Claude Gordon Brass Camp 1992 - Claude Gordon on The Tongue with Tom Brozene

That's difficult to do, but for a brass player,
he should not be a smoker.
If you could see, I don't know whether Dr. Miller brought it up
or not, but if you could see the lungs inside of a smoker,
you'd be so afraid of it, you'd never come near anything
that smokes.
The lungs of a smoker get absolutely crisp black,
and they never heal.
The lungs never heal.
I know when I was a kid, it's easy for me to say,
because I never smoked.
But when I was young, the reason I didn't smoke
was because somebody came up to me and said,
you want to be a good trumpet player?
Don't smoke.
And I wanted to be a good trumpet player more than anything
else, so I didn't smoke, except one day.
We had a big fire in Helena, Montana
that burned down the entire business section.
Burned it down.
And so we lived with that.
The business section was on a main street
that they call Last Chance Golds.
That's where they found gold.
And then there was a steep hill up,
and we lived up on the top of this hill.
So a bunch of us little kids, we got our wagon
the next day after everything was just smoldering.
And there wasn't restrictions like today.
You couldn't do that today.
But we dragged that wagon down and picked up
all the packages of cigars, cigarettes, everything
that the firemen threw out into the street.
And we took them home.
And we got up there behind the garage,
where nobody could see us.
And we started lighting those things up
to know where all we were smoking from.
I got in the house a little bit later.
And in the mirror, I actually was reeling.
I never got so sick in my life.
That cured me once and for all.
I never touched another one.
So it's easy for me to say.
But think about it, Larry Miller gave a lecture
on smoking up when we had the brass camp up north.
And he talked about it.
And this one guy was sitting there in the front row.
The minute Larry talked, boom, he was out the door.
And hey, he couldn't wait to get that cigarette.
So the more Larry talked, the more he wanted the cigarette.
So I don't know whether it did him much good or not.
But it's something to think about.
That's up to every individual.
But I just thought of that when Barbara mentioned that.
Excuse me, Claude, your mic needs to be higher.
Does it?
Got it.
Well, he's adjusting his microphone.
One other quick announcement for those of you
that I know sometimes have a few extra plans.
Tomorrow night, after Kiyoki's and Richard's recital,
we're going to have a campfire down
at the bottom of the campers.
And as you've all probably noticed,
it's late in the night.
I'm sorry, tonight.
Not tomorrow night, tonight.
And so you'll need to remember that when
you come to the recital tonight.
Unless you want to go back to wherever
you're staying and change clothes.
Of course, you're going to have to change your clothes.
If you have an extra hanger, and you want some marshmallows
tonight, bring it along.
OK.
Now, today, we're going to need brass playing,
go harder, and deep breathing.
We're going to need total level exercises.
This is going to be one of the things
that we're going to be doing tonight.
We're going to be doing a lot of things.
We're going to be doing a lot of things.
Total level exercises.
This is very important, these two books.
Tom, Tom, would you bring up my case when you come?
I got some papers in there.
And Jeff, did you get those things copied?
You didn't get them?
I'll give them to you now.
Don't let me forget.
OK.
Now, if there ever was a secret about brass playing,
it's the tongue.
You must never talk.
In fact, you'll be criticized.
At the university where Jeff was,
they tried to get him to stop it.
And I said, why tell them?
They don't know.
They can't see what you're talking with.
And the whole concept of tongue is erroneous.
Here we go again.
Now remember, the tongue isn't going to develop overnight.
It may take six months before you notice anything
on these exercises.
But again, I want to reiterate, it's how you practice.
And you must stay with it classically.
Earl Irons learned this from Herbert Clark.
And in a resume on Earl Irons and the ITG,
I read one day that, well, Irons tried this method of tongue
a few days and gave it up.
A few days?
You won't get any idea of it for a few months.
Nature takes time to develop.
And you must practice it every day.
Now with this method of tongue,
which is the natural way of tongue,
with this method of tongue,
you're not going to start doing it
and go play a job that way.
It won't work.
You'll fall flat on your face.
It's going to take time.
So you just go play your job
and don't worry about it and play normal.
But you practice correctly.
You won't even have to think about it.
Eventually, it will just start taking over.
Am I right, all the guys that have done it?
Absolutely.
All right, now then, the tongue.
If it weren't that wind power made everything work,
I'd put tongue level first.
But I can't, because without wind power, you have nothing.
So Tom, would you come up?
I was going to put Tom through the paces this morning.
I want to make it all feel good this morning.
So I'll have a sip of coffee.
Now Clark made a statement
that covers it all.
Write this down and remember it.
It's in the Brass Lane book,
but I want you to write it down and remember it.
He said,
the tongue rising in the mouth
to make the mouth shallow
is the knack of playing high tones.
You see, it's not the lip.
The lip has nothing to do with your range.
This is why you can't abuse the lip.
We'll get to that.
But it only vibrates.
The tongue rising in the mouth
to make the mouth shallow
is the knack of playing high tones.
Now you can struggle through systematic approach
or any other book.
If that tongue is not rising,
you're not going to progress.
Now how does it rise?
Liberati, in his book,
which is no longer available.
Fortunately, I have some of the pages
out of some of these things that have disappeared.
And thankfully, I got these from Herbert Clark.
I thought that was, what, 50 years ago.
Now they're not available.
But Liberati made the great statement.
He said, and notice his words.
I get the sense of it.
The very tip of the tongue.
I get the sense of that.
The very tip of the tongue
never rises above the lower teeth.
Now you all get the sense of that.
Now when you first start tongueing with this thing,
it's going to be dull, it's going to be mushy,
but that will clear up pretty fast.
Now then, I give it a name,
because if I said, now are you tongueing it?
Oh, I'm tongueing it.
That doesn't tell me as a teacher
how you're tongueing it, does it?
So I'd say, are you doing a K-Tongue Modifier?
So KTM is abbreviation.
And I'd say, are you tongueing that K-Tongue Modifier?
Yeah.
Now I know how you're doing it.
Why do I use that term?
I search for a term to use,
and some will say Clark Tonguing.
But to be more specific, everybody say K.
Now when you say K, where's the tip of the tongue resting?
K, it's right against the lower teeth, isn't it?
Now if you modify that enough
and leave the tip there in the K-Tongue position
and say T, the tongue is still there.
Now that's what we're going to develop.
So it's K-Tongue Modified.
So if I say that, you know what I'm talking about.
That's my term.
It's not a good term,
but it's the only thing I can come up with.
K-Tongue Modified.
So here's the tip.
And you're tongueing T-T-T-T-T-T-T.
Now I'm going to show you that in several ways,
both from yourself and on the blackboard.
Now as you can see over on the blackboard.
Oops, I better go around the other way.
Now I know how a horse feels when he's tied up.
Okay.
Now, could we erase this?
Now remember, this is a vital part of your playing.
Now there'll be great players that say,
no, I don't do that.
But they are.
I don't care who it is that says it.
They are.
Without realizing it.
Now we could prove that very easy with fluoroscopes,
which we have done many, many times.
But you get up in that upper range,
and you start tongueing.
That's the way they're tongueing.
T-T-T-T-T-T.
And they might say, no, I don't do that.
But they do.
That's like one great player from France, he came over.
And the ITG loves to prove me wrong if they can.
And some of their critics of my lectures showed up.
So anyway, they asked this great player,
they said, do you mind if we fluoroscope your mouth
while you play?
I said, no, that's fine.
So they did.
And when they got the tape back,
that tongue is going just like this.
And they said, well, your tongue does move.
He said, no, my tongue does nothing when I play.
Now you don't sense your tongue even when you talk either.
He says, my tongue does not move.
And so they said, well, maybe we made a mistake.
Can we do it again?
And we'll mark it this time so we can't miss.
So they marked it and had it.
And he was right there.
I saw the writer left, K-Tongue modified position.
He looked.
He says, I did not know that.
And this is what happened.
Great players.
And they don't realize it.
And that's no bad mark on them.
It's just you don't realize it.
Now when Clark first taught me this,
oh, I'm going to do it right now.
And I fell flat on my face.
I went down with a ribbed weight.
So remember, it has to be developed.
This takes months.
Oh, you're coming on that now, Don.
How did it start out?
I didn't want to work with it.
But it's the natural.
Again, we're developing seven natural elements
that make that instrument work.
All right.
Now, for example, I'm not an artist,
so this doesn't go off too well.
But say this is, you've got your teeth here.
OK?
Now then, the tongue, the tip of the tongue
is resting right there.
That's the tip.
Now, it's not down on the gums.
Remember that.
It's right on the edge of the lower teeth.
Now then, it rises.
Now, here's your mouth or something like that.
Now, it rises up here and down.
Now, you have teacher's harp on open throat.
Does that look closed?
Here's your throat.
Does that look closed?
They'll tell you, well, you raise your tongue
and play that way, it'll close your throat.
You're going to have an open throat.
I'd like to see you get any high range going,
ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
It's not going to come out.
Now, there's another book comes out
and it says that you do this.
They've got the idea.
But here's the tip of the tongue, right,
against the lower teeth.
Here's the roof of the mouth.
Now, let's say if you say ee or ick.
Never.
Because when you say ick,
that tongue goes back up there.
Now, that is going to shut it off.
All of your playing, everything you do
is going to be in the front of your mouth.
Not in the back.
Like everybody say the word see.
Where is the tongue?
It's up in the front and it's not raised back here.
See.
Now, we're going to train that tongue
until it works naturally.
That takes time.
How are you coming to that, Kevin?
When you started out, what was it?
Everybody is different.
Now, there's times when that tongue
might come up on the top edge.
Clark told me one time when he played,
his tongue would touch his lower lip
and it would tickle so bad he'd have to quit.
And that could happen.
St. Jacob tried to explain that in his original book,
but it didn't come out very understandable.
Arvin said a great statement.
Nobody ever sees it.
I don't know where it is right now,
but it's in the book.
And he said the tongue has a to and fro movement.
So it's not just up and down.
It's to and fro.
Your tongue, it comes to the front of the mouth.
T and then it's back.
Everything you do is in the front of the mouth.
It's very much like you're whistling.
Now, we're going to try something now.
Tom, can I have your help?
Now, Tom, would you say...
Now, Tom didn't start out this way either.
He had to learn it.
How long did it take you before you could use your tongue?
Two months.
And then you just start using it.
Carl Leach was the greatest example.
I kept Carl on K-tonguing.
Everybody wonders why you K-tongue so much.
And actually, it's not K, it's T.
You don't go up saying T, T, T, T.
You go K, T, T, T.
Now, Carl, I took him a long time on everything purposely.
And he...
I signed him on K-tonguing, boy.
We did everything, all through every book, K-tongue, K-tongue.
And then I told him one day,
now Carl, I want you to switch it,
leave the tongue in that position, but go to T, T, T, T.
And we worked on it for several months.
I said, don't try to use this when you're playing.
It'll come, you'll know when to use it.
Miller, when he had his last little baby,
he came in one day, he called me up, he said,
you know, I watched that with the baby, and you're right.
You're 100% right, that's the way the baby does.
You hear him all cleaned up and ready for bed at night,
and he's back in his little crib in the other room,
and you hear all these little sounds.
And you just say, well, that's just baby noises.
No, it's not. He's practicing.
He doesn't know it, but he's practicing.
He hears mama, daddy, he hears the names of his brothers
and sisters, he hears no, he hears yes,
and he's trying to form those words.
He's practicing. How does he form them?
The tongue in the mouth. Yes.
The tip of the tongue is where? Yes.
It's in the same place.
Now then, you've got to do the same thing,
because all your life you've learned incorrectly.
And don't panic, because you don't try to use it right away.
Now let's try something else.
If you're going, ah ye, ah ye, ah ye, ah ye, ah ye, ah ye, ah ye,
say the ah, ah, ah.
Now you lock that tongue and don't let it budge.
Lock it. You can't move. Ah.
Now while it's locked, try to say ye.
Ah.
It's impossible.
Unless that tongue moves, the syllable doesn't change.
So what makes the syllable change?
The tongue.
Now, it's not the lip, is it?
You can squeeze that lip as long as you can.
It's not going to make that tongue change, and you can try that.
But you've got to be honest with yourself.
You've got to watch that tongue.
All right, now say ye.
All right, now hold the tongue and lock it there.
Now if you're honest with yourself, don't let it move.
If I have a hard time, students will say, no, I can do it.
Ye, ah.
And the tongue moves and they don't even see it.
Lock that tongue, ye.
Now while it's locked, try to say ah.
Ah.
There's no way.
So what makes that syllable change?
The tongue.
Now behind that tongue, there's got to be a little Air Force, which I'll show you on here.
Not March Air Force, Air Force.
Okay, now to demonstrate, Tom, take a little C and play.
Tell me where the tip of the tongue is and where the tongue generally is.
Just resting on the bottom.
The tip will be right behind the bottom teeth.
Not on the tongue, behind the edge there.
And it's just resting there.
All right, now go CG, a good initial.
Go.
That's why Kahn was so successful.
We had good initials, CG Kahn.
Okay, now take a low C to a G and slur.
Now who's the gentleman from Texas that did not slur?
Or from somewhere down there?
Is it Texas or what?
Is he here?
He could not slur from a C to a G.
That was his nemesis.
I got a real nice letter from him on that.
Is he in here today?
I can't think of his name.
Well, you were that way too, yeah.
But there was another gentleman.
I wanted to make sure that he understood this.
All right, now then do it again.
Tell me where the tongue is and what the tip is doing.
Stand right there.
All right, it's coming up.
Ta-a-ee, a-a-ee.
Now there's got to be air behind it.
It's like an airplane.
You're going along, you're flying.
You know, I learned a lot about it when I learned to fly an airplane.
And I flew almost 3,000 hours.
And I learned a lot about it.
As you're up there flying along and you trim it up,
it's just like the tongue flying flat, you know.
You trim it up, you can let go of the controls.
You can let go of the stick.
You can take your feet off the rudder pedal,
providing it's a calm day.
And you can sit there and pick up, pour your coffee and drink it.
That airplane will just go shh.
It won't move.
But supposing now you're coming up to a mountain
and you want to climb over it, you pull back on the stick.
The elevator on the tail, that's the flat one, it moves up.
That's your tongue.
It moves up.
You want to climb now?
You're not going to climb.
Until you give it more power.
Now the tongue is right.
You give it more power.
And you move up.
Now if you notice in his sound,
if you close that C to G, there'll be a little click in there
like he's pressing a valve down.
You hear that click?
That's the tongue.
It is a valve.
And you kick it with air.
You don't go ta-ee, ta-ee.
You go ta-ee, ta-ee.
This is why I don't want you focusing on that you must play soft.
You never play softer than you can get a sure sound.
The control of that will come later.
Then we'll play soft.
Now then, again, it's ta-ee.
It's almost like ta-hee.
Ta-ee, ta-ee.
The air does the work.
That's the first rule.
The air does the work.
The tongue channels the pitch.
So you set it there, and now then the two work like this.
Now we can go a little further.
Let's hear all of you whistle.
Right.
All right.
Whistle and active, ta-ee.
What's your tongue doing?
All right.
Now whistle alone.
Lock that tongue in that position.
Lock it there.
Now try to whistle the upper tongue.
There's no way.
So what makes that pitch change?
The tongue.
The tongue.
Absolutely.
If you didn't have a tongue, you could not play a brass instrument.
It would be impossible.
The air does the work.
The tongue channels the pitch.
How many of you never ever thought of the tongue doing anything like that?
How many of you?
Not a student of mine now.
Anyone in all of your play, did you ever think and try and make the tongue get your pitch?
Those that haven't heard from me or haven't read a book.
I would dare say that there's not one that ever thought of that.
And you're not alone.
I didn't either.
I thought it was the lips.
The lips have nothing to do with it.
They must keep vibrating, however.
All right.
Now Tom, let's try something else.
Now along with this, I want you to study pages two and three in the tongue level book.
Because that's what we're talking about.
Incidentally, that book you will not use for a long time with the exception of page eight,
which we're going to start right off with.
Okay.
Okay.
Now take an A flat, Tom, on the stack.
Excuse me, on the stack.
And finger it or do it without fingers, I don't care.
Play me an A flat.
C, E flat, A flat arpeggio.
Let's try that.
Now do it again.
Now you can all try this with yourself, but you better be honest with yourself.
Because if you're not, it's not going to work.
If you're going to try to blend some earlier theory in with it, forget it.
Be honest with yourself.
Let's try it again now.
Hold the top note until you can picture where the tongue is.
What's the tip of the tongue?
Back edge of the lower teeth.
All right.
Now then, if you wanted the tongue that A flat up there, I'd do it.
Now that's where the tongue normally is, right?
That's natural.
Now if you change, and like most of the books say, if you're going to try the tongue with the tip,
now you've got to change that whole position.
Now the tongue has to go behind the upper teeth, the vertice,
and you've lost the formation of that sound.
The tongue channels the pitch.
Now let's do that again and tongue on the A flat.
Forget it, and then keep right on.
It's so easy.
It'll even go up when you least expect it.
Ziggy Allman never missed down.
Did you know that, Frank?
I never heard him drop a note.
He missed up all the time.
And it showed that that tongue was up there.
He learned out of Ibi's method, which is, that is no longer available.
That had written CCCs written in the exercises.
Ziggy was a tremendous player.
I don't think he ever got the credit he deserved.
Powerhouse of a player.
All right, now then.
So you see how it doesn't make sense to lose that position
because that's the position of where that A flat comes out.
All right, now do it again.
And I want you to hold the A flat until you can see where the tongue is.
You lock it there.
And I don't tell you what happens.
You try to drop down or clear down to the low E flat on the staff.
But don't let the tongue move.
Why doesn't it come down?
Oh, anyone can come down.
No, you can't.
Not if that tongue doesn't change.
When that tongue is in the position for any given note, in this case an A flat,
that's the only note that will come out.
We just proved that, didn't we?
Now you've got to prove it to yourself by doing it.
Now this is in the brass playing book.
It'll be in there in that exercise.
Now let's do it again, Tom.
And this time let the tongue move and come down to that E flat.
It was easy, wasn't it?
Why?
You let the tongue drop.
Now that means that the tongue is in a different position for every note on that instrument.
Now it's very slight things that you won't be able to even visualize it, but it's there.
Every note has its own tongue placement.
This is why the great methods like Saint-Jacques and Arben went into so many,
what they call flexibility, and it is flexibility, but so many tongue level exercises.
Who's got Saint-Jacques out?
Page 157.
Now these, he talks here about great lip exercises and all.
That's true, but they are basically tongue level exercises.
And you go ti-ta ti-ta ti-ta ti-ta ti-ta ti-ta ti-ta ti-ta ti-ta.
You try and do that without moving your tongue.
It's impossible.
Clark demonstrated one time in a book he had, the book has it all garbled up.
I don't know how that happened because it talks about the lip.
Clark taught that to me.
He has a diagram out of an Arben book.
And it goes ta-ti-ta ti-ta-ta.
Under the notes he has this line, and it goes up with the note,
back to the original, down with the other.
And what it is is the movement of the tongue in the mouth.
The lips have nothing to do with it.
Ta-ti-ta ti.
That means that the jaw moves, doesn't it?
The lip moves, the jaw moves.
I say, hold that jaw still.
Forget it, let the nature work.
The jaw has to move.
In the videotape I have a demonstration of a young lady back in the Midwest.
We went up where there was a stairway about the height of that door down.
And I told her, I said, all right, I want you to come down, stand up the top of the stairs.
I said, no, I want you to come down that stairs.
I had to watch careful in case she fell so we'd catch her.
I wouldn't mind that.
She's a very pretty little girl.
So she started down the stairs, and I said, no, wait.
I don't want you to bend the knee.
Even slightly.
Oh, boy, she's...
Well, do it.
We're a moving machine.
Something has to move.
Thank goodness the jaw's on hinges so we get it right.
So you forget about what the jaw is.
I had more teachers tell me, oh, keep that still.
Let the human machine work naturally.
Forget all those other things.
Think about what you're practicing on, and that's all.
Remember, it's how you practice.
I'm never going to let you up on that all week.
Because I get many students in letters, they're not practicing right at all.
Practice correctly.
Now, if the tongue is in a position for any given note,
in this case an A-flat, now then, through practice, if we learn the position...
Now, you don't do it by theory.
You're not watching where this moves up a 16th or a 32nd baloney.
You go by the feel.
Now, through practice, you get the feeling of that tongue position for an octave above A-flat.
That's double A-flat.
That will come out just as easy as that A-flat.
Why?
Because it's the only note that'll come out unless the tongue changes.
Now, think about that.
Reason.
Get the sense of what I'm saying.
Okay?
Oh, yeah.
Someone will say, well, to play higher, you've got to get that lip tight.
Tom, play me a little scene.
And I want you to play it, and then keep that tongue in that same position.
And you squeeze those lips every bit you can and see if it'll go up.
There's no way it's going to go up.
You'll eventually shut the vibration off.
The lips only vibrate.
You can do nothing.
Certainly, they have to get strong to hold in position so that they will keep vibrating.
That's why you have to treat them carefully.
You don't abuse this at all.
That's very tender.
All right.
Now let's, someone will say it's all wind.
No, it's not all wind.
A big portion of it's wind.
But let's try it again.
Play the low C.
Now this time, I want you to crescendo as loud as you can.
And also, while you're doing that, you squeeze that lip with everything you've got and see if it moves up.
Sooner or later, because you're thinking up sooner or later, that tone will rise just enough so it will go up.
But the tongue must rise.
The tongue rising in the mouth to make the mouth shallow is the knack of getting high tones.
Now, do we have the projector?
Yes, I do.
Can we get that on there?
We'll have to move this thing.
Bring this into the center.
Okay.
Brad, how do you feel this week on tomorrow's session?
Only if you feel like it.
If you want to do the local perpetual while I walk away.
Yeah, that would be in tomorrow's session.
All right.
Now, you haven't probably played it since last year, so you don't have to, but if you do, if you feel like it.
Yeah.
You guys, right here.
What was that comedian that used to come out and he said, well, the first three rows.
Did you find the pictures all right, Tim?
Yeah.
Good.
Oh, I wonder about those.
Wait a minute.
I got to get my pointer out of here.
It's probably down on the bottom somewhere.
Incidentally, while we're getting this ready, this was an early print of that book on Clark, How I Became a Cornettist.
Now, the Frank Houghton Company puts that out.
That's LeBlanc now.
So if you want to order it through Houghton and get it, you'll enjoy that book.
How I Became a Cornettist.
And he tells in there, very frankly, all the bad things he did, how he struggled.
He didn't go all through the book saying what a great player he was.
He just said that he played well, you know, and everything about it.
Now, I had a student, Carter Parrish.
Yeah, I remember his name.
That's great.
He went back east with a band that came off of Freddie Martin's band, Barclay Allen, a pianist that did that.
And it became so popular, he formed an orchestra.
And Carter Parrish, this student of mine, got out on first trumpet.
So he said, well, gee, when I get back, should I talk to the trumpet players?
I said, look, go take a lesson.
See what they have to say.
So I wanked him back.
I said, did you get any lessons?
Yeah, in Chicago, he said, I stopped there.
And the number one player in Chicago, he found out and he called him up and wanted a lesson.
And I said, sure.
So he went out for his lesson.
And when he got there, wouldn't you know it, he had a studio call that day.
So the kids, his kids were there.
And they said, well, dad said he'd be back and you're to wait.
And he'll be back.
So I said, how long do you have to wait?
He said, two hours.
I said, gee, what did you do?
He said, oh, the kids entertain me all the time.
Oh, I said, that's wonderful.
How do they entertain you?
He said, for two hours, they told me that their dad was the greatest trumpet player in the world.
So I said, well, that's great.
I said, when he got there, did you get your lesson?
He said, yeah.
And I said, what did he tell you?
He said, for the next hour, he told me the same thing.
That was his lesson.
All right.
Now, can you all see this?
Now, here's, this is a medical drawing.
Larry Miller had a medical artist do this, so it's accurate.
Now, here's your front teeth.
Your lips are out here.
There's the gun.
Now, here comes the roof of the mouth.
OK?
Now, here's the tongue down by the lower teeth.
And you say E.
Some books say this, this, this, this.
That's wrong.
Now, that does shut it off.
It's not going to get you anything.
Now, it takes time to train this way.
You never say this in the back of your mouth.
Now, many books erroneously state that or show that.
It's not that they didn't mean it to be right.
That was their concept of the tongue.
Now, let's see the other one.
Now, this is right, E, as in C.
Say that, C.
See where that tip is?
T. It's up in the front.
Now, the tongue rises here.
Now, here where you need the resistance, that's where you've got it.
And this is wide open.
You don't have to think about it at all.
All your playing will be in the front of your mouth.
A T. T-T-T-T-T-T-T. Right there.
T-T-T, T-T-T.
That has to be developed.
Now, you can look back and see a lot of things while you were having so many struggles.
But it's not going to come overnight.
Now, I'm telling you that.
It has to be developed.
Jeff, do you remember how long it took you to start using that?
Yeah, months.
How about you, Chris?
Months.
How about you?
Months.
Everybody.
It took them months to do it.
You can't use it right away.
You're going to develop it.
How?
Practice.
What kind of practice?
Correct practice.
Yes, how you practice.
Now, if you play these things and you're not realizing what's happening,
you can go over it millions of times.
Is it going to develop?
No.
Like in that biography of Earl Aaron.
He tried it for a few days.
And gave it up.
And many later he said he believed that Clark discarded that manner of tongue-in.
No way.
No way.
I took from Clark long after that, boy.
And he pounded that into me.
Well, the Aaron's book is a good book, though.
Oh, don't get me wrong.
Aaron's book is excellent.
So what happened? How come the book is good?
Well, the book is good because he got the sense of the tongue.
But he never got the sense of the K-Tongue modifier.
And so the text in most books disregards the text.
Now, that doesn't mean it's all wrong.
But some of them are wrong.
Some parts are wrong.
Now, if you learn right,
you can readily see that.
And mark that out.
Like even Walter Smith.
One of the greatest.
And in his book, A Flexibility Study,
he makes a statement in front.
He says, the tongue rises.
You blow stronger.
And the lower lip slightly.
And he words slightly in italic.
Pulls in.
It does not.
And he was very cautious about that.
But remember, these guys were the pioneers.
They were experimenting all the time
with their right and wrongs.
So if he wrote a book now,
it would probably not say that enough.
But ooh, what a troubled player that Smith was.
In fact, Tom, how do you feel?
Tom, you feel up to being Walter Smith today?
Well, this really puts Tom on the spot.
Of the bandmasters,
the American Bandmasters Convention in Toronto,
they had a great idea.
And some of these greats were still alive then.
And they commissioned Herbert Clark to write a trio.
And the solos were going to be,
what was that German soloist's name way back then?
Probably that was, yeah.
That could have been one or the other.
They did famous cadenzas.
I don't know.
Yeah, okay, so he got Frank Simon
and Del Stegers and Walter Smith.
And he wrote this trio.
Now then, stop and think.
Up there, in that grandstand,
were about 50,000 people.
This was a big thing.
In those days, they didn't have microphones.
A cornetist didn't stick a microphone up the bell to play,
which to me is an outrage.
That's a shame.
If he can't play strong enough to be heard outside,
then he shouldn't be using microphones.
And he was a great musician.
He shouldn't be using microphones.
But that's the thing today.
So anyway, Clark wrote the trio,
so you had Clark in there.
And the first man to come out,
and the band plays,
now he plays a cadenza,
and he's famous for it.
And you haven't heard that cadenza,
but boy, they were tough.
He just played it marvelous.
The band plays and out walks Del Stegers,
and he plays the cadenza he's famous for,
which is in his Carvalho Venice.
Now how'd you like to follow that?
The next thing, the band plays and out walks Walter Smith.
Now if you have the Walter Smith book
on lip flexibilities,
in the very last two pages,
there are excerpts from that cadenza.
Now he's outside without a microphone,
50,000 people in the audience,
and they got to hear him.
Now do you think he could be heard
if he had one of those little A4A mouthpieces?
No way.
He had an open mouthpiece
that we're going to talk about later.
And please remind me somebody
to tell you the story of Smith
coming into a big performance one day,
and he'd forgotten his mouthpiece.
So remind me to tell you that story
on the mouthpiece day, I'll do that.
Okay, now then, if you got that cadenza there,
now this is something else.
Now the whole thing,
the whole thing would have been in the cadenza.
Now boy, you start out doing those things.
And he played that whole thing outside,
no microphone, with the band behind him,
and he ended up on a high G
and held it for 30 seconds.
And the crowd just went wild.
Now we have our high note artists and everything today.
I've never seen anyone do anything like that.
Have you, Frank?
But these old timers did.
And so when someone tells you,
well, they didn't have to play like we do today.
We've heard that so much, I get sick of it.
No, they didn't play like we do today.
They played 10 times better and more.
They were the old timers.
And that's what we want to leave behind us today,
some of these old timers to play like that.
Mendez played like the old timers.
He had a narrow sound,
and he's been criticized for it.
But like I said, people said he sounded like a Mexican.
Of course he did.
He was a Mexican.
He was actually a mariachi player, right, John?
He was a mariachi player.
He played for Pancho Villa in his army,
and he almost got shot for it.
And he was playing, and he'd play on horseback
for these things that he did.
Never let it be misunderstood.
Mendez was a horrible player.
All right, Tom, you're on your own.
Suffer.
To be a great trumpet player, you've got to suffer.
Not me, you.
All right, now, which one do first?
We'll try this one here.
Number 20, we'll do that one.
Okay, number 20.
That's a nice easy one.
Okay.
Right, Tom.
Right.
You want one right now?
Yeah, I'll do it.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Yeah.
Now that's hard.
And now, Tom,
there were some beautiful lip rolls there.
You did that with the lip, right?
Yes.
Yes.
How do you do it, Tom?
With the tongue.
With the tongue.
You say it on the tongue.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
As fast as that tongue moves, you can throw.
That takes time too.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
One more time?
Or would you rather go on?
Okay.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Ta-yi-a-yi-a-yi-a-yi.
Very good, Bob. Excellent.
All right?
Now, you notice those glissandos in there?
Could you do that without your tongue over?
I know.
You don't get that by pinching and letting the lip go.
You all get the sense of that.
The lips do not play the horn.
Right?
The tongue channels the pitch.
Now, if you were playing a note and you wanted to,
you were sharp and you wanted to go a little flat,
how would you do it, Tom?
Try that.
Take a G and make it go flat.
A second line.
Yeah, make it go flatter.
What's happening?
The tongue draws.
The tongue channels the pitch.
Okay?
All right.
Now, Tom, which one now?
Let's go for 21.
Okay, 21.
Now, this was the ending part of the cadenza.
Now, do that outside before 50,000 audience with no
mic and hold that last G for 30 seconds.
Now, that's the kind of trumpet players you can be.
That's the kind they were.
And you can be that.
Now, not putting anyone down, but you go to school and
for a whole semester you work on the Haydn concerto.
That's not going to do that, is it?
In fact, I don't like that piece.
And it's so overdone.
Now, that doesn't mean it's not a good piece of music.
As I say, I'm not criticizing.
And in the schools, it's a requirement.
You have to do it.
But you'll do it better if you can play the horn first.
Okay, you want to do any other, Tom?
How do you feel?
This really puts a player on the spot.
He had to come in cold.
Imagine how that is to do that cold.
I did that last excerpt and added to it in the middle of
the Dodger Stadium one time.
This was outside again.
And the conductor says, Gordy, will you replay this thing?
He says, would you do a modulation of cadenza and
modulate from what the key we're in to, I think it was
C or G?
Modulate to it.
So, yeah, okay.
So he'd come up to it and he'd stop.
And I started in and I started playing this cadenza.
And I used all these little excerpts.
And all that.
He's not sure when to start.
And he's standing there waiting.
And I went along for several minutes.
I took advantage because this Dodger Stadium was full.
So, you know, you've got to show off once in a while.
And, you know, we modulated down.
He started out.
And the applause from around us stayed in so long he
couldn't continue.
He had to wait for a bit and then continue.
So I was very pleased.
All right.
Let's see that.
Okay.
Thank you, Tom.
Now, that's hard.
That's hard to do when you start off cold like that.
You just come in.
Come on up here and say this, Tom.
He's done that in his lesson.
Just recently.
So perfect.
And so easy.
That's easy.
Okay.
All right.
Now then, I have to show you.
Now, are you getting the sense of what that tongue does?
Everybody.
Are you getting the sense of it?
Now, if not, boy, you ask questions.
Remember, you're here to learn.
And again, remember, no matter what I say, we're not
putting anyone down.
We're not criticizing.
We want you to know.
It's like Eric yesterday.
When someone came up and told him, no, wait, you've
got to use the diaphragm, he had enough understanding.
He said, no, wait a minute.
You're not right.
We'll get more of that.
Now then, yeah, Frank.
Claude, can I add something to what you're saying?
Sure.
I should say so.
I enjoy coming to this camp.
I enjoy coming to the classes.
Because Claude talks about all the things that I've
thought about for years.
And the things that I've read about Claude for years.
I think one of the mistakes with the tongue that's
happening with a lot of students, and I find it in
my teaching, is that when they start double-tonguing
and triple-tonguing, somewhere along the line, they
get the idea that they have to go ta-ka, ta-ka, ta-ka,
ta-ka, ta-ka, the tongue is moving back and forth.
And I think that that's where a lot of the confusion
happens.
Especially with the double and the triple tongue.
That they don't get the right K sound.
You're talking about everything happens in the
front of the mouth.
I wish I had a dollar for every student I had sent.
Listen, when you double and triple tongue, it happens
in the front of the mouth, like when you play something
like Scheherazade.
And it all has to be right in the front.
Otherwise, that syllable won't come out right.
But a lot of the students have the idea, I'm not blaming
it on the teachers, I think that the students themselves
get the idea that the tongue has to say ta-ka, ta-ka,
and it keeps moving back and forth like an old Ford.
Ta-ka, ta-ka, ta-ka, ta-ka.
And when they do the K syllable by itself, they get
the ta-ka, ta-ka, ta-ka, ta-ka from here.
And I think that's where the confusion starts.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to...
No, that's absolutely right, Frank.
And I'm glad for your comment.
Because here's one of the great symphony players.
Do you remember Louis Davison?
Oh, yes.
Now Louis was a good player.
And what was the symphony he was in?
Cleveland.
Cleveland.
Cleveland.
So he was in the Cleveland, too.
Tape, so how's that?
And Manny's sitting there with his cigar in the corner
of the room listening, and Louis plays this tape.
And it was excellent, you know.
And Manny promised us, that's very good, Louis,
but I do it better.
So, yeah, to add to what Frank said,
this is why you don't say T-K,
because automatically you go backwards.
T-T.
Yeah, all my tongue are right here.
I could double-tone very rapid and triple.
And always T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T,
right here.
T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T,
years ago, and there's a lot of this in St. Jacome's book,
they had what they called multiple tonguing.
But they've discarded this now,
because it's not necessary one use.
But we do.
Like as Frank said, I take every student
through the entire Arbonne.
And in there, they have triple tonguing.
T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T, T-K-T.
Now, the students have to go T-K, T-K, T-K.
In other words, double-toning in triplet form.
T-K-T.
And boy, you can move.
T-K-T.
I don't know.
I thought I had a good tongue.
I'm pretty proud of it.
I saw that tongue very well.
Never never completely content, but I thought it was pretty well. I could tell the single tongue take on modified
I could single tongue
16th notes
Setting a metronome metronome at a hundred and forty four. I don't have a metronome here. Do you have one back there?
Yeah, can we hear it on
He'll put it on here at a hundred and forty four. I want to get an idea of what this what this one
That's a hundred and forty four
For one solid minute, I've watched the sweep and on the clock for one solid minute without breathing
And I was pretty proud of that I've demonstrated you know, I
Failed into insignificance Clark to do it single tongue at one hundred and eighty
This man was phenomenal
No matter what you did he could better. He was absolutely for now. Give me a hundred and eighty
Now a lot of the things where you think on his records you think Clark is double-tongued he's not
Single and I've gone the record
He comes in and if you ever notice the thing about Clark
That's a hundred and eighty
And he could do it he did it for me
Someone made a remarkable all that temples and Clark's technical studies that he just did that to
Make you think that's what he did. Don't you believe it?
I did everything in that book much faster than those temples and I could never begin to come up to over Clark
He didn't live in a day where you play double high C's all day
But believe me he played double C's triple C's and anything else you wanted
With ease and Friday will get some of that he comes in in one of these solos
Comes in
What is that
And boy, you know and when you hear that record
There's no setting boy. He comes in like a charger and it's exciting
So what that tone can do is unbelievable
Alright, so the first exercise and this will be in your application is page eight of the tongue level book
Now I got a letter from the gentleman and the guy was so proud of what he was doing. He was doing everything wrong
the purpose of part one there of lesson eight and there's repeats left off those
Those
Each each measure should have repeats around it and we repeat them many many times
Now the purpose of this is to get the sense of that pay tongue modified
You put the tongue against the lower teeth
lightly never rigid never rigid likely and then you
Many times on each measure
Now again, there's a rest and I didn't have fun writing that rest has a meaning
Take that horn off and stop and then you want to a flat a B flat B C run all the way back down the low seat
You don't double-tongued you don't triple-tongued you don't put a metronome and try for speed that's developed that feel
Now then as you get better at it, maybe a month later
Instead of stopping the middle say you move it up to eat
Another month later you move it up to G
Now you see feet feet feet feet feet feet and what's happening with your wind power
You're getting stronger answer because you're going higher
Maybe on the fourth month you go up to a high seat
and back down
But you don't try to go up that high seat right now. You go where the books written
Right now you go where the books written you're developing the k-ton modified and that's all
And this gentleman told me oh, I've got this up to this speed
I've got this up to that speed and I'm double-tonguing it and that's not what the exercise is for
It's how you practice
Remember you're developing seven natural items
Think about what you're developing and it's the same on every brass instrument
They'll go over that in application. Is our time up now?
Okay now any question
My number of the tongue level is vital
Think about it. Let me have your
breast pain
Think about it
Get the sense of what we're saying
now I want you to
But all of you read that part on detrimental attitudes
Boy take that to heart
Stay away from negative people
They just bring you down to their own negativeness. That's all
There's not a thing I attempted in my life
But I wasn't put down for
When I wanted to come to Los Angeles
Well, what do you think you're going down there and make it?
And I said well, I want to go down and see I want to be down where the great players are
And believe me Los Angeles had the greatest players in the world
outside of New York
And most of those had come out to Los Angeles by this time
So I want to go down there
Stay out of Los Angeles. There's nothing you can't get me work. You can't well. I did I started
about three years
slept in the car
My wife at that time was just marvelous. She never complained
I did something one night that I'm sorry for I wish I could go make restitution
But I don't know where it was even we couldn't get away with it. Now that I went to this motel
And we were tired we hadn't slept in a bed for any nights
So I checked in because we had bags
You could check in if you had bags because they could keep the bags and so we checked in and boy what a good night's sleep
But the minute that sun broke we were up to the bags in the car and left
Never paid for it ever
I'd like to go back and pay him for it, but I don't know where it wasn't we had to do something
I'm not encouraging that because it's not good
Don't try it at all
And then when I got down here
And I started working in the bands and got to playing with guys like Mendez and Manny Klein and
Finally I was in their sections
It was a marvelous experience. I thought you guys up home that told me not to come down here. You're putting wrong
so then went through all these years and I got with the big bands and
Traveling and we used to hear the broadcast Columbia broadcasting system
We were up backstage one day and the guy had a little radio and
We heard this wonderful orchestra and the announcer says you will be listening to love Boston and the CBS
Orchestra and I looked at the guy and I said I'm gonna be playing in that
Yeah, yeah, what are you gonna do that?
You think you're gonna make that
Six months later. I was first trumpet in that office
The only way to put you down and say you can't do something because you can and in order to get that job
You had to play for every conductor on the network
And if one of them rejected you you didn't get it
You didn't have an audition as such. I got so I never went audition. They called me up. I said, what do you want?
You know, you want a trumpet player, okay
They said well, do you play jazz? It's like I played terrible jazz, but I could get by and said you play jazz
Or simply what I said, I'm a trumpet player. You tell me what you want
And I wouldn't audition. I think auditions are completely proofless
So anyway, I
Got on that orchestra and before that I'm not going into all of these
I've played all the big shows the stage shows and all that now you had a lot of experience
You never know when there's someone listening out there
That wants what you do
I never went up and asked for a job. I was playing
Performing darkness was a big stage show with all the showgirls. I love that job
It was beautiful and they
We finished one night and it was tough at two and a half hour show
20 minute work two and a half hour show. We only had two trumpets and more you play all the time
And you couldn't get a sub it was impossible the studio player the minute they found out who they were something
Oh gosh, I just discovered I had a date that night
It was too hard to go in now the saxes. However, that was different. They could get subs
so finally
We're playing one night. We have this studio sax player was sitting right in front of me
I can't remember who he was. I wish I could because I owe this man a lot
So we finished playing and he turns around, you know, he's putting the swab through the sacks and he's putting it away
Hey kid, he says you play good
Well, I was really flattered. It was a top studio player, you know, and I said, well, thank you. I
Appreciate that. He said no, I'm not just telling you I mean it you play good. He says you're doing any studio
Show I said, no
He says why not? I said well
I've never been asked and never gotten it. He says don't worry you will
Two days later. I got a call from the top MVC contractor
Wanting to know if I'd be interested in doing the Frank Morgan Maxwell house time on MVC
That started the whole thing
But while I was in orchestra, I'd be practicing and one of the guys is what do you think?
You know, what are you kidding?
And then I started later many years later. I decided to write a book
Same thing, what are you gonna write?
Who's gonna buy it
What are you gonna write that someone's gonna be interested in you think you're gonna publish it
Negative negative negative I did it anyway, I
Said the systematic approach was the first book. I sent that out to every music publisher
except for officials I
Got everyone back with a nice letter. Oh, we think this book is excellent. Could you write us something? It'll sell for a dollar
That wasn't my purpose
So finally I have spent five thousand dollars on this book get it ready
I was sending it out to schools and charging $20 a copy
You know what I got in the critic
He writes in the brass world. He said it seems that Gordon would would get down within a reasonable price
At least for that miserable manuscript. I
Felt like right in asking if you ever saw show fans manuscript and
And
So that was the comments negative negative. I was going back to New York
To have a band for the Jane Powell show and on as I left off the driveway
I noticed an envelope in my mailbox. I stuck it in my pocket and went on
Now by this time I figured I decided to drop the publishing of that book because it was mine
No one could steal it now. So at least I I proved that
We're in the plane and we're having a cocktail. I know it's storming outside the lightning going on. It was a hectic ride
But you know how sleepy and you get in an airplane
So I happen to reach in the pocket and here's that envelope. Well, I wonder what this is
Paul Fisher in the corner
and I opened it up and
What a delight it says
We are wondering if we have the right quad Gordon
Are you the one that wrote?
Systematic approach
Would you be considered in us buying the book outright or taking it on a
royalty basis
So, please visit us when or call us when you can
I'm telling you I was on cloud nine
Here was the best publishing company in the world the only one I hadn't sent the book to
So I got into New York. We rented a car
Had to turn around in the middle of the bridge we got a cop to help us and
That's a funny story, but I won't bring all that now and
So we're going around and get back. We got finally found Carl Fisher and when I went in I
Told the girl the best who I was and she caught up. Oh, mr. Barton. Oh, mr. I
Don't remember
Our new author is here
Boy, what a joy the year
I didn't know any of these people and they really had the red carpet out went right into the boardroom and
The old man was long since death who really knew the votes
He said where did you get an idea like this?
Well, this is the way I practice
And he says I predict that there within five years this will outsell Arbon
It did
That's unbelievable that was clear back in 65 that book is still doing what 4,000 year
Put it out since 1965 every year
And there's no sign of it slowing down
Brass playing is out of print constantly. They'll print them up and they're they're gone
Right now around the world
So this is what happens if you stay away from negative people. Don't let them deter where you're going
Like probably I could have told Carl Carl forgets putting out a book. It's a hard job for that
We wouldn't have had it a new book of cause is a great book. I
Think you'll all enjoy it. All right now tonight. I want you to study in brass playing page 13
14
We're up through all right through this we're all stopping
And we did the pedal register clear up to 19
21 a tongue
All through that line we covered a lot
Yeah clear up through
26 and
The first part of 27
study those pages
Get the sense of it
Now we talked about jewels leaving
That's a brass playing book
Look on page 24
Now jewels book is long since gone, but I have a copy of it
Great exercise is the only trouble is he never tells you how to do one of them
Or how to produce it and that was the way with those older books here is an exercise that's in that book
Page
24 you want to have some fun take a look at that and try and play it
And I get a kick at the end of the book his remarks was dear pupil
I have I hope you are satisfied with my instruction book. I have tried my best
I can do no more. I have written the last study merely to show you the resources of the corn cornet. I
Can play it with these?
And he could
Okay. All right any questions
All right now think about these things guys think about it get the sense all right