Claude Gordon Brass Camp 1990 - Claude Gordon on The Tongue with Tom Brozene

We woke up this morning listening to the Sophia Symphony, and it was great.
They brought us all tapes. Incidentally, they brought us a couple nice little scrapbooks to see.
Have you got them there, Pat? You want to enjoy looking at them.
They're from Japan, they're from that symphony orchestra, which has all CG summer trumpets, all CG personal mouthpieces.
So it was a little interesting to see.
Alright, today, we've got some chalk. I need a blackboard.
Y'all got your chocolates with you?
There's a chalk right here.
Alright, have we got the picture in the machine?
Slide projector? Slide projector?
Huh?
Slide projector?
Yeah.
Okay, now, it takes a while in the morning.
If there ever was a secret to brass playing, it's the top.
And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Now, we're going to start out, hold on.
We're going to go through a few little demonstrations that you're going to do,
and I want you to prove to yourselves the importance of this top.
Now, the reason it's a secret, I don't believe that it was meant to be.
I think it just came about because of lack of understanding.
And the fact that the lip phobia got in front of everything
so that nobody ever got to the realization of what the top is doing.
And people have different conceptions.
They'll say, well, I eat the tip of my tongue or this.
Now, there's several things that we have to think about when we think of the tip of the tongue,
and I'll get at that in a minute.
Right now, I want every one of you to say, ah.
Now, don't go, ooh, ah.
Good.
Now, do it again, and then I want you to tell me, little by little,
where is the very tip of your tongue when you say, ah?
When you say, ah.
Okay, anyone want to tell me?
It's from my tongue to the top of my bottom teeth.
Right. When you say, ah, that tongue is right there against the lower teeth.
And the back of the tongue or the center is kind of flat, right?
All right, now say, ee.
Now, where is the tip of your tongue?
The tip.
Anybody else?
Where is the tip resting?
Now, take a look at it in your mind and say, ee, where is the tip?
Still on the bottom teeth, isn't it?
Now go, ah, ee, ah, ee, ah, ee, ah, ee.
Where is the tip?
Anybody?
Still against the lower teeth, isn't it?
Now, Harlan was right over 130, 140 years ago in the book,
and nobody saw this, and when they did, they put their own interpretation on it.
Here's the lower teeth.
There's your tongue.
Now, Harlan said the tongue has a to and fro motion.
That would be to, fro, to, fro, right?
Ah, ee, ah, ee, but you notice the tip isn't moving.
The tongue is going, ah, ee, ah, ee, ah, kind of rocking on that tip.
So, as I say, each one that read that, because that's all he says,
he doesn't explain it in detail.
It's very difficult to explain it in a book.
Yeah, but if you go through this, I want each one of you to see it,
then you prove it to yourself.
I want you to prove it to yourself.
I can tell you.
I want you to prove it to yourself.
Ah, ee, ah, ee, ah, ee, ah, ee, right?
All right, now I want you to say ah to everybody.
Ah.
Now, try to say ee, but don't let that tongue budge.
Lock it right there.
Ah.
Now try to say ee.
Ah.
It's not going to say ee, is it?
So what makes the syllable actually change from ah to ee?
The tongue.
The tongue.
If that tongue doesn't move, the syllable isn't going to change.
Now, stop and think a little bit.
The importance of that tongue.
How many movements that tongue makes to say a sentence?
Even the count, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Say it, do that, and watch that tongue in your mouth.
Now, if you couldn't, if you didn't have a tongue, you couldn't talk.
And when a baby's born, they can't talk, can they?
But pretty soon it learns to say mama, daddy.
And how does it say it?
Movement of the tongue.
That is natural.
And the baby learns it by feel.
It's meant to work that way.
Now, an old form of torture, hundreds of years ago, was to cut off a person's tongue.
Never could talk again.
Because the syllables wouldn't change.
Isn't it amazing how man over the years learned to be so brutal and torturous to this fellow man by doing things like that?
And just imagine what that would do.
Without a tongue, you could not play a brass instrument.
Now, notably, I need you.
Is that your horn?
Yeah.
Now, you want to think about that and do it yourself and learn to see what that tongue's doing in your mouth.
And you'll notice that the correct position of the tongue, the front of that tongue is always on the lower teeth.
All right, now then, several ways you can test this and prove to yourself.
Take the trumpet and the French horn and the trombone, all the same.
Take the trumpet and play me an A flat in the staff and then smear an arpeggio to the A flat on top of the staff.
And when you get to the top A flat, hold it.
While you're holding it, look to see where that tongue is and tell me where the tongue is and where the tip of the tongue is.
Where's the tip?
Right there on the bottom.
On the bottom teeth.
And where's the rest of the tongue?
Right here.
Right.
It gets conformed, it hasn't.
Now, so I don't forget to make the statement I want to make.
Now, your plane is all going to be in the front of your mouth.
Now, let's take a look at those slides.
And they're in the brass plane.
You want to bring the speed up?
Yeah.
Which one do you want first, boss?
Correct?
Yeah, put the correct first.
Can you turn to the other way?
Dr. Miller got me these.
They're drawn by a medical artist, so they're correct.
Notice, here's your lower teeth.
And here's the tongue.
Now, the tongue is just resting there in the drawing.
The question's a little plain.
The tip of the tongue would be here.
Now, notice that the tongue rises here.
Look at the throat.
It doesn't affect the throat at all.
And yet, you'll find so many theories that'll say,
open your throat.
Your throat is not affected at all if the tongue is used correctly.
And this is in the, as I said, in the brass plane book, too.
But notice, in the front of your mouth, that is where, now,
Bert Clark made this statement.
The tongue rising in the mouth to make the mouth shallow
is the knack of getting high tones.
So this is where your high tones are produced, right here.
Now, as this tongue comes forward, you don't worry about the throat.
It doesn't affect that at all.
In fact, you can't close your throat.
The only thing you can do is move your tongue against that thing.
Now, it's E.
You're saying E as in the word C.
I've changed that to SI because it has a little better effect.
Say, every one of you say C.
C.
Now, where's the tip of your tongue?
Still on your lower teeth, isn't it?
Now, when you say C, where does the tongue raise?
Right on those gums, isn't it?
Right in the front of your mouth.
C.
So E as in the word C is correct.
Now, where the critics get their erroneous ideas,
turn that over to the next one.
They visualize the movement of the tongue incorrectly.
Now, they say E like this.
E in the back of the mouth.
Now, this you've got to really differentiate in your mind
because if you're trying to raise the tongue and say E,
like some books will even come out and say E, E,
certainly that will stop up the air.
It's not going to do a thing.
And that does close the throat, right there.
That's E there, too.
Up here, where you need the resistance, it's wired over.
There is none.
The tongue rising in the mouth to make the mouth shout
is the knack of playing high tones.
Now, someone will say, well, I can't get the tongue any higher.
It's up as high as it'll go.
You don't worry about that.
It doesn't keep going up here.
It raises forward in the mouth.
Instead of going up higher, it'll come forward.
So that once again, all you're playing is in the front of your mouth,
never in the back.
And when you read these books and instructions that say E, E,
that is incorrect.
You've got to learn to watch this because when you first try it,
many will go E back there, like that.
And that's wrong.
Forget the back of that thing.
Always in the front.
Ah, E, E. Like in C.
Understand?
Now, really think about that because if you're doing it incorrect,
it's never going to work.
When you get it up there, it's so easy.
Okay, you all understand that now.
Let me see it.
Now I want to use the blackboard.
So what do we do with the tongue?
Now, Liberati, in his book, which is long gone,
but he made a marvelous statement.
He said, the very tip of the tongue.
Now, see, the tip of the tongue encompasses a little area.
The very tip.
Now, can you see the difference?
Would be right there, the very tip.
Now, if you looked at your tongue from the top of it,
it would look something like a skateboard.
Not bad.
That's just general.
The very tip.
The very tip is right there.
Now, Liberati, in his book, and I used to photocopy him
and hand this out, but I don't have that today,
so you have to remember it.
He said, the very tip of the tongue
never rises above the lower teeth.
Now, that would mean that tip is always kind of pivoting there.
Now, some books come out and they say,
well, that's anchored tongue.
No.
That's a very poor word.
Anchor means anchor something.
Hold it there.
You don't.
The tongue is always flexible.
Clark made a much better remark.
He said, my tongue rests slightly on the lower teeth.
So the very tip.
Now, here's your teeth, your lower teeth.
The very tip is about right there.
Now, it's never down here on the gums.
In other words, it would not be like this.
Now, the back is going to come up.
You don't want that.
The very tip, it can be up as much as right on the edge of those teeth.
At times, when I've been playing extremely high,
it's been almost on the top of the lower teeth.
And then I sometimes would get the vibration off the lip
and just tickle so bad on the tongue you could hardly play.
So that just shows where the very tip of that tongue is.
Think of that now, because if you don't, it's not going to work.
The very tip of the tongue, the very tip, never rises above the lower teeth.
Now, St. Jacob tried to explain that, too, but he used the words see, see, see, see.
That's what it sounded like.
When your tongue tee-tee-tee-tee, it almost starts out as a tee-tee-tee-tee
when you first start it.
Now then, can everybody see this?
Okay, now, there's the very tip.
That's still the tip.
And that's where your tongue is.
It's right behind the very tip.
The very tip is right there.
And now your tongue is right behind it.
Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.
Actually, when your tongue, it feels like the tongue sometimes is striking the upper teeth or the gum.
Tee-tee-tee, like that.
Can y'all see that?
That is why some players say, oh, no, I tongue on my upper teeth.
My tongue is always on the, and some teachers will teach you tongue on the upper teeth,
and everybody will understand that as putting the tip on the upper teeth, the very tip.
Tee-tee-tee, that's no good.
The tip is on the lower teeth, and you're tonguing right behind that very tip.
Try that, everybody.
Put the tip of your tongue on your lower teeth, on the top edge of your lower teeth,
and leave it there, and then say, tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.
You see where you're actually tonguing?
And that will make you understand when they say your tongue on the upper teeth.
But it's not the very tip, is it?
Now, I have named that.
They've got many names around the country for that.
I call it K-Tongue Modified.
The reason why, if you say, tee-tee-tee-tee-tee, where's the tip of your tongue?
It's right there on the lower teeth.
Now, if you say, tee-tee-tee-tee-tee, and then change it to tee-tee-tee,
you're going, tee-tee-tee-tee-tee-tee-tee-tee, the tip still stays there.
So it's a modification of K-Tongue, isn't it, in a sense?
So I've used that name just to make it understood.
If you said, are you tonguing that?
The students say, yeah, I'm tonguing it.
But that doesn't tell me how he's tonguing it, does it?
So if I say, are you using K-Modified, tee-tee-tee-tee, yeah, that means the tip is down there.
You could call it Clark Tonguing or some other name to identify it.
That is the way you tongue everything.
That becomes your proper tonguing.
Now, if you could see some players, like, again, who's the guy that bends his bell up?
Yeah.
There's a picture of him up in Larry Sousa's shop, and he's, big smile on his face,
and you can see his tongue.
Boy, that tip is right down on that lower teeth, like that.
That's why, for years back in the 30s, that guy scared everybody with his ability to get over the horn
and his extreme range.
And I'm sure that that's how guys like Cordier and those guys, their tongue doesn't actually work that way.
Now, if there was a great French trumpet player that you'd be very good to try and imitate
because he's a marvelous player.
But he came over, and the ITG would like to prove things out, and they asked him,
did your tongue move when you're going from low to high?
He says, no, my tongue never moves.
It just lays right there.
And they thought they had it this time.
So they said, well, can we photocopy, first of all, when you play, so we can watch your tongue.
So they did, and boy, that tongue is just like this.
And he said, no, that's not me. My tongue doesn't move like that.
So I said, well, we'll do it again and mark it so that we can't make a mistake.
So they did it again.
When they finished, it moved in the same way.
He looked at it and he said, I did not know that.
So he was doing it that way all the time.
That's what was making things easy for him, but he had no idea.
He was self-taught.
He learned to play cornet in the coal mines over there.
He played in the coal mine band.
He just happened to do it correctly.
As a result, he just advanced all the time.
Now, some do this and they call them naturals.
You ask them how they do it, they don't know.
It just worked.
And that's what they call when he's a natural.
He's no more natural than you or I.
It's only that it happened to work right.
His mouth is identical, the same as yours.
His tongue is identical.
His lungs are the same.
You've got everything to work with that he has
if you learn to use it correctly.
That's the way nature intended it.
If you ever watch that tongue on a fluoroscope,
you talk like, oh boy, the tongue's like a snake.
How many of you have heard that phrase?
The tongue's like a snake.
Your tongue is probably faster than a snake's tongue.
Some do a scene that catches a fly or something.
But yours is going like this all the time when you talk.
It's unbelievable how that tongue moves.
So it's like the guy said his wife couldn't talk that day.
He said, what's the matter?
He said, well, she was at the beach all day
and she got her mouth sunburned.
Because women talk a lot, you know.
So anyway, all right, now Tom, you'll do it.
Without a tongue, you could not play a brass instrument.
Remember that.
The tongue, I would say, outside of wind power,
which makes everything go, or wind power is the force.
The tongue, that's the secret.
That's how all these high notes are produced.
That's what they call flexibility.
That's just moving of the tongue.
They say, well, lip flexibility.
Well, sure.
The lip has to go along with it.
But that's more facial muscles than anything else.
The tongue is the vital part of playing.
Now, do that again.
Play up to your A-play.
All right.
All right.
Now, you can see where your tongue is.
The tips on the very edge of the lower teeth, right?
Now, I want you to do it again.
And this time, hold that top A-flat.
Don't let the tongue budge.
First of all, take a look where the tongue is.
Hold the A-flat.
Now, lock the tongue.
Don't you let it move.
And try to drop down to your first line, E-flat.
A-flat.
Now, lock the tongue.
And drop down.
That should be easy, shouldn't it?
Let's try it again.
That's more easy than coming over there.
That tongue is set for a particular note.
In this case, it's an A-flat.
That's the only note that will come out.
No matter what you do,
I don't care if you blow your brains out,
you move the lip every way you can,
that will stay on A-flat
until you change the position of the tongue.
Let's do it again.
And still try to come down.
Don't come down.
All right.
All right.
Now, do it again.
And let it come back.
So easy.
What happened?
It came out.
Why?
Relaxed everything.
Yeah.
The tongue drops in.
It's actually what he did with ta-da-da-dee-ah.
Say that.
Ta-da-da-dee-ah.
That's what the tongue does.
All right.
Now, if you don't drop the tongue,
that note will not change.
You can't come down any more than you can't go up.
Ta-da-da-dee-ah.
There it goes.
And it will drop right down.
It's so easy when you do it correctly.
That's the way we're made.
That's natural.
All right.
Now, you can't go up either.
So you can't go anyway.
When the tongue is in position for any given note,
that's the only note that's going to come out.
Now, therefore, through practice,
you learn the feeling, the position of that note
for an octave above.
That's the only note that will come out.
No matter what you do, that's the only note.
But you've got to learn the feel,
where that tongue is going to be.
So, therefore, an A-flat's easier.
So if the tongue is in the right place,
where the A-flat above,
it's going to be just as easy as that one.
Because that's the only note that will come out.
Then you have to learn the control to read,
just so you can go all over.
Understand?
Now, any questions?
Now, take your horn after a while,
and remember this,
and prove to yourself what that tongue's doing.
And you've got to be very honest,
because you'll get some guys who go up,
and they're not really watching,
and they'll say, no, I didn't move.
But it does.
So you've got to watch that carefully.
All right, now let's see.
Okay, let's take a low C.
Hold that low C until you can picture where your tongue is,
and where the very tip is resting.
HONK
Where's the very tip?
It's resting right behind the bottom.
Right.
You notice, whenever you can mention it,
you notice that chest was up.
It isn't.
That's what's going to happen.
All right, now,
the tongue was kind of flat, right?
It was actually saying all.
All right, now do that again,
and move from C to G.
That's easy to remember.
C, G, C, G, C, G.
Put them in your head.
HONK
What's the tone of it?
It's going back and forth.
Right.
Now I'm going to try that again,
but don't let the tongue budge.
HONK
Don't work.
Unless that tongue moves,
that pitch will not change.
Just like this.
It's the syllable, isn't it?
Say...
And that tongue comes up.
Now, where does it rise, Tom?
Right.
It's not back here, is it?
It's not...
Now remember that,
because you can practice that all year,
and you'll be so frustrated.
That's not it.
Right in the front.
Okay?
Now then,
a book came out by a very bad player,
and he said,
it's not the chop's band, it's the air.
So his idea was that
he was going to go up and just pull out.
All right?
Let's take the little C,
over how loud you can get on that.
But crescendo, that C,
as loud as you can,
lock the tongue.
Don't let it move off of all.
It didn't go up, did it?
Anyone would say,
well, she's got to go up and blow stronger.
But it didn't.
Unless he moves the tongue.
Now, if you could go higher,
by just blowing louder,
how would you ever make a crescendo
and stay on the same note?
Every time you blow stronger,
it would go up, wouldn't it?
But see, that tongue holds that pitch
where it belongs.
See, blow as loud as you want,
and it will not go up.
Until what?
Until you move the tongue.
Let's try that again.
Take a G,
and crescendo as loud as you can,
but don't let the tongue move on.
It didn't go up, did it?
It just gets distorted.
All right, now they say,
well, now, if you go up,
you squeeze the lip.
The lip's got to be very strong.
So you squeeze the lip.
Won't come over.
There's no idea how he plays.
One of the greatest players in the country.
And he says, well,
you put the lips,
and you make this hole smaller.
And that makes you go higher.
All right?
Now, I want you to blow as loud as you can.
Squeeze that lip together.
You've got a strong lip.
I want you to go higher.
Squeeze the lip, and go higher.
But don't let the tongue budge.
What happens when you squeeze the lip?
It shuts it off again.
You go away,
then you go higher by the lip.
The lip, and we'll get to that,
it only vibrates.
That's all.
Try to go higher,
it shuts off the vibration.
Like they say,
another case that we'll get to mention tomorrow,
many teachers say,
well, you put the horn up,
you say the letter M,
and start playing.
You say M,
now you're going,
nothing's going to vibrate.
Try that.
Say M,
and try to attack or no.
So you see how silly those theories are.
The lip didn't play the horn.
All right, now,
how do all these trumpet players do these
marvelous exhibitions of this show?
That's the tongue.
Tom, how do you feel about playing?
Lots of those loud notes, huh?
All right.
Now then,
Walter Smith.
Anybody have Walter Smith's book?
Do you have it?
Take it.
Thank you.
Yeah, he's just,
that's a good place to talk.
Your lip trill,
it's not a lip trill.
It's done with the tongue.
As fast as you can wiggle that tongue,
you can trill.
If the tongue doesn't move,
you don't have a trill at all.
There's no,
could you ever move that lip fast enough to get a trill?
When you really think about it,
it's easy to see.
Now, let's try one more thing.
Every one of you, whistle.
And go from a low,
I can't, my mouth's too dry out.
And then, whistle loud.
All right, now,
let's whistle loud one more time.
Everybody.
There's one little tongue.
Okay.
Now, where's your tongue?
Same place, ain't there?
From the bottom of your mouth.
Now, go, whistle.
Ah-ee, ah-ee, like that.
Yeah, that's great.
What's your tongue doing?
It's the same thing, isn't it?
All right, now, whistle the low note,
and try to whistle the same tune,
but don't let the tone roll.
All right.
So what makes that pitch change?
The top.
Whistling is just like getting in a brass instrument.
It's not exact, but it's the same idea.
I got the biggest kick when my wife was typing out the tongue of the book.
She was in the room,
and all of a sudden,
I was in the other room,
and the typewriter stopped.
I was like, what's she doing?
And I went in,
and she's sitting at the typewriter,
and she's going.
And I came in, she said,
you know that does work.
Okay, now,
Walter Smith was one of the greatest of solos.
All of us, sometimes,
remember Walter Smith very well.
Poor guy died of back cancer at 42.
So he never had anything on record,
but he was a phenomenal trumpet player,
and if you want a new one,
it's a little pretty good to read.
All right, this is Bruce's passing around
so that those that haven't seen it can look at it.
It's actually a tongue level book,
but in the back,
very interesting one,
the page is 1819.
He has a whole page here,
and it was actually one cadenza.
Now, at the bandmaster's association in Toronto,
Toronto is a great musical character,
always has been.
Just marvelous orchestras and solos
have come out of that town.
Now,
they had three of the greatest living soloists.
Let's see, the first ones,
they had Del Stazis,
and then they had somebody like Cordier,
you know, that was a great soloist of the day.
It was a German soloist,
that's what I thought of that band,
one of the greatest in that era.
And let's see, who were those three?
No, there were three great solos.
There were three great singers,
and this guy,
who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
Who?
So, let's say there was Rodgers,
and then there was Smith.
Now, Clark, who was still alive,
wrote the trio of the play.
Now, this is outside in the Toronto Fairgrounds.
As I recall, there were 70,000 in the stadium.
Now, those days, no microphones,
no loudspeakers.
Now, you're playing a solo.
Think of that.
And there's 70,000 in the grandstand.
You're outside.
Now, the first soloist comes out,
and they mention the great so-and-so,
and tremendous applause.
And the way Clark had the trio written,
each one played the cadenza that he was famous for.
Now, in those days, each soloist was famous for a cadenza.
Like, today, the great jazz soloist is famous
for some jazz solo that he played.
But this was the forerunner of all that.
And they each came out with their cadenzas.
The first one played tremendous applause.
Imagine, outside.
And the band's playing.
And now, the next one comes on,
and he did his Carvalho Venice cadenza.
And, of course, now, the crowd went wild again.
Now, how would you like to follow those two guys?
Now, Smith comes off there,
and his cadenza on page 19,
those are excerpts out of that one cadenza.
Now, he did the cadenza,
ended on the top G, above IC,
and held it for 30 seconds.
Outside.
And everybody in that audience heard it.
Now, he didn't have a microphone stuck up the valve.
That would have been a disgrace.
He could play that strong,
and with that power,
he held that note for 30 seconds.
Now, Tom Brazine is becoming a great player.
I'm going to ask him to imitate.
Don't fool around.
You know what I'm saying?
Now, let's all of you have the book.
Now, follow along.
Which one are you going to do first?
All right.
Are you relaxing at all?
All right.
Now, this would all be called lip trills,
and the sound notes and things like that.
But the lip doesn't do it.
Well, the last time he played it, it doesn't happen.
All right.
This is number 20.
This is number 20.
Great, Tom.
Now, you get those lip trills with your lip, right?
Yeah.
You did those lip chills with your lip, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, how did you produce all that?
Tone.
Tone.
Tone.
It's all in the tone.
Now, Bob, you know this one.
Go ahead.
Some things like that.
That's how he did it.
It's the tone.
Now, whether he knew it or not, we don't know.
But at least that's the way he did it.
All right, let's go on.
Now, that's just part of the cadenza.
OK?
Now, go on 21.
I'll do 19.
Oh, OK.
You're rearranging Smith's today.
Now, we don't know how he put it in,
but we don't have a record of it.
Right?
OK.
OK.
Well, that's fine.
That's good.
So how come your eyeballs didn't come out?
You just read the Facebook?
I am.
All right.
Now, 21.
This was the grand climax of the whole cadenza.
And don't worry, Tom.
We have our stopwatches for that last part.
Yeah.
Oh, you want it now?
Oh, and incidentally, on that 20, you notice,
they were very clever.
He went da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
He was actually relaxing everything,
so he had enough strength to go on.
They were very clever in the way they would use their notes.
OK, Tom.
All right.
OK.
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da the, uh, uh, uh,
uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
Very good.
That's it.
That's good.
That's good.
That's excellent, Tom.
Thank you.
That's very difficult to do before a whole class of fine brass players at this early in the morning.
Of course, back in those days, you know, those old bands, they used to have to go out and play in the morning to be solders.
It's all the tongue, the whole secret of your playing, is the tongue.
And the tongue that was never in the back of your mouth, right up in the front.
That's why I do it. That's harder than doing a hard solo.
Don't practice it that way.
Okay, Rooster City.
It's too bad they couldn't have heard this guy in person.
Man, he was great.
Don't tell me he got up here. Did you see that? Did you hear that?
You understand it?
No.
You missed the first part of the lecture, then.
Ed, I don't know what I'm going to do with you.
But glad you're here.
We'll go over that later.
I was in the hospital yesterday.
I said I was in the hospital yesterday.
I didn't hear what he said.
He was in the hospital yesterday.
Oh, really? I guess you couldn't have helped that.
I'm glad you got out, Ed. You feeling okay?
Yeah.
Ed is a good example of a guy that wants to play very much.
And I wanted him to come to campus to get all this information, because right now he's at that stage where he reads everything that comes along.
And that's a dangerous thing to do.
And the guys will do that, and they'll say, well, see, that's just what you teach.
No, generally it isn't. It's only mixed up somewhat.
But that's all right, Ed. We've got a lot to do.
You're going to stay all week, huh?
Very good. Very good.
All right. Now, let me have some questions from all of you.
We've talked about a lot of things.
There must be some questions.
I want to make sure you understand. Kurt, are you going to stand in the tunnel?
Because Kurt is in my teaching class at North. He's studying to be a good teacher.
Okay? Yes?
I had a lecture given by Len Marcellus last Friday.
He was talking about how the different syllables he made with his time would give him different tones.
I wonder if you could talk about that.
Yeah.
Winton plays very correct.
And that tells me that he knows what he's doing, at least in some ways.
He's very cognizant of the tone.
I watched him do a telegram thing out of Boston with the Boston Pops.
And he did the arpeggio for La Mena.
It was an absolutely phenomenal job.
It was so easy in general.
It was never a show of work or anything.
Now, the arpeggio for La Mena, the time you finish that or even if you're tired.
So he finishes and then he went back and repeated the last 16 bars and then went to top end.
So he's one of the great soloists today, there's no doubt about it.
So I really enjoy watching him play.
I'm not a connoisseur of jazz, so I'm not going to criticize his jazz.
I don't know anything.
That's up to the individuals.
But he is a great couple of players.
When I met him in New York, he was only about 20.
And the nicest, beautiful, loving attitude.
I hope he keeps that.
A lot of players, they get to playing that well and they get great conceited.
And then they come on like a great, you know.
I told Bobby O'Donnell, who you'll hear this week, he's one of the finest players in the world now.
And I told him when he was there, I said, Bob, you look conceited and smart and I'm coming after you with a club.
So remember that.
But Wynton was a fine player.
He's got a video out that I really enjoy.
He's got it on, what is that name of that?
Something about jazz grades.
Trump and King.
Oh yeah.
And somebody took offense.
And they shouldn't.
It was a mistake.
Wynton said, Harry James, he's talking about the jazz grades.
And he comes to Harry James.
And somebody always has to bring a racial issue in.
Which it shouldn't be.
I mean, it's terrible.
And he says Harry James was a great technician more than jazz.
Oh, and someone took offense to that right away.
He didn't put Harry down.
He's true.
Harry was a great technician and great player.
More than he was a jazz player.
So he didn't hold him as a jazz grade.
And Harry's jazz was of a technical nature.
So there was nothing wrong with that statement.
So it's a good video to watch.
You'll enjoy it.
OK, any other questions?
I'm glad you mentioned that.
Because it shows he knows what he's doing.
I don't know where he learned.
But he knows what he's doing.
OK, many more questions.
Anyone else?
All right, now you all get the sense of that tongue, right?
Tongue is the secret.
If there was ever a secret.
Now remember, it's not back here.
And you've got to watch it.
Because you're first going to do that from the time.
Never.
And the book's where it says, eh, throw it away.
It's not going to be in the book.
All right, any more?
Yeah?
What's the position of the lip?
Forget the lip.
Don't even think of the lip.
You think of the lip, you're going to plop the issue.
Remember, the lip only vibrates.
In fact, it's only 10 o'clock.
I can talk a little bit about the lip today, too.
Yes?
Are you going to get into tongue articulation?
The which?
Tongue articulation.
Yes, yes.
We're going to do that.
All right, now, in the videotape that Selmer put out,
I did a clinic on Chicago.
This was right after I had the heart attack.
And Larry Miller, Dr. Miller, was very perturbed with me.
Because I was doing things that he said I shouldn't be doing any more ever.
But I knew it was the last time I was ever going to do any demonstration.
So this was with a high school group.
I can't remember the town.
It was out of Chicago.
And so they brought the video cameras out and made pictures of it.
Now, as I said, like I mentioned, no strain is necessary if played properly.
Now, can you see what I'm meaning by played properly?
Are you getting a sense of that?
Played properly generally contains two items.
What was the rule we set yesterday?
The air does the work.
Right?
There's a rule about the tongue.
Now, what would that be?
Does anyone know?
Can you figure that out?
The tongue channels the pitch.
Right?
So you play properly.
If the air does the work and the tongue channels the pitch,
those two things together, you're playing properly.
Now those notes are going to come out.
Now, have you got the position of the one?
Yeah.
The father?
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, this is the last demonstration I'm going to be ever doing.
First of all, a little flexibility here and some range.
Okay.
I'm going to demonstrate, rather than the exercise,
I'm going to demonstrate how you can develop a range from pedal C,
double C, back down to pedal C, and back up to low C.
Okay.
Now notice, it was up to double C, and when I went down,
did you see that jaw drop for the pedal C?
Notice there was no strain on the face.
Can you do that once again?
That's the thing I want you to watch.
There's no strain.
But where's my chest?
Did you notice that?
Up.
Let's do it once more.
Double C, back down to pedal C and back up to low C.
Okay.
Notice there's no strain.
It's easy.
On the ninth study of Clark, where he said no strain is necessary
to inflate the property.
I wanted to show you what he meant.
Now, when I was a youngster, when I was studying with Clark,
I would do these six times in one breath.
But now, especially after a higher time, four times was about all the air
I could muster.
So I'm going to do those four times now in one breath,
from low G to high G and back down.
And I want you to again notice and watch the fingers.
Watch to see how I'm using my hands.
And you'll notice there's no strain.
And this was a little difficult before an audience at that time
when I just had that down part attack.
If I hadn't had that, I could still demonstrate these things.
The A's don't mean that much.
You can be 75 years old and play very well
if you keep your physical strength.
And how do you do that?
By a little athletic activity.
Aerobics and things like that.
Let's do this for brass button.
What did you ask me, Tom?
I couldn't hear you.
Now, I highly recommend, I'm not here to sell things,
SOMA does that anyway, but I would highly recommend
that you obtain that tape.
And you've all got the flyer on it.
This is just a couple of demonstrations.
But I give the whole clinic in there.
And you've got a lot of things to grab a hold of and watch.
I had a French student over from Paris last year.
And I would find, read the language and things.
I would call him every day during the week.
Every time I'd call him, I'd hear that tape on in the background.
And he'd say, oh, I'm just studying the tape.
Every day he ran that tape and watched it.
And right after he told me, he says, boy, I've got more on that tape.
I watch it every day.
And he did.
And he would call things that you forgot.
Like, you'll forget things that you learned while you were here.
I hope you don't forget very much.
But some things you won't recall exactly.
And he'll say, what was that?
What did he say?
Let us move right back to this.
What about the French markings in the book that say two?
The what?
French markings over the notes that say two.
Oh, yeah.
That's a good spot.
Basically brought up in the French books,
it has markings over the notes of tongue.
It almost says two, two, two.
It's doing that.
That's an erroneous thing that was played.
It's never two.
That's the worst syllable you could think of.
It's T.
And that comes from the French translation,
which they say something like chute.
Chute.
But that's the way they pronounce it.
The thing is, what they're saying is comparable to our T.
So wherever it says two in a book, you change it to T.
And like I think I mentioned the other day,
some books will have ta, tu, ti, ta, ti.
You can't think of all of them.
Let your tongue find the position.
You think, going up, you think T.
Coming down, let it drop to ta.
If it doesn't move, you're not going to change your note, right?
All right.
Now you know.
Got it.
Okay.
But now, as kind of a little thing, it's so valid.
First thing, the chest always has to be up.
Going west.
It really is.
I can use a little more air in there, but it's still easy.
No strain is necessary, but they have to play properly.
And that means the air and tongue level.
Now remember, there's a difference between the very tip
and the back of the tip, isn't there?
Now you're turning right behind the tip.
But the very tip is on the lower tip.
Now, Irons, because somebody wrote an article on Earl Irons,
who took lessons from Clark periodically.
But in those days, he was in Texas, and he had to travel to Long Beach.
Now, travel wasn't very easy back in the 20s and 30s.
So he maybe got a lesson maybe once a year or something like that.
The article said that Irons tried that K-Modified a few days and discarded it.
Now, if you read that article, discard that, because that was Irons,
and that held him back.
He never really understood the tongue manipulation of K-Tongue Modified.
And Clark even called that, of course.
But if you look in the characteristic studies of Clark's,
he says, my method of tongueing is rather unique.
The tip rests slightly on the lower teeth.
And then I tongue in the center, which is right behind me.
Now, this article stated that he thought that Clark abandoned that later.
That's not true.
That's the way he tongued.
That's the way he always tongued.
And that's the way he taught us, his students, to tongue.
And that's the way it works.
Now then, is our title on up top?
Where'd it go?
Right, now no more questions, huh?
All right, now in your application class.
Yes?
What is the K-Tongue Modified?
What application does the K have?
I didn't get the question.
What application does the K have in the K-Tongue Modified?
The use of that terminology, K-Tongue Modified.
What was that question again?
Somebody yell that out.
I can't hear nothing.
Claude, he doesn't understand K-Tongue.
Well, the K-Tongue is just when you say KKK.
Oh, I see.
KKK.
Again, this is good.
Now notice that people that don't play these instruments will ask good questions.
Because, gee, what does that mean?
So you tongue with the, I hate to say the term, back of the tongue.
Because when you K-Tongue, KKK, it's not really way back.
It'll be generally just a little further than the front.
And eventually you're going.
See how close that is?
Okay.
The tongue is just kind of wiggling like that.
That has to be developed.
You're not going to develop a K-Tongue Modified in four days.
Maybe in six months you might start getting the feel.
Now, when I start a student now, for one solid month, that's all I have to do.
They go.
Every day as many times as you can do.
That's what you're going to do in your application today.
We've got smaller classes now.
I want the instructor to check each one and see that he understands where that tongue goes when he's tongueing.
So now you've got your tongue level book.
Everybody?
Now on page two.
I think this is the only book ever written that labeled tongue level exercise.
That's what all of your flexibility books are, are tongue level exercise.
Even that verb exercise he did was taken out of a flexibility book, which is tongue level exercise.
First of all, on page two, I want you all to study pages two and three.
Now don't get into the German there because that'll confuse you.
That's talking about the tongue level in another manner.
And it'll help you understand it more.
And once you start out that you're going to work on this page eight, I'm doing the talking.
That's what's going to be your application class today.
Okay.
Is our timer?
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
We'll get on the lift tomorrow.
I'll start it, but I'll get on that again tomorrow.
Okay.
See now the tongue level.
We have small classes today now.
Very small.
Yeah.
Good.
Okay.
I want every student to check that he's tongueing.
And the application will be on page eight, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Everybody understand now?
Yeah.
All right.
Let's go and enjoy the application.
Good job.
Thank you.