Claude Gordon Brass Camp 1987 - Claude Gordon on Wind Power with Range Study by Carl Leach

Did you do any breathing exercises?
Yes.
How do you feel?
Terrible.
My arm can't hurt.
Well it brings out the fact that if you're going to be a good brass player, you're going to have to be an athlete.
Because that's where it adds up to.
The last night I talked to you about playing a piece of pipe.
And it's not going to do anything for you.
But you've got to be an athlete.
That means you're going to have to stay in good health.
Actually, if you went to a gym, it would be good for you.
Aerobics are excellent.
You've got to get your sleep.
You've got to eat good.
I used to advocate trumpet player food, but I quit that.
Trumpet player food with steak and eggs for breakfast.
Steak and martini for dinner.
But it catches up with you.
That's not good.
So eat healthy and keep from being negative.
Keep happy.
And work out like an athlete.
The hardest thing I find with every student is that you ask them if they're doing their breathing exercises.
Generally I know if they are or not.
The ones that do the breathing exercises right here are way out ahead of the others all the time.
And the minute a guy is doing his breathing exercises well and you start stopping it, it starts showing up in his play.
Air is what makes everything work.
Wind power.
And you can't do it if you're walking along with that chest down.
It's got to be up.
It's been amazing that how much do you hear about wind and blowing?
And what do you hear mostly?
Someone, stand up.
Now what have you been told generally in your time as a trumpet player?
What have you been told about breathing?
I've been told that I believe in shoulders back.
Who do you study with?
Okay.
All right.
Now let's get another one.
Let's get another one.
I'm going to hear you.
Now Mike, before you started studying, when you were learning brass as a younger man, what did you hear about breathing?
Well, I probably just said it with Bob Redfowler before you.
He said it pretty much.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
Before that, I was told a lot of what you said last night about squeezing in on the stomach.
And I didn't quite know what to do.
I didn't know if I was supposed to push out or in.
And it's talked about you should be able to pitch in the stomach while you're playing and let everything go quiet.
Good.
That's right.
I'm sure I've been told that you breathe from a diaphragm.
How many have been told that?
That's about 99% of everybody here.
All right.
I want to get somebody to come up here.
Okay.
Push out your diaphragm.
Push out your diaphragm.
Are you pushing out?
Yes.
That's the whole point.
How do you know whether you're pushing your diaphragm out or doing anything with it?
We're doing both.
That's right.
Now, actually, the diaphragm is a very, very thin sheet of tissue.
So thin that if you held it up to the light, you could see through it.
In no way can that diaphragm stand the rigors of blowing that would cause a person to blow a glass instrument.
Can you tell me what the diaphragm is?
See, that's the idea.
How many times have you been told you've got to develop the diaphragm?
All right.
Now, how many times have you heard push out your stomach?
Everybody, let me see the hands.
How many times have you been heard of that?
Well, almost everybody again.
All right.
I'm going to try something.
Push out your stomach.
Does it make you blow?
No.
No.
It doesn't come to that.
So how are you going to push out your stomach to blow?
There's stories out of one teacher a long time ago.
He said he used to have his students put their fist in his stomach.
And then he would push his diaphragm out with such exertion that it would knock the student back.
Was that the diaphragm muscle that did that?
Also, what good did it do?
I might prove he's got a big, strong stomach.
But what good does it do the trumpet player or the brass player?
Pushing out your stomach doesn't make you uncomfortable.
You cannot get air into the stomach.
Now, guys that come to the brass camp every year, they hear this in one way or another every time.
And what it does is good for them because all of a sudden they're like, yeah, that's right.
Because during the year, you're getting all this flack from everybody about what you should be doing.
And the weight of that takes your mind off of the correctness.
You have to really be a very forceful personality to stay in what the right ways of playing are.
Now, let's talk a little bit more about the diaphragm.
The diaphragm does have some muscle tissue in it, but it's not a muscle.
I dropped to a university in Los Angeles.
And Dave will bear this out because he was with me and he was a teacher in several universities.
I saw a whole bunch of trumpet players lined up along the wall.
They got broom handles in their stomach, pushing against the wall like this.
And I asked them, I said, what are you doing?
He says, working on the diaphragm.
I said, well, how do you know?
They never had an answer.
How do you know what you're doing with the diaphragm?
Now, if you had to blow with the diaphragm, you would have to pull it up, wouldn't you?
And the reason you'd have to raise it up is because to blow, you'd have to have pressure.
If you take the stem of the tire out, what happens?
Or that air just shh out of there quietly because there's pressure behind it.
Now, to blow, you've got to have pressure the same way.
Now, if you were going to blow with a so-called diaphragm,
you'd have to pull it up because you're going to blow this way, aren't you?
So you'd have to raise it up and keep pushing and pushing and pushing.
Now, you've got a heart here, too.
How are you going to get by that heart when you get up that far?
Because those lungs have to be squeezed.
So actually, one medical book had a statement in it that was quite good.
It says the diaphragm is an involuntary muscle.
Who can tell me what that means?
Okay.
In other words, if it's involuntary, it works involuntarily.
In other words, you're not going to make it work.
So if it's an involuntary muscle, how in the world can you develop it?
You don't even know where it is.
This is like the young man saying, did you raise your diaphragm?
I don't know.
Of course you don't.
So how are you going to develop it to blow with?
So the diaphragm is one of the biggest misnomers that's ever been placed
upon the brass people.
And that is one of the major teachings of today.
Now, actually, when you take a breath, like you did your breathing exercises today,
where does the air go?
It goes into your lungs.
Well, isn't it strange that in all of the teaching that you hear,
very seldom do you hear the word lungs.
It's always the stomach and the diaphragm.
The lungs are where the air is stored.
That's why that chest must be up.
Clark, what he taught all the time, said the power generated by the chest.
Now, it's a shame, but the word diaphragm did creep into all the writings
because it was such a popular conception.
One of the ones that stuttered that most was the guy that devised an argument here,
Golden.
Golden was putting that diaphragm out of theory.
And it might have come even from Weldon.
I'm not sure.
I don't know what Weldon taught.
But he became a big teacher in Chicago.
You remember that name?
Anyway, he became a very good teacher.
Everybody comes here to learn how to breathe.
Actually, you don't have to learn how to breathe.
You don't have to develop what we've got.
See, this is contrary to nature.
Trying to raise a diaphragm that you can't even move is contrary to nature.
This is another one of the things I mean by staying within the forces of nature.
All right, you fill your lungs.
So when you take a breath, the lungs go up.
They stay there.
This is your gas tank.
That's the fuel that makes the horn work.
This is also your support.
As long as that chest is up, you've got the support to sit there or stand there and play it.
And this is why I will not let my students sit down when they're practicing.
The minute you sit down, this is all going to collapse.
I want to make a definite statement also.
If that chest is up, you cannot breathe wrong.
You don't have to think about what's this muscle doing?
What's the name of this muscle?
If you knew the name of every muscle in your body, would it help you play?
No.
And yet I go into classes and I see all of this muscle structure around my mouth.
And they're telling me that this is the endothrope, and this is the osorosis, and this is the glottis, and all these ugly names.
And you've got to develop this, which you could not develop anyway.
But you should develop that chest up until you walk that way all the time.
It's a matter of good posture.
And it gets to be a marvelous habit, and you feel better.
If the chest stays up, you cannot breathe wrong.
Remember that.
Then it works as nature intended.
It works naturally.
All right, this is your gas tank.
Now, if you drive your car down the road and your gas runs out, you run out of gas, does the gas tank fold up and collapse?
How many of you run out of gas?
If you run around and look at your gas tank, is it all flat and folded up?
No.
This is your gas tank.
It never comes down.
The chest is always up.
In the new book, when you get it, there's an article on Herbert Klein.
The critics were absolutely in awe of all these old players.
You never get to hear some of them.
And it remarked that if he played the note, you know, it had very descriptive words.
You'll read it.
And about how he held this note and this, and it went on for endless, it seemed like.
And when they stopped, and the critic noticed this, but from the players never do.
When he stopped, it says he had not thinned since then.
In other words, the critic was amazed that after holding this tremendous duration of playing, and he still had not thinned.
In other words, that chest was still up when the critic noticed that.
And then he marveled at it.
And that's why I put some of those critic statements in the book that you'll read.
I think you'll enjoy them very much.
All right.
Now, why must the chest stay up?
Your lungs actually are a set of bellows that have to be squeezed to make the air move.
How did the old, well, how does an accordion player make air move?
Because what?
Squeezes develops them.
You don't see much of them anymore, but 34 years ago, there was a great accordion player in this country.
It had reached such a stature that Charlie Mamiati even played in the Philharmonic in New York.
The old accordion never had any.
I mean, a marvelous player.
Hopefully it might come back one of these days.
Because it's a good instrument until they ruin it.
That's like a great guitar player.
Great guitar player.
We've got one sitting right over here.
But what have they done to the guitar?
They're ruining it just like they did the accordion.
The only thing is, it probably won't disappear because they've carried that around.
What do you want?
How do you do breathing and breathing out?
That's what I'm going to get at.
Now, it's a set of bellows.
I have a set of bellows here.
How did the old blacksmiths, before the advent of electricity,
some of the older people would know that,
how did they get those fires hot?
Get some air on them so they'd burn?
They had bellows.
They had bellows.
They'd have hand bellows.
Sometimes they'd work it by a foot with a bellow.
Like that.
Here's a set of hand bellows.
Open, now they're filled with air.
That air comes out.
It's just the way they work.
Your lungs are exactly like a set of bellows.
Now, notice there's no muscles in the bellows, is there?
But you can apply that.
There's no muscles in your lungs either.
But we are constructed with muscles all around the chest,
especially through the back.
Those muscles squeeze just like a bellows.
Like this.
Shhh.
You take a breath.
Then you squeeze.
Shhh.
Once you develop it, you can feel what's happening.
Someone couldn't tell you you were wrong
or that you're using a diaphragm
because you can feel these muscles moving.
But if I told you to do that,
like a young man, what would you do?
It would be pretty hard to try and move those muscles.
But if the chest is up,
that's the way they work.
If you watch the guy that's developed
from the back,
you can actually see
all this back structure just squeeze like this.
What is going on?
If the chest drops, you're wasting your time
because those muscles aren't going to develop.
The chest must stay up and all that.
That's when they squeeze.
Now, when your chest is down, they can't squeeze.
So then who knows how you're going?
You're pushing something.
You're still using the muscle, but it can't work right.
The chest is always up.
Then the muscles squeeze like a bellows.
You understand?
That's why breathing exercises.
That's as much a part of your brain
as working your fingers and everything else.
Now, the breathing exercises that I want you to do
are all listed in the physical approach book,
the elementary brass play,
or lesson 12.
First of all, you get the 10 breaths
with the chest up.
Like this.
Keeping the chest up, you let the air out.
Notice the chest is moving.
Take a breath.
Chest is up.
You let the air out.
Use muscles to go like this.
Now, when you take your breath,
try and lean back.
Comfortably full.
But that chest must be up.
If you're playing, say you're playing a big orchestra,
you're playing at sight.
You're just sitting there.
Also, you turn the page, there's a high F.
Now, if that chest is down, believe me, you're going to miss it.
But if the chest is up, you're ready for it.
That's your support.
It's your gas tank, but it's also your support.
They marvel, you hear an awful lot about breathing, breathing, breathing.
But you're never told how it works.
I had a student come in from New Jersey
a few years ago,
and he worked on breathing exercises so much
that here's the way he walked in the studio.
I told him to take a breath.
He goes,
and I said, take a big breath, fill up.
He goes, shh.
I said, you haven't got any air in your lungs at all.
He says, well, I was always told to breathe from here.
You know, he worked all week.
He had to go back.
When he walked out of the studio,
same thing.
He hadn't learned one thing,
because he only believed what he wanted to hear.
Don't read that way.
Think about this a little bit.
This is the way all the greats play it.
Did you ever watch a good example?
Maurice Andre?
How many of you have seen Maurice Andre play?
There's a great artist.
Does he play like this?
Or is he doing this?
You watch him play, and that chest is right up there,
and he's playing so easily
that it looks effortless.
Oh, he's got that big breath.
Take a look at every great artist
all the way back to the 1800s.
Clark, Liberati, Levy.
A chest like this.
Every one of them.
I've got pictures of a lot of them.
Monstrous guys.
Some of them were little.
That's another thing to bring up.
They think, well, if a guy's really big,
then he'll have better lungs,
and he'll play better.
That's not true.
The size of the lungs don't have anything to do with it.
It's how he's developed.
We used to play like the shows
that Carl's playing over in Vegas now.
Those used to be in Hollywood
when I first came down.
And we would play a two-and-a-half-hour show,
no strings in this orchestra,
or them trumpets going constant all the time,
and very seldom getting off your mouth.
And you play two-and-a-half-hours,
you get about 20 minutes off,
come in, start the second show,
another two-and-a-half-hours,
and then we'd play a half-hour dance set
to close the club.
I asked one of the students,
oh, I bet you're a lip with solar lemon.
No, my lips felt great.
You know where we retire?
Right around here.
Because you're pumping that,
you're going to cross that right like this.
We used to sit in a chair like this.
Give me the chair.
Just a second.
We didn't sit in a chair like this
when we were playing either.
I had a student the other day.
I said, stand up now.
He said, well, I'd rather sit down.
I said, I don't care what you'd rather do.
Stand up.
He says, yeah, but I feel it.
Why do I have to stand up?
Got to get those bellows going.
He said, oh, I can squeeze even with my leg down.
I can squeeze.
What are you going to do with a student like that?
Get rid of him.
Because he's not going to learn.
Yet I go into every high school.
And here's that trumpet section.
Every one of them.
Yeah, you should sit up.
I know not even their back there on the edge
of their chair.
That's the way you should sit.
Now you're ready for anything.
Of course, it's hip, you know,
to hold a horn in one hand.
But it doesn't work that way.
Can you hear back there?
Is that all right?
Do we need a mic?
It's okay?
Okay.
So stand up in your practice
and keep that chest up.
Now all the exercise, like you got the book,
systematic approach.
The first exercise of every routine
is a breathing exercise.
Carl, have you got your horn?
Yeah.
Would you like to play it?
Would you like to play it?
All right, now if we take lesson two.
If you take lesson two,
you'll notice it's a series of arpeggios.
I used to demonstrate at least this
for a long time now.
Oh, we can't do that?
We'll do part one of lesson two.
You'll notice that chest goes up.
It's going all the way.
The chest goes up.
Good.
Now where did you see the squeeze
of the muscles?
When he ran out of air.
You noticed right there.
And your tennis is, you even want to help it with your arms.
Because you're squeezing air.
Did you see his diaphragm come up?
That's a ridiculous theory.
It's not true.
Now you rest about as long as you play.
Now the next one.
Now you should hold it just that long.
Because it's our last squeeze.
It's like isometrics.
That gets the blood circulation of those muscles built.
Alright?
Then you rest.
You're not practicing to get tired.
Remember that.
There's a theory off the ground.
If you want to build endurance, you get tired and keep playing until you're wasted.
That's not good at building endurance.
That's tearing you down.
The secret of endurance is knowing when to rest.
And then your endurance will build.
We're not practicing to tear down.
We're practicing to build.
If you tear down, you're destroying it.
Okay, now we do five.
Generally, the guys will hold it until it starts to get a little effort and they quit.
Hold it until you're out of air and you're really pushing.
I want to see if you can see it.
I don't know if you can see it.
They got your gloves.
You want us to squeeze?
You want us to squeeze?
You want us to squeeze?
Did you miss one?
Yeah.
Okay.
Now the next one.
On my own.
Now notice too, that chest.
Notice the chest, how it's up and how it stays there.
Carl's been doing it for so many years.
He never dropped his chest.
It's automatic.
Finally it becomes natural.
You keep on working these things until they do come back.
They're not going to work the minute you try them.
I don't promise anybody the first year is going to be easy.
First year is going to be a little difficult.
Right, Ben?
Yeah.
But then as the things start to work,
you've got seven elements to work with.
Wind power, tongue, wind control, lips, facial muscles,
fingers to the right hand and the left hand.
All of those, each one, must be developed until it's working correctly.
Remember that.
Until it's working correctly, as nature intended it, by habit.
Not by thinking about it.
You can't be playing in a big orchestra and thinking about it.
Is this worth it?
Is this worth it?
It becomes natural.
Oh, me?
God.
Gee.
I noticed too, he's not blasphemy.
Everybody gets an idea.
I've seen this again and again.
Somebody, I've been working on your book, but I'm not improving.
That's how the system works.
Come on, let me work.
They're trying to blow the walls out.
They're playing so loud.
It's not how loud you play,
but always play strong enough to get a good sound.
But don't blast it.
But don't hold back.
Soft playing comes under control.
That comes later.
Okay?
All right, now that is the end of the low note on the trumpet,
so we're going to go further.
You start on the half, now you start into the pedal range,
which is so misunderstood.
Now, many books are putting in pedals
because it's become a thing that everyone hears about.
Never any explanation.
I've seen these young players all over the country
practicing pedals all wrong.
If you don't do them right, it would be better not to even mess with it.
They used to think this was only a certain gifted few that could do this,
like a great cornet soloist named Bottom of Crill.
You heard that one, yeah?
At one time, a teacher that he was studying with in Chicago,
he said, you take that cornet and you go by the lake,
get out, and you solo as far as you can.
You're never going to be a question.
He turned out to be one of the greatest soloists of all time
because he had a desire to play.
And in the critics, they were amazed because he could play solos.
He could play solos down in the pedal register.
And they would marvel at that.
And they said that Mr. Crill doesn't know himself how he does this.
It's something that's spiritual.
But that mystery, they love to keep that mystery going.
Anybody can play pedals if they do it right.
Now, play an F sharp, lower F sharp, and just force it flat.
Don't worry about how you force it flat.
Just push it down.
That's the feel of what that first pedal note feels like.
Do it again.
Push it down this way.
No big changes.
There's no muscles moving around or pooching his neck out.
Just push it down.
Anybody can do it.
I've had a little guy, a little in this guy.
He can do it the first lesson, play an F.
Now, that's the feel.
Now, there's many methods on pedals.
They've got several notes with all different fingers,
like F, D, A, D, A, G.
E, D, A, D, A, two and three.
But you're not going to be able to play and use them
if you use all those off of the fingers.
That's just avoiding the issue
because they come easier that way.
So with that feel in mind, I'll keep going.
I've actually had a pedal after it.
Yeah, and you will have.
Some of the symphonic numbers have pedals in them.
Yeah, why don't you start doing this again?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, now the E.
Actually, the reason I don't do much of it anymore
is because Dr. Miller landed on me like a ton of bricks
and was holding, what was that?
I was holding something up north at the camp
where I could see Larry getting red
and madder and madder and madder.
After the heart surge, yeah, I guess it was dangerous.
I don't know.
Yeah, that's what it was.
So anyway, it's kind of easier to let go.
Okay, now you do it.
That's pretty good.
Look at that.
Now, notice he's still holding it.
Most of the young players by that time,
they're going da, da, da.
They're forgetting to hold it.
Do the job.
Like, I'll keep a guy on an exercise.
There's a good example.
I just heard this story, and she's a booker.
I said, oh, I'd like to try these.
And she said, oh, I'd like to try these.
And I said, oh, I'd like to try these.
And she said, oh, I'd like to try these.
And I said, oh, I'd like to try these.
And she said, oh, I'd like to try these.
So he gets the book, and for about four days,
he works on an exercise.
All of a sudden, the book's folder goes on the shelf.
Hasn't done it one bit of good.
You've got to stay with something until it develops.
How long did that keep you on ironing?
Oh, man, what a story.
Tell them about it.
Well, it was about, what was that, third year?
I was taken from him about third year,
and he put me on the, anybody play irons here?
Know that book?
Yeah, most of them do.
OK.
Well, OK.
And the majority of them don't have that.
It's a flexibility book.
And then he was thinking up all these arpeggios,
going up to two and three octaves and stuff like that.
And so he had me on this thing.
And after the third month, I was totally irate.
It's like every time you go for a lesson,
well, OK, new stuff.
And something wasn't right yet.
He was looking for something.
And he would coach me on it.
He says, OK, this will be the last one.
And my lessons were a month apart.
So we're talking about four weeks and not just like another week.
And the fourth month, I came back and I was OK.
He said he was going to change it.
So right now we're trying to get some new material.
I get sick and tired of that damn thing.
I was doing the whole book every day.
And he says, we're real close.
We're real close.
It's just something that, you know, it's like real close.
And it's like, you know, I always build up this,
like I'm going to tell him this time, let's drop this crap.
And he always talked me into going a little bit farther.
On the eighth month.
I think this, now he's down to some really good psychology.
He says, we're really close.
There's something just two weeks longer.
I wasn't going to see him for four weeks.
He says, just two weeks longer.
We're going to do this a couple weeks longer.
And it wasn't until I got out the door, I said,
but I'm not going to see it until we go.
And all of a sudden one day I was playing and something,
I just woke up and it just, something happened.
And it was like, yeah.
And the book, the whole viewpoint changed
and the effort changed and the book became really neat.
And I came back the following lesson and I said,
Claude, I love these things.
These are great.
I just, I can't believe it.
And he played it for him, stuff like this.
He says, okay, next exercise will be like, you know,
he just dropped it out because I finally got out of it.
You know, he was waiting for me to develop.
It's always been real slow.
You have to stay on it until it happens.
You develop the map.
He was working on the map at that time.
And when it happens, it's like somebody opens the door
and says, oh my gosh, that's it.
So they come back and say, I love this now.
And I said, okay, we're going to change it now.
I don't want to change it now.
Okay.
What are we on?
C, A, D.
Why don't you play it flat first?
No, you just play it.
Yeah, I hope I can.
Now, one thing I am going to play because I want to show it.
What are you doing?
No.
When you go into the pedal the first time,
everything down to that D flat feels exactly the same,
just like the F.
But now when you get to the C, the whole thing changes,
completely different feel.
Who was the guy that had the gimmick band all the time,
the quarter tone?
Don Ellis.
Don Ellis came in one time.
I never could play a penicillin.
He said, can you show me how to play a penicillin?
I said, sure.
He says, I don't think I can do it.
I said, I never have.
I can't.
But Don was a good color player.
He played back with all of his bands.
And I got a kick because he drew him up in this half a block
along with a sports car.
And he got out of the car and he's got black leather pants,
black leather jacket.
And his hair looked like a coconut.
We have all the affectations of that era.
But he made a lot of money on the gimmicks.
So he came in.
And by the time he left, he was playing the pedal C
and he couldn't believe it.
He didn't know the first lesson.
It's knowing how.
Now when you get down to that first pedal C,
it's not going to be in tune.
And don't try to get it in tune.
Everybody, every week, can I bring it up now?
How long is it going to be?
You're not going to use it right away anyway.
It's going to be very flat.
That's where it blows.
And you leave it there.
That's the proper feel.
That states that in the book, but don't want
to pay any attention to it.
It says, leave it flat.
I had one student over in the school,
and a professor come out one day.
He says, you're playing that out of tune.
He knew he was playing it out of tune.
And he better play it out of tune because it won't work.
Now what's going to happen is you try and get it the other way
and it'll be.
That's not a pedal C. It's nothing.
You're trying to get it with your lips.
The lips only vibrate.
So what you do is drop your jaw.
All.
Just like you're saying all.
In time.
It'll come right on up.
And that'll be a venue for music.
You can go all the way up to double C, triple C,
all the way back down.
It's possible to go four octaves below.
I don't even recommend that because you'll overdo it.
But drop that jaw.
All.
It'll come up.
All.
Oh, you got a good sound.
All.
It'll take a year, two years, three years.
Vince, how are you doing on your first time?
I'm not in my routine at this point.
I was going to pick it up.
Pedal that tune over.
Jeff, you're getting your pedals in tune now, aren't you?
You didn't a few years ago, did you?
But the reason he did it right is he's getting them tuned.
But these guys trying to get them with their lips are never,
it's never going to go up.
St. Jacob, I think it's on page 181 or 81, anyway.
It's right in there.
He has a pedal over it.
Pedal C.
It's very notable.
He says, existing on the cornet.
Existing on the cornet.
To be done without moving the lips or left alone in italics.
So they knew about them and they knew the dangers.
Too many pedals are very, very dangerous.
Too many extreme high notes are very dangerous.
It's in the center of a horn that you need that constant practice.
Carl was on one of the toughest blowing jobs in Las Vegas for seven years.
Most of the players that were on the job by that time had folded out.
But Carl was still playing and playing.
Unfortunately, he doesn't have to do it every night now because I think it's time he got over that.
What is the most tiring part of that show?
It was endurance.
I mean having to play.
Right.
It wasn't the high notes that tired you.
There weren't any high notes.
I mean the only thing, I added high notes in there but it wasn't written in the chart.
Were they right up to you?
We had some E and one F sharp.
That was the highest note.
It was bad on the end of the string.
But I'm not going to name one but there was one very high note artist.
He really had a reputation.
High notes.
And he went in to Vegas and boy, we'll get this guy.
I think we got a guy now with capoose.
He lasted one week.
One week.
And he was absolutely blown out.
So you see the high notes isn't what does it.
It's the stability of that horn constantly.
But now remember, you get those pedals right or leave them alone.
You don't sit there and practice them all day.
They're not a cure-all.
They do help you play correctly but they're not a cure-all.
They're not going to magically make you play high notes.
It's part of the development of the instrument.
And they're on the instrument.
You take my carousel again and then the other day I had a wrap here.
I got a tape.
We had a show at Columbia one time.
And again, I'm telling you, these were all live.
There was no tape.
And the conductor was the organist.
And he had five pieces.
French horn, trumpet, one reed, percussion, and organ.
So he came in all of this.
I said to him, Coach, you got to pedal.
He says, is that possible?
And I said, well, it's not supposed to be, but for you I'll do it.
So it does happen.
All right, now do you understand what I'm saying?
Get those pedals right.
There was one student up in Seattle.
He had a pupil that would come in.
And he got the feel.
And he said, oh, he's just feeling great.
So he came in for his lesson.
And then pretty soon he couldn't play out of his hat.
And he said, why don't you do it?
Well, he found that he felt real good playing pedals.
So that's all he practiced on all day.
But he said he couldn't play anything.
It's only part of your practice.
So when you're working out of the books where it's in there,
do it like it says.
And that's enough.
OK?
Yeah.
I'm trying to relate to your saying that there's so much work
and there's not a lot of work to do.
There's a whole lot of work to do after your class.
And if you do it the right way, you get those points.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It's the same on every bass instrument.
Just let them drop.
For example, you get down to C, and you can relate
to a trumpet player.
Of course, French horn is different.
That damn thing never ends.
It goes on forever on both sides.
But they finally do get to the bass.
But the thing is that when you get to the proper B flat,
C on trumpet, from there down you get that same feel.
And every note probably might sound the same pitch.
The B might sound just like the C.
The A might sound just like the B.
You don't worry about that.
You're only working those notes for the feel.
So do it right.
Because if you do it the right way,
don't think as a musician would think when you get down to it.
It's a calisthenic.
And think of it as that way.
In time, it'll work.
It'll tell you what to do.
You don't have to ask it.
It'll tell you.
OK?
Does that answer you now?
I think so.
When you say it, it's a little bit like when I'm practicing
and dropping my jaw.
Dropping your jaw.
OK.
Just like you're saying, oh.
OK.
And don't worry about what happens.
Just let it happen.
That's a trouble.
Brass players are warriors.
They want it right now.
Just relax and close.
It'll get there.
OK?
Now, you can go to other octaves down easily.
Not right away, but you and Karl,
what do you do for a living?
Well, I don't know.
You haven't given me pedals in years.
I just play it for warming up.
See, it's not also, you've got to understand for all those people
out there that I've heard some people in the International
Public Guild book and things like that criticizing Clive's
thing for big guys that all of all they do is play pedal notes
and high notes and things like that.
They're used to achieve a certain point.
And once you have that, it's not like you have to beat it
into submission.
He took me off the pedals a long time ago,
and we were working different things.
I play them as part of my warm up before I go on the stand
or something like that lightly.
Not many of them.
But it's just to keep the feel there.
But it's once after you develop.
I don't want anybody to stop after this,
but I want you to also understand that everything
evolves.
You know, you're doing these routines and things like that,
and in a few years you'll have things called more maintenance
type routines because you'll be playing professionally,
and you can't play the type of routines you're doing here
and expecting to play at night, too.
Those things modify.
Did you guys come here?
It all stands to reason.
Suppose you're the heavyweight champion of the world,
and you were going to fight a title fight tonight.
Would you go fight two or three exhibition fights
during the afternoon first?
And yet that's what commentaries don't do.
They were back in practice.
You know, they'll practice their entire routine.
Then they go to work and one or two final fights.
Why is it so hard then?
It's still physical.
Remember, you're an athlete, so think of it.
Okay, I'll let you go.
I'll let you.
You'll notice it's got a long hold.
It's just enough to get a slight push on it.
Did you mention something else?
No.
No.
You sound the octave because there's actually several reasons
why you sound the octave.
One of which is actually the only one you need to know
when you're starting off is just for pitch reference.
But there's actually, it helps you not to do something weird
like, you know, fish around for it.
You keep the same feel as your head above.
Did that answer that?
You're the only one who wanted to know, Hart.
Okay, I'll listen to you.
Okay.
Now you're out of pedals.
That's all there is to it.
Now that isn't much out of the day, is it?
Okay, all good.
It seems weird, doesn't it?
This is usually something private that you do at home.
You do it in front of people.
You know, it's like, I mean, I usually have a little coffee
or juice or something like that, but I stagger around the house
and I can't just stand in one place and do this routine.
What am I on?
Where am I?
You're watching and playing.
Is anyone looking to see what the chess is doing?
Yeah.
Usually in my undershorts.
It would be one of the first things of the day
and you never do it after you meet.
Never.
Oh, God.
It's still not plastic, but it's a shorter, strong enough
to be short.
Too soon, too many teachers say, play soft, play soft.
As a result, not knowing how to play soft,
the student stops blowing.
And as soon as he stops blowing, now he's pinching
and having problems.
What are you looking for?
You want me to face that way?
I hate this every year.
This is the worst part of the camp.
Are you pushing his stomach out?
I don't care.
And in the application sessions, you'll get a lot of that,
too, so that you'll understand it better.
Okay?
All you see to do is to guess the tune.
Everybody wants to go, da, da, da, da, da, da.
Okay?
The texture, the player, really,
so the composer must go, da, da, da, da, da.
What am I on? E-flat?
God knows I'm sorry.
Alright, let's do it.
Did I? Yeah, sometimes I know this, don't I?
It actually attached to the diaphragm.
Well, gee, gee, thank you.
I just do that occasionally just to stop them from just playing.
You're the player, you know what you want.
That's a little added thing, man, I'm starting my own method.
Okay, it's almost the nice for now anyway.
This thing's really gone, it's leaking air through the bowels and the water's coming through all the spines.
No, it's just clod horn, it's what's left of the clod horn. It's just too much playing.
No, no, no, I put that there because the slide got so loose that it fell out while I was playing. Give me your finger, give me your finger.
It's gone, it's almost gone.
So.
See, I'm in a rut, it comes down to the same place.
Right, it comes down to the same place.
Beep.
No?
Beep.
It's kind of thin out real quick.
That's what I did here last night.
We'll sing that.
The slide feels terrible.
No, I do that. That's my chair.
Let's have it again.
The air does the work. Don't ever forget that. That's the first rule of grass playing. The air does the work.
Wait a minute, I gotta do that again.
We've done that stuff like, you know, you're told when you do something really good, it's kind of like when you're all by yourself, it's like rockin'.
Beep, beep.
Beep.
That's enough. That's enough.
That's an idea.
Now, every one of you can do that if you just develop correctly.
I have students in here right now that couldn't get out of the staff when they started, and they're all getting up to double Cs and doing it very easy.
You notice he's got the strength.
Let's have a support behind you.
Okay, you know, they're working on something down there.
We're going to show you just a little bit of videotape that I did several years ago.
I was doing a clinic in Indiana, and a cell was set up for a camera crew and just videotaped the whole thing.
And I figured, well, I'd better demonstrate some weapon on this to do that.
So we're going to go through what Carl did and get some of the gossandos that he used to gripe about, and we'll put those on.
Now, you may have asked about the horn.
You know, they talk about horns.
You hear all sorts of things.
Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, board.
Like I hear one guy say, oh, I can't play that horn.
That's a large board.
I can't play a large board.
I can't fill it up.
You can't fill up any horn.
They're open on both ends.
What do you mean?
So that's just more talk.
You know, a board has actually nothing to do with whether you play well or not.
It's the tapers, how that instrument is constructed.
Years ago, the Besson, the old French Besson became the standard of the world.
They weren't always good.
In fact, there were many more bad ones than there were good ones.
But if you got one of those good ones, it was phenomenal.
But they were all handmade.
And contrary to popular opinion, handmade horns weren't the best because there was no two alike.
And I could see a guy at the bench and I was like, that doesn't quite fit.
That was true.
Oh, that sounded better.
And that generally is an idea of handmade horns.
And they were, Besson had a lot of secrets in his horn.
Some of them were so obvious that they thought they were those that were trying to find out what he did to make the horn play well.
But they were so obvious that they overlooked him.
And the horn being made a little sloppily at that time, the one secret that was the biggest secret of all,
and it didn't appear in all the horns, but in some of the old miharas it did.
And that was a restriction of the taper at the bell.
And I found that many, many years ago, unfortunately, I was working and talking with some very good craftsmen,
like old Earl Skipper, which most of you probably never heard of.
He's been dead a long time.
Probably one of the greatest boozers I ever saw.
I used to have to bring a jug, sit it down to get him to work.
If I bring a jug and sit it down, then we'd work on it.
Finally killed him, but great craftsmen.
And we worked on those things and some of the secrets that were in that horn.
And what I think, they used to break down the alloys of the brass.
They thought it was in the brass.
They'd break down all the alloys.
And if you went over to the best of the factory, probably every bit of brass they had was probably stamped anaconda copper.
So it was no different than any other brass, although you could get a softer brass, a brittle brass.
But the tapers were the important thing.
And the old Caligula was alive, and we used to sit down and talk about it.
He had mandals boxed up.
Of course, when he died, why all the information went with it.
Later on, he played us in one of the collegiate stores.
He was a really good player.
So the taper of the lead pipe and the bell is vital.
So we worked, I did, with these guys.
We worked 30 years developing an instrument the way it should play.
Some of those secrets are in it.
That's the chapter horn that Carl was playing.
And that's called the CG Silver.
Now, I was kidding you last night about when I asked you if you knew.
It wasn't like, wow, wow, I'm glad you were there.
I got too late.
Now, my horn is made right on the same bench with those.
Made with the same techniques, the same everything.
The only thing is that it's different than tapers.
It's very light.
We'll get into the construction of the horn later.
At the show tomorrow, they'll have probably 10 of those instruments.
And every one of you will go play them.
We're not going to mention bore size right now.
It's a bore size instrument.
But go over and play them.
And very openly, see what they feel like to you and how they work.
Don't preconceive what a horn is going to play like.
Like the old dressing horn, they never put a bore size on it.
But now everything has become very intellectual.
You've got to know the bore.
You know, what's this?
How's this there?
Where can I watch?
When we were kids, we looked for a horn.
All we looked for was how does it play?
Does it play easily or hard?
If it played hard, we didn't want it.
If it played easily, then we want it.
Now, what do we mean by easily?
That means free.
So it's not stuffing or kicking back at you.
Now, it actually doesn't kick back at you.
You could get the smallest bore made.
You take the mouthpiece off and blow through it.
It's not going to kick back at you, is it?
But what you feel is kicking back at you is the vibration.
In order to have a good instrument, just like with the French horn or the trombone or anything,
you've got to have an instrument that will vibrate.
And when you can feel that thing quivering in your hand,
you know you've got a good horn.
So that's all.
How are you doing on that?
We're narrowing it down.
Are you getting it down?
We're narrowing it slow.
Vibrated mouthpieces are another thing that's the most dangerous thing that can happen
with players.
We'll find it.
During the week, this year, I'm going to have a whole discussion on mouthpieces.
We haven't done it before.
I always try to stay away from them because it's such a bad issue.
It's such a dangerous issue.
But it's got to be faced.
So this year, I'm going to go into mouthpieces.
What makes them play?
Why do they play good?
Why are they bad?
And so forth.
Because this internal hurt for a mouthpiece that's going to play for them is very dangerous.
Most of the tapes that you see have been done by the player in the studio.
Everything's set up for it.
It looks just right.
We've got all the backgrounds and everything just right.
If it doesn't work out, then we won't do it.
This was done at a clinic, and it was recorded exactly.
I did it wrong or badly.
But if I did something badly, it's on the tape.
That's the way it went, just as this clinic went.
Tell them why the arm's shaking.
Oh, my arm always shakes in a sit-down operation.
Like when they cut the muscles here.
So every time he gets his arm to a stress point, it shakes.
Have you ever seen a heart surgery or a film or anything?
Larry wanted me to look at one one night.
I didn't want to.
But boy, they cut you from stem to stern.
You start up here and they'll take a saw.
Literally a circular saw.
And they cut right through those ribs.
Then they take what they call a spreader,
and they spread those ribs right over.
Then they very lovingly lift the high ground on your chest
and go that way.
When you get your arm sewed back up together,
you start moving some muscles.
Nothing seems to work the same way.
When we sit down, we start to play, and we start to shake.
And so it'll shake on this thing.
Believe me, that's not nervousness.
This is the bench that we have on our bench.
Can you bring it over any closer?
We don't have an extension.
Can everybody take a seat?
Wait a minute.
Yeah, that's better.
Back up a little.
Okay.
Okay.
You guys are the best.
Absolutely the best.
So, okay, later on we'll get into some of the fly staves
and we're going to show you some of the technical things too
that's on that thing.
I'm glad they took them because I don't think they'll ever do it again.
Did you have a question?
Okay.
How are we doing on time?
Is that done?
Are we up?
Any questions now before we close this session?
Everybody?
Yeah.
Have you learned anything?
Yeah.
Okay, now don't forget it.
Take anything out of your head if you think about it.
And don't let somebody take it away from you.
You know, an incident that happened in South Carolina
really was interesting.
I just realized that most punishments last three hours.
I used to start with three solid hours.
No breaks.
Because by the time you got a break, you lost your momentum.
And then you lost your confidence.
So after I finished this three-hour session,
this one teacher came up, a big guy.
He says, oh, he said, I enjoyed that.
He says, now I know why my students aren't doing well.
He said, I'm going to start this.
So two years later, we came through again.
I went to a clinic in the same school.
He says, can you come over and hear my brass section?
Okay.
He says, those guys do the breathing exercise.
Every morning, you get out on the field,
do those breathing exercises.
He says, they're all playing just excellent.
And I went out and heard the band, and they were.
Boy, that trumpet section is really sailing through.
And those guys were standing like this.
Like this.
So that was it.
And I had another session in the South,
in the Ozarks.
Now, all of you know how hot it can get in the Ozarks.
Hot and sticky.
This is like, all day you felt like you took a shower
and didn't dry off.
Just put your clothes on.
That's the way it felt all day.
So they had this clinic, and there had to be
200 at the clinic.
Dealers, music dealers, everything.
And they're all out there.
And it was hot outside.
And one thing I didn't like, right outside the door,
they had a bar.
Right past that was the pool.
And here were all these selling dolls, bikinis.
And then I didn't have time to give them a clink.
Boy, these guys are not going to stay there very long
in this heat.
You know, for three hours, not one guy got out
of the pool.
And I couldn't believe it.
But since then, I'm not going to give three hours
anymore.
That's too hot.
I'd rather do it in a week's time.