well, the way that they eventually raised it on the show was a smash hit. So when you look at the history of what everyone went through that became successful, you might change your ideas on what it takes to become successful.
It's not going to be handed to you, you know. It hasn't been too long since the coronet was developed. Adolf Sachs invented the piston bow.
They had things like the G. Buehler. Horrible history. You know that. But Adolf Sachs put the piston bow on it, and that was only in 1840. So that's not that long ago, is it?
Actually, our coronet is a pretty new instrument. I don't remember how long ago the rotary valve was developed. Do you know anything about that?
In the 1800s.
In the 1800s again. So the tremendous development of the trumpets of those days were the most dosh-off of things you ever saw.
A little pinch of genius happens. The soloist didn't play trumpets. They were used in the symphony orchestra as percussion.
The trumpets, and even today, the symphony orchestra trumpet player is more in the percussion section than actually the soloist.
So those things should be pretty interesting to you. Now when we talk about the bands, can anyone tell me where Aldrich Montana is?
They had their own band back then. There probably was 150 people in the band. Granite Mountain Montana had a band.
And in those days, and those were rough people. And they learned to play because the musicians that came over from Europe wanted to teach and make a living.
They didn't do too well at first. They were out at St. Louis and migrated that way west. Now they were not brass players. Most of them were probably violinists.
Violinists. They are that. But what did they do? They taught music. So they would go to these small towns and they'd get all the people interested in playing and they would become their teaching.
They were the hobby figure that they taught, brass instruments. Finger this note this way, and this one this way. Now watch your intonation. Don't get it out of tune.
When you read the music at this moment, it helps you tie it this way. Now they also became the band leaders. So the band leader was always the teacher.
And we still suffer with that situation today. We have so many band leaders that are still going to try to teach you to play your instrument when they shouldn't even be telling you anything.
They should be only with the music and telling you what they want produced. But that's the way it's handed down. If they organize a lot of bands, now then this is the way I learned to play.
That was in the 1920s. My dad had a little horn, a little cornet. Looked like a blacksmith made a horn. I thought that was the greatest thing. This is what happened.
And I learned to play because he showed me to press this bar and that gets that note. I didn't even know the name of the note. The second bar was the third line.
And that's the way I learned to read before I ever knew the names of the notes. When I was eight years old, I played pretty well for a young kid.
I had a good high F at any time. I must have been doing something right. It wasn't hard. I never worried. Never did I worry. I couldn't wait to get the horn and play it.
But I decided I'd have to take lessons, of course. So I started taking lessons. That was the beginning and the end. The things I was told, like get those corners tight. Get your jaw out.
Where's your stomach out? I was playing pretty good high F. When I was going to be a good student, I did everything the teacher said. In one month I didn't have a high F anymore.
And I never got it back for about ten years. But I did learn something. I learned every contact wrong way to play that was ever devised. And I knew them all well.
I didn't break that until I finally worked at Old River Clark in the thirties. It took me three years to get me back to a key above the staff. That's how bad of a shape that was in.
But after that, all of a sudden, it started going. And then it became very, very easy to play. So all of these things, now you can't even believe what you read in a lot of the books in the histories.
If you read yourself, here's a very good book by the way called Pioneers of Brass. I don't think it's possible to get it anymore. But it's a very, it was a hobby trombonist wrote it.
And it's just marvellous, marvellous, but it's not all correct. For example, let me give you what he says here. He's talking about Herbert Clark.
There's always no pages, probably ten times more pages of Herbert Clark than any other player in every book you get. The greats, all the greats at that time generally studied with him.
And he never had a formal teacher. Never. But he figured out himself how it all worked and became the greatest of all time.
Now notice what this man says in part. He said, he began experimenting with wind control, taking his breath from the diaphragm.
And he goes on and on and on. He's talking about something about a diaphragm.
The word got into most of the books that were used. It even was in the first publications of the library. It didn't stay there that long. I noticed it.
But he never taught anything like that. And yet these guys will write that because that's their idea of what he taught.
Like he demonstrated one time at college up in Oregon that a developed player could hang his word on a string with no hands and walk up and play a high note very easily.
He told me sometime after that that he was sorry he never did. Everybody got the wrong idea and it went like wildfire through the country immediately.
Herbert Clark develops a new non-pressure system. He did not. He just was showing what could be done from a developed player.
That's when I learned that there's three tremendous means of communication. A telephone, a telegraph, and a teleprompter player.
Now there are so many that are on this thing. I'm going to show you some of the things that are taught.
And you'll recognize them. Tom, can you come up here and help me? I can't.
I got some little cameras here. You've got trumpet players hanging their horns on strings trying to play.
You've got them laying their horns on a table. They get down on their hands, knee under their knees, put their hands behind their back and try to play the trumpet.
And every time they get near it, it pushes away. And they think they've only developed something called no-pressure plan.
I want to tell you right now, there is no such thing as no pressure. It does not exist. It's one of the biggest policies that's ever been propounded.
You cannot play a brass instrument pulling that thing away from your mouth all the time.
And yet, many manufacturers have made a lot of money on the trumpet player.
A trumpet player doesn't buy anything. Anything. Especially if you tap a high note on it.
I'm talking about no-pressure, too. Have you got a horn? Yeah.
These go from way back, too. This is called the no-pressure practice.
See, everything is, the basic of all teaching today is the lip. If you've got a strong lip, you can play high.
So everybody's so concerned about the lip. That's what I was taking lessons from this guy years ago.
I never worried until I took these lessons. And then after, all of a sudden, every time I had to place them on, I got scared.
I'd get in front of the mirror and say, gee, my lip won't change, it's good.
You look in the mirror, what are you looking for? You're looking at your lip in the mirror. What are you looking for?
You know what you want to tell me? Well, what if you found it? What would you do about it?
They didn't really start for it. That's what I did. I did what I was even worried about.
Now this is the no-pressure mouthpiece. You put the mouthpiece in there.
Now you can adjust the amount of pressure you want. This is sensitive. It makes it a little nicer more.
I'll show you how it works. It's quite interesting.
When you play, if you don't use any pressure at all, they need to play pretty good. But the minute you start pressing...
Now what in the world do you think that's going to be about?
Supposing you practiced on that thing all day, what are you going to develop?
And yet, the guy says, I'm not going to do it. Now that costs a little bit of money.
Of course, you pay for it. You're trying to play. Now they're hanging weights on that horn.
This was an idiot. They put that on there, and now they're putting it in there.
Now this is supposed to cause... This causes the horn to kill up. So then the air stream is right.
Now here, let me talk about the air stream.
Now that comes out of New York. There's a good teacher in New York.
Now we've got a real good old gadget here. And this guy sells these for somewhere around $40 a piece.
See how it's sliced.
Now, I don't think we can put this in 4-3, because the whole thing on the horn...
This thing on the seat goes over to the left-hand side.
Does anybody have cheap horns?
Anybody got a bonk?
But anyway, the buzzing, that's a buzzing there. And what it does, that board of them goes over there.
The mouth goes...
I think we can break it.
No, I think it'll break off. I think it broke.
But see, the mouthpiece goes in there. And this slips on the lead pipe and clasps.
Then the guy buzzes in the mouthpiece. He's not playing. He buzzes.
And as he buzzes, that slides in, and it goes right in the horn.
And then he buzzes and goes sweet, like, yah! Yah!
And you practice on that for so many hours.
Now, there's a sequel to that.
There's a sequel to that. The guy thought so much of this idea that he had it gold-plated.
The advertisement is that now you can buzz your mouthpiece as though it were in the trumpet.
Why not just put it in the trumpet?
But no, they always try to make all this big mystery about it.
So now here's one.
Yah, now you can buzz, see?
That's what makes you a great player.
Yet how many players do you know that work on these kind of gadgets all the time?
The international musician is loaded with those ads.
And the ads are in there year after year after year, so you know somebody's buying them.
Now then, here's a game.
The name is great. It's called the Brute.
This is in the school stuff.
Now, the advertisement says,
buzz on your mouthpiece while it's in your instrument. Now, isn't that nice?
Warm up more quickly and extend your range.
Buzz at the same angle and resistance as when playing.
Learn to blow between notes. Now we're sliding.
Now, when you really analyze that, if you think a little bit, wouldn't it be much more sensible
just to put the mouthpiece in the horn and practice?
That's what you're going to be working on.
Now, this is an ingenious game. It's just like the receiver on your board.
But notice the end is stopped up. There's no opening.
Then there's two little holes coming out the side.
You put that in the horn. You put the mouthpiece in it, and it buzzes.
And what?
. . .
Everybody, there's several schools I know of, and every trumpet student in that school
asks to buy them if he's going to study in that school.
Isn't that right, Jeff?
Jeff going to one school where they have it.
You know how much I knew.
Now then, we have another one.
There's a Frenchman there.
I think you met him from Las Vegas. He came to town one year.
Oh, that poor guy was so screwed up.
I hear what he was in. This is the only thing.
The mirror.
Now, if you've got a cell, but don't clamp it too tight, because that's a very thin meat layer.
Now, now you can watch your rhythm.
The reason I happen to have one of these is because the manufacturer sent me a whole box of them,
and I wanted to know if I'd endorse it.
I don't know if you can imagine.
The answer was,
I'm going to put those carefully away so we don't ruin it.
Now then.
Now then, these are the things that you all know.
I haven't told you anything I'm sure you haven't seen.
But you all know, and this is what's being taught.
So is it any wonder that there's mass confusion?
Now, Ernest Williams, he studied with Clark, was all the great players did at that time,
and he put out a very good book.
The book came out about 1922.
And he makes some very good statements in there.
How many of you have one with you?
All right, if you do, turn the page or how many of you don't?
How many have one with you?
When you get to page 108, under the heading items,
when we are in tune with nature's requirements,
the playing of items on a porno cover is not difficult.
Now if you haven't read that, or have you ever read it?
I bet there's no one in the room who's ever read it, but it's in there.
But what would you think of that statement?
There was a great player and a great genius.
Turned out a phenomenal number of fine players.
What would you think of that statement?
Anyone have an answer?
And if you go home and find out when you get up to a high seat
or you're driving yourself crazy, someone's wrong, either you or him.
If one has trained properly and has cultivated the correct method of production,
one toy is virtually as easy to produce as another.
He's absolutely right.
Now if you're going to play easily and correctly,
you've got to let this get in your head and understand it.
It's not the torture that everyone has told you over the years.
The only thing is, the one that has the trouble believing it
is the guy in a stage band.
He's the first number of players that wants to be the final hero by next week.
It's not going to happen that quick.
You've first got a lot of finals.
What are the natural requirements?
Let's take a look at Clarksville.
On the ninth study, they already have one.
Now not the new edition, because Saturday some advisors have got a hold of it.
They're having one of the big competitions with the official right now
and they're putting it back where it was.
He has here a study where the chromatics,
from low F start to high D and back down, four times and one breath.
I get a kick out of asking a student who's never studied much
to play down four times and one breath.
He ends up low G to high G and back down four times and one breath.
Now notice what he says.
No strain is necessary if played properly.
What do you suppose he meant?
Does anyone give me an idea?
If you develop the things that nature intends to use,
you've got to stay within the forces of nature.
Scientists, astronauts, not the astronauts,
but the scientists who make the machine, mathematicians, doctors,
and Dr. Ritter can get me out on this.
They all must stay within the natural laws of the universe.
How does an airplane fly?
I don't care how big it is, a Leukean or a 747.
They all fly exactly the same way.
Four natural forces.
The only difference is the size.
Are they flying by gravity, lift, thrust, and drag?
Four natural forces.
But supposing when they took off, they got up about 300 feet,
all those forces changed.
That'd be pretty disastrous to take off with them.
They wouldn't fly anymore.
But they don't change because they're the laws of the universe.
Everybody has to stay within those laws
except the brass player.
You know, you can find out what the laws are.
But there are seven natural laws that make that instrument work.
And I don't care who the player is,
he's doing it exactly the same way whether he realizes it or not.
I don't care if the horn's going up, down, sideways,
if it's over on the side of his mouth, in the middle, or what he's doing.
If he's a fine player, he's doing it exactly the same as every other fine player.
What works inside the mouth is exactly the same.
First of all, you've got to get over the lip fold.
The lip doesn't play the horn.
And we'll get into that much more on another day
when we're on the subject of the lip by itself.
There's a school magazine.
I think Mike will recognize it.
It's a big article.
Now, what's a young fellow going to do with a little girl
when they start out with this kind of information?
Eliminating pressure and conflict performance.
It has that whole article.
That young player is getting off to a horrible start
that will probably be many years before he ever recovers.
The same magazine, the one they're reading on this,
up in the front here,
Mouth Leaves Pressure and the Blast Way of Life.
This dude has done this article by the way.
You guys at the bottom have no idea what they're talking about.
They're just talking.
But how many poor young players are going to suffer
because they try that?
There's even pictures in here.
Demonstrates the minimum in pressure grip.
You guys know what it is.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
In the 1920s, here comes a book out on lip science.
You've got pictures of proper formation of the lip.
That's where the air is supposed to move up and down.
How do you know when the air is going in the mouth?
Basically, where do you care?
It doesn't make a bit of a difference.
If you devoted two weeks to lip formation
and producing the buzzing sound,
we should learn how to change the pitch of this buzzing sound.
This goes on and on and on.
But what you've got to do is learn to play within the forces
that make the machine work.
The pipe doesn't make it work. You do.
This brings up the point too.
They teach you now, well, you're going to be a jazz player
or a symphony player.
What do you care what music you're going to play?
First of all, you've got to make the hard work.
Then you apply it to any kind of music you want.
One great master one time said,
without technical proficiency, there can be no music.
He was absolutely right.
So first of all, you have to make the instrument work
and work easily.
Then you can play music of any kind you want.
When you play in the studios, when they call you in,
one day you've got a symphony player.
The next day you've got a big swingin' jazz band.
Maybe the same night you've got a mystery show to play
with maybe five or six pieces.
And it's all live.
No tape, not in those days.
A lot of guys died of heart attacks after that question.
But there was no tape, and you didn't dare miss.
I lost myself.
What was I talking about?
Or now.
Do you think when the conductor or conductor calls you,
he's thinking, well, now wait a minute.
Does he play symphony or does he play?
No, you're a trumpet player.
And he calls you.
You better play.
If you couldn't play,
there'd be somebody else in your chair
that would have a hand to show you.
So you've got to be the player.
Now then, if you want to play symphony, that's wonderful.
There's nothing wrong with symphony if you like it.
It's wonderful to play.
There's some marvelous things to play.
But there's nothing wrong with jazz either.
There's one of the professors in one school
got up the other day and he says,
well, the jazz players do it this way,
but the symphony players do it this way.
That's not true.
It's the same no matter what you're going to play.
What did you go to play?
When I first saw Dave Evans.
When I first saw Dave.
One teacher that he'd gone to before Dave
was having a time attack.
One teacher he'd gone to had him on a little tiny mouthpiece
so he could play jazz in the hangers.
How'd that feel, Dave?
Now it's very common practice that a guy will come in
and he'll have a whole box of mouthpieces
to play a job with.
It's ridiculous.
You don't need a bunch of mouthpieces to play a job.
You play one mouthpiece.
You do it.
Every time you change a mouthpiece, you get shot down.
All right, now what are the seven natural items?
Number one, wind power.
And don't ever forget, because when you start getting old,
that wind power is going to start diminishing
and it's going to get harder to play.
I was talking to you on race day,
probably one of the best players of many generations,
and he says, you know what?
I'm going to play.
He said, come on.
After about 10 minutes, I'm wasted.
He's probably one of the strongest endurance players
of all types throughout the 32 years
first job with an MGM.
And I said, no.
That happened to everybody.
Once you get that old, you shouldn't play anymore.
You don't have to prove yourself twice.
If you've been a great player, why should you have to do it over again?
Mendez made the mistake of doing it too long.
I talked to some young students in college.
I heard Mendez.
He doesn't play that good.
I said, listen, he never heard Mendez play.
And he shouldn't have kept on because he was sick
and he was old, and he couldn't play like he did.
The point is when he played when he was a young guy,
it was a spirit of the dead.
He was a phenomenal player.
So you can't go away how a guy plays after a certain time.
Clark quit when he was 50.
He would not play professionally after 50.
And yet he was known as the most phenomenal
high-mode artist of all time.
At the turn of the century, he was playing triple high seats,
not hit them, playing them.
And during the week, I'm going to show you his mouthpiece,
show you what he was playing on.
I'm going to show you his mouthpiece.
I'm going to show you Del Stager's mouthpiece.
I'm going to show you mine.
We're going to see just what makes these things work.
OK.
Wind power.
I'm not talking about how loud you play.
That's the power that makes this machine work.
Number two, the tongue.
We'll get into that in a few seconds.
Without a tongue, you could not play a brass instrument.
It would be impossible.
And yet there's many today that will say,
no, no, you can't use your tongue to shut the air out.
That stems from their lack of knowledge of how you use it.
So the tongue is vital.
Number three, wind control.
I put that number three because you can't control something
if you have enough.
So you have to develop the power first, then the control.
Number four, the lips.
The lips vibrate, period.
That's how I leave it.
The lips themselves can't get high enough.
They can't get low enough.
All they can do is vibrate.
In the new book, I helped reproduce the letter of Clark
wrote to me in 1936 when I was telling all my problems
and waiting for the magic word.
And he wrote me back a letter.
And in that, you see it in the book.
He says, the lips do not play the cornet.
They only act as a vibrating needle.
It is absolutely right.
And this has been proven to me so many thousands of times,
not only just in my playing career,
but also with the students.
I've had hundreds and hundreds of students, all over the world,
if they stay with it and do that.
The one that comes for six months, maybe a year,
he's not going to make it because it takes a year
to undo all these bad ideas that are stuck up here so hard
that you can't get rid of them.
OK, the lips, now the facial muscles.
That's the muscles, the lip and the face.
The purpose of those is to hold the lips in place
so that they will keep vibrating.
And we'll get into that in a little bit.
They have to be very strong.
The face muscles, I'm not going to talk much about lip muscles.
It's the face structure.
They have to be very strong and very agile.
That brings up a gadget I couldn't find,
but I'll bring it up later in the week.
The mouthpiece visualizer.
How many of you have ever seen the mouthpiece visualizer?
This is a gadget that's just the rim of a mouthpiece
with a stamp on it so you can hold it up and look at you.
Later on in the week, I'm going to hold one up.
I'm going to have some of it come up and show you now.
What do you see?
Everyone will look different.
Everyone.
And it doesn't mean a thing.
And yet, that's become a big thing now.
Everybody has a mouthpiece visualizer.
Then you'll see pictures of obishers in books.
This is sort of those obishers.
This is so and so's obishers.
You've seen those, haven't you?
You ever see two look alike?
So what's that going to tell you?
Then at the end of some of those books,
it'll say, good luck.
And I'd like to say right now,
that luck doesn't have a hot-con thing to do
with playing a brass instrument.
If you're going to go by luck, you better quit right now.
It's a common sense development.
Now, the next thing, facial muscles.
Fingers of the world.
We'll get into that.
Not much discussion.
And then the left hand, which holds the horn.
I see horns being held.
I can't believe how they're being held.
Tom, where's your horn?
Where's your horn?
Tom hasn't been running around enough today.
Poor Tom.
He and Kemp worked so hard at camp later.
Last year, Kemp used to come up.
There's a little place up here right under the camp.
Kemp would come up like this.
Tell him to hang out here.
Can I sit down with him?
He's running all over this camp process.
I see guys like that one, yes?
Like this?
Like this?
I had a little fellow in the clinic one time with me
the last time he talked about holding his horns.
Well, Maynard holds his horn like this.
I said, fine.
When you play as well as Maynard, you hold it any way you want.
But until that time, you hold it right.
Now, we'll get into that during the week, too.
But now, let's get back to the first item.
The camp.
That's what we want to start with, man.
Tell me, I want you to do something.
You got any books around here?
Or right here?
I've got a lot of case records.
Kemp, where's that case record?
Don't drop it.
Give it into this tomorrow in detail.
Tonight, Mr. Edge will get set up
and let you realize that most of the teaching
you've been getting for years you've been playing
has been peronious.
And you're not alone.
I was the same way.
Like I told you, I learned every wrong way in the book.
This was all I couldn't play.
But I wasn't going to give up.
Now...
You talk, you hear much talk, don't you, about the diaphragm?
We're going to really get into that tomorrow.
Now...
As a result of this, they got you pushing out your stomach
and they got you doing all kinds of things.
Lay down with me, man.
Have you ever heard of any...
They tell you that the great singers,
that they lay on the floor and pile books on their stomach?
Now, that's supposed to develop your breathing.
Go ahead.
Do you forbid it?
Can you concede one thing that that's going to help you develop?
Wind.
Can you?
That's what they're teaching.
I just want you to realize,
and as brass players, to think a little bit.
Brass players don't think.
They go by emotion.
Then they'll have somebody...
Oh, man, that guy plays...
I don't ever play like that.
That's a terrible attitude.
If he plays great, say, boy, he's a great player.
I don't want to play like that.
Don't be negative.
I'm going to hit you with that all week, too.
Negativeness is...
There's no place for negatives in the brass band.
I'm going to give you the next signs that you're going to get
the most hungry breathing point.
Carl.
Just one?
Andy.
You're handling, Dave?
You and Carl?
I'm reading it.
Okay.
Well, I think you're going to make it.
You're going to like it.
Now, I want you to...
I want you to do something.
I want you to stand up.
Everyone of you stand up.
Now, this is not some gimmick
that's going to do anything for you.
I just want you to feel what happens.
Drop your hands down.
Relax.
And put your palms forward.
All right?
Now, be very honest with yourself and watch.
I'm going to show you the first one that you do.
I want you to pull those arms back like this.
And take a big breath while you do it.
All right?
Let's start going up.
Drop your arms.
Now, take that big breath.
Pull your arms back.
Where did you feel the air go?
Okay.
Let's do it again.
Drop your arms.
Take a breath.
Where did you feel?
The lungs.
It's impossible to get air in your stomach.
If you got air in your stomach, you'd get sick.
That's where you put your food.
Now, what if you went through that?
What if you went through that?
Now, what if you went through the back dishes
and he'd say, well, get your lungs up
and put your food in your lungs?
That'd be dumb, wouldn't it?
That's what we're talking.
All right, now, tomorrow you're going to get breathing exercise.
Go outside.
But right now, I want you to let your chest up like that.
And take a few breaths.
And breathe your chest out.
All right, now, when you take a big, full breath,
don't lean back.
Now, you'll be like this.
You can do anything.
Take a breath.
Comfortable.
How many times have I said, sit up?
More air.
More air.
Oh, fine.
It's all for you.
Comfortably full.
Okay.
Now, you can talk more.
You can be relaxed.
It's not shoulders up.
It's just good posture.
How many of you are ever in army training?
The older guys.
What did they do when that old sergeant came out
that you're hitting him?
And he'd come out and say, get those shoulders back!
Well, he was right.
That's good posture.
But what do you see the kids walking today?
You're not even going to be healthy
if they want to be brass bladders.
Okay.
All right.
That should get us started.
Now, you can sit down and relax.
Now, tomorrow we're starting out.
We've got the comedy after camp.
You have to schedule what happens at this thing.
I don't want to hear one ball buzzing
about for you.
Okay.
Okay.
At seven o'clock, we have breathing exercises.
Everybody meets up in front.
Seven o'clock, Dave.
Okay.
Then at about 7.15 to 8.15, breakfast.
Then the lecture.
Class.
Nine o'clock in the morning.
Right after that, you have a short break.
Then we have a practical application
at 10.45 or thereabouts.
Lunch starts at noon in one of your towns.
So it's changed a little bit.
It goes to about 1.15.
Sometimes it's even better not to get there
right at the beginning because it's just a mall.
Then...
I don't think there's food right here.
Yeah.
There's no food.
No, I want to get some.
Then two o'clock, we have Larry Miller
giving his lecture.
Right?
Two o'clock.
It's on your schedule.
Doesn't it?
The schedule is pretty close.
I don't think it will happen this week.
Subject to change.
Okay.
And then 3.30 is open.
Then we have Carly to 4.30.
Good morning.
Breathing exercise is now at 7.15.
Let's go.
Let's go to 7.30.
Let's go to 7.30.
Let's go to 7.30.
Oh, really?
Let's go to 7.30.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay, breakfast is in the morning.
I need that.
We need exercises before that.
We'll have a day off then.
Okay, so then Carly is at 4.30.
Dinner is at 5.30.
Then at 7 o'clock, we have Ted Weiser
from the cell phone company coming over.
He's going to be discussing what...
Manufacturing.
Manufacturing of energy.
And then we have Paul Witt,
who's not here yet.
He gives a lecture at 5.
I'll have to mention something about Paul Witt.
He started with the...
He's been involved with us guys.
And he's been studying for quite a few years.
He's becoming a very fine,
noted motion picture
of energy production.
The reason he got here tonight is
he's been working on a picture and he couldn't get out of it.
So these are the kinds of things we see
at home.
Advancing, becoming tops in their field.
And it's very gratifying.
Now remember, I want you to know
I know you all look wasted and tired.
I know you're tired.
I want you to have a good time this week.
Remember, we're here to enjoy
this instrument.
We're here to help everybody.
We're here to help...
I'm not here to put anyone down.
I'm not here to put another teacher down.
I don't care how they teach. That's their business.
But you're here to find out
the right way to play easily.
And that's what it is.
So I want you to enjoy the week.
Ask questions.
And we're here to help.
That's it.
Okay?
Applause