Claude Gordon Brass Camp 1987 - Dave Evans on Auditions and Transposition

You're at a huge disadvantage if you don't spend about $7,500 to go to somebody's garage studio and take care of business, okay?
One of my students auditioned for Juilliard this year, he didn't get in because he didn't take care of business.
He just kind of put a tape machine in his bathroom and taped it and sent it off to Juilliard.
And when he was back in New York or something, he went to Juilliard and played with the guy.
The guy said, well, why aren't you here? You sound great.
He said, well, I sent a tape in and he threw it up the tape and he couldn't tell anything about what was going on, really.
So if you're going to do a tape up this way for the Allstate Honor Band or the All-Sudden Cal Honor Band and those types of things, go to a small studio.
There are hundreds of them in the LA area, okay?
And just simply go in and plunk down to $50 to $75.
It's going to cost you for about an hour to two hours studio time and tape that audition.
Do it right. Have them hand you a couple of cassettes when you leave on really good tape and you're way ahead of the game, okay?
So if you're going to tape the audition, do it right.
Any questions about that particular situation?
And don't feel like you're cheating.
You know, if some guy doesn't want to go on to it right, that's his problem, okay?
Live auditions.
Now here's where you get all kinds of bizarre situations, okay?
First of all, when you're going to do a live audition, show up at least 30 to 45 minutes early.
It's amazing, especially going to a university.
It's absolutely amazing how lost you can get at a college going to an audition, okay?
Absolutely blow your mind.
It's also amazing how if you're auditioning for an orchestra, how they will tell you the wrong hall, okay?
And you'd be surprised at 35 to 40 minutes how much ground you can cover trying to find the right place, okay?
And kiss of death for the music business is being late for anything.
Absolute kiss of death.
That will get you off of everybody's list immediately.
So if you're late for the audition, you're going to lose absolute death.
So plan to get there 30 to 45 minutes early, okay?
Dress conservatively, okay?
What do I mean by conservatively?
Republican, okay, yeah.
And I really mean it.
We had one guy last fall come into the juries at Cal State Fullerton,
and I was telling him, come to your juries for final exams with the play force, dress conservatively.
He came in in parachute pants, a weird t-shirt, no socks, and a pair of red tennis shoes, you know?
And the head of the wind department got up and left.
Just put F on the paper and left.
And he's like, oh, god, stupid.
So not him, but the other guy, you know?
That's what it's like when you're a kid.
It doesn't matter how good you play.
You're already off the letter, Greg, because you're standing there, and the big sign says, I don't care.
So when you go to an audition, dress conservatively.
Wear it all the time, you know?
I just, how do you spell this?
You know, nice blue blazer, white shirt.
We're going to try gray slacks and a pair of nice shoes.
Young ladies, just dress conservatively.
Just dress nicely when you go.
Because you're there, and you're advertising yourself, you know?
A kid comes in, a guy comes in, a gal comes in to a college entrance exam.
And he comes in, and, well, you're going to tell him off the line, very briefly.
And whether it just says you're there for placement exams, okay, you're there for muscle placement exams.
The orchestra director's there, the band director's there, the moral and not, the head of the wind department's there.
All of the wind instructors are there.
And you walk in that door, you want a good impression, right now.
How you dress is fantastically important.
What about the times you've been in?
Hmm?
Do you guys even go out?
Yeah, you go out on a string.
You never know.
I mean, it's just, I don't know.
Even slow, if somebody's back there doing something, and somebody might ask his opinion.
Say, well, yeah, no, this guy was really good, I thought, you know?
It's really weird how that hits on people, okay?
All right.
When you're warming up, you're there three, five, 40 minutes early.
Don't try to impress all the rest of the candidates.
You know, there's the private warm-up, and there's the public warm-up, right?
The public warm-up is pretty, you know, every high note you know.
And the private warm-up is you're getting cold, trying to get things going a little bit.
You warm up to what you need to do.
Don't impress the other candidates.
Impress the committee.
Impress the committee.
You warm up to what you got to do, and put your heart away.
Just kind of sit around and wait for the rest of the game.
Okay?
Next thing, if you're auditioning for a college, it is possible,
try to find out who's studying from the professor of the instrument or pineapple.
Find out what his favorite tunes are.
What does he like to hear?
What type of music?
Is he deeply into French literature?
Does he hate French literature?
Is he into hypermodern music?
Does he want to hear something very legit?
What does he really want to hear?
Okay?
What is the majority of this student's point?
All right.
Now, what in auditions are people looking for?
Okay?
The number one thing that every audition committee is looking for is tone.
That is absolutely number one.
So, when you start talking about tone,
there are certain audition pieces that work better than other ones.
And there's the three H's.
Okay?
You can't go wrong.
The first ones are those three pieces.
The high trumpet cello, the humble trumpet cello,
and the hidden trumpet sonata.
Those three pieces are good tone pieces.
The second thing every committee is looking for is intonation.
Do you play in tune with yourself?
You can't play in tune with yourself.
If you can't play in tune with yourself,
how can you play in tune with an orchestra,
your wind ensemble, your jazz?
How can you do that?
So, work on your intonation.
The third thing they're looking for is rhythm.
When you play a rhythm, you do it correctly.
Paul gave you some of the best information in the world you can.
Work with the metronome.
Work with the metronome constantly.
After you've learned the piece,
okay, I think something through a metronome problem,
way too soon.
You're still trying to learn the notes,
and you've got a metronome clicking,
and you're just going crazy.
Once you get the notes through your fingers,
start playing the rhythm there.
Like Paul was saying,
remember where the front of the beat is,
the middle of the beat,
and the back of the beat,
so you can make music around that.
But those guys are going to be sitting there going click, click, click, click,
looking for rhythm.
The fourth thing, which probably if I ask a lot of you,
what they're looking for is
you would have said the first thing.
The fourth thing they're looking for is musicality.
It might seem strange to put that in number four,
but if you come in and play these big phrases
out of tune with a lousy sound and no rhythm,
they could care less, okay?
And what happens then is
that being that part on the line
eliminates some really good audition
for these blank yards.
So let me tell you a little bit about big cadenza.
Go to sleep.
Because there's a way for you to go,
okay?
It eliminates things like the getty contradicts.
That's just noise.
You want to hear big, loud sounds.
Okay?
So we're looking for that.
Intonation, rhythm, musicality.
In that order.
Yo.
Is your audition for more music
going to be the high end?
I'll give you that for that.
Okay? I know what you're going to ask.
We'll talk about that.
Now, when you're auditioning for a college,
they don't publish a list usually
unless you're auditioning for a major conservatory.
So if you're going to audition for a college situation,
you use either your B flat
or your C trumpet.
Okay?
In other words, this is what you were talking about.
In other words, you go in with a high end trumpet concerto
and you walk in your B flat
and you go...
I can judge awful lots right there.
If you go...
I already told you a lot right now, right?
If you go...
You're okay.
I mean, the audition's over.
Well, you've got to have those first couple bars nailed.
Or if you go...
You know, you're in trouble.
Okay?
Now, and I've seen this happen.
You walk in with your
E flat trumpet
to all your audition.
You walk in and you've got something like...
Well, that's a good sound for an E flat trumpet.
And you'll play, you'll play, you'll play.
And you'll get about halfway through and go,
that's very good.
You play something on one of your bigger horns.
Okay?
And you're just about wasting your time in college audition.
Okay?
Because they're going to, especially the band are going to
care less what you saw in an E flat trumpet.
Same with jazz band or
the trumpets are a problem.
So you audition on a bigger horn.
Now, either B flat or C
makes no difference.
For example, if you're joining
the hit-em.
You can walk in with your B flat
and once again, you're looking for tone,
intonation, rhythm,
and sound. So you've got...
Or...
Close enough.
They're going to say, oh yeah, good sound.
So you audition on your
bigger horns for college.
Okay?
Any questions about
college or schools?
Any problems there?
All right.
Orchestras.
Okay?
Most major orchestras,
well, all major orchestras,
when they have a chair audition,
will publish a list
of what they want to hear.
Okay?
And the top
of the list is Petrushka.
The dance,
the public dance of Petrushka.
You've got to have that thing
so you can play it for sleep.
They also want to hear
all things that picture an exhibition
and the shmiel I played for you
the other day. Okay?
They want to hear the Leonor Signals,
both of them, by Beethoven.
They usually
want to hear the Eichengelden movement,
E-flat and the E-flat parts.
Now they'll just give you a list.
Shostakovich 5,
Mahler 5, Mahler 3,
they'll just list them all out.
And you should get that list.
Okay? They will give you a list.
Most minor orchestras,
like if you're auditioning for
a small community orchestra,
usually won't give you a list.
They'll give you five or six excerpts
ready to play.
Okay? And you know,
if you get a chance, go to some of their concerts
and find out what their brass players sound like.
Are they whippy? These guys like their big sounds,
small sounds. Where's the guy coming from?
You go in and play the Mahler 5
and you pull the poor guy away,
you know, the guy says, oh,
Jesus, this idiot, you know,
I won't fit. Okay?
So, you know, that happened to me once
with an orchestra in LA. We did
a little bit of Beethoven and Roy
in a rehearsal.
And I was the new first trumpet.
And the conductor
probably had a wimp for a first trumpet before.
He looked back at me and goes,
now what's that tell you?
Okay? So, it was a high A.
I just went,
blah.
Opened the thing up, right?
And the guy stopped.
He just looked at me.
He goes, where the hell do you think you are?
The Chicago Symphony?
And I stood up and went all the way down
in the wrong place, you know?
About that time,
the tuba player
jumped over my chair
and goes, hi, my name's Frank.
I like you.
That's a bad one.
Here you go.
Oh, Jesus.
So, I mean,
you've got to know what the guy wants sometimes,
okay?
So, it helps
to know what the people want for a sound.
Okay?
So, get an audition list.
International Trumpet Guild
has trumpet lists out.
Talk to some of your friends
who maybe do a lot of
orchestral playing.
They'll give you a list.
Okay?
And I'll give you a whole bunch
of San Francisco Symphony
lists and some of the San Diego Symphony
lists, things like that.
But basically, you have to switch your tail down.
That's on everybody's list.
Okay?
Right. You've got to stand.
What about
the
lights on?
Do you need to know
all the other parts?
No, you've got to know which one you want.
And it's like,
if you're going to be auditioning for an orchestra,
you know, you really,
if you haven't had a chance to go to an orchestra
or an orchestra, you go by
every record you can,
or go to your listing library
and do something.
Just because
you can't go there and play it wrong,
you can't go there and play it kind of
backwards, you know?
So, that happens.
So, lists, we'll get those.
All right?
Tom?
How do you find out about openings for
orchestral things?
It's an international position all the time.
You can go up to the major university and check
out community college auditions.
Okay?
Almost all of the community auditions
will list their auditions on
bulletin boards for major universities in your area.
We need, you know, third
company, we need second company,
we need a lead client, we need somebody.
And you can check it out.
Okay?
If you're new to the area,
find out who's teaching in that area.
Find out who's doing what the way we're playing.
That way you can get to an orchestra.
Or band, things like that.
All right.
Now, the most valuable tool you can have
when you get ready to audition
are these puppies right here.
Orchestral excerpts.
These come in all various
varieties, okay?
The international, there's ten volumes.
Five by Bartolt.
The whole Five by Roger Boysar.
Then you have
the Strauss excerpt book
and two Wagner excerpts.
Then, if you're lucky enough,
then this, this is not a print now.
There's still nothing around.
There is a Polish
excerpt book.
Right here.
And what's great, it looks like it's upside down,
but it's like, and what's great
about this book is they totally
ignore all
of the western
nation's copyrights.
They do.
And it's like, you get all the
Gershwins in here.
All the Mazorskis.
You get all the pieces that are under
copyright in the western world
and in the Polish excerpt book.
You've got all of us.
You win.
Major music stores will still have this.
Bob Kane used to list this.
Yeah, you call it Clean City Brass.
Since then, they still have some copies left.
Okay.
This was a real popular book for a real long time.
And it's like,
the Lutak.
L-U-T-A-K. Lutak.
Orchestral Studies
is what it's called. It's just a Polish
excerpt book. It's a riot.
I forget what some of these titles are, you know.
It's like,
the Atlas of Floyd was like this.
It's great.
See, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Wow, that's what graphs mean.
Oh, graphs mean I'm blue.
So it's a lot of fun when I figure out what the heck
these things are.
But it's really neat, like I said,
it's a totally ignored
copyright. All. All.
Complete copyrights.
So this is a very popular book.
Yeah, what the heck. They ignore ours.
They copy Xerox.
You know.
All right.
So, excerpt books are very important.
There's smaller excerpt books.
There's all kinds of excerpt books.
Get those. Okay?
Start listening. Yes?
Auditions. They're a great place to look for auditions.
Also, there's a magazine
where you can play. Yeah.
But the international musician list, you know,
all the union gigs.
So it's nice.
Any other questions about
audition?
Audition.
Okay. Since most,
we have a lot of young players in there,
and you're going to be auditioning for colleges
or some kind of, you know, it's really
important that you do that right.
Your first day at a university is phenomenal.
I know next Tuesday I'm going to sit
in an audition committee. And it's just
almost like we'll walk in
and tell who's going to make it to this.
Who's going to be in the top, who's going to do this.
It's an attitude.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah. Never aim a loaded trumpet
at anybody.
Unless you're conducted, what the heck.
Yeah.
That's a good point. I'm glad you brought that up.
If you're on an audition committee,
there's only one trumpet struck, right?
Maybe two. You might
have the orchestral guy there. I mean, if you're
going, you know, you're aiming
at somebody, it's like a loaded
gun. But it's like
a loaded gun.
Just like going
you can totally change that.
I mean, cover a hole through the sieve real
quick. Okay. So just
if the committee's like these three guys right here,
you would play like this.
Okay.
Be prepared to play with piano
playing. Most major
universities will supply the companies.
So you should know the piano part.
They must know through that. You get
the lower part's intro and away you go.
So know the piano part.
Okay. Behind screen auditions,
what's happened is
the colleges will start to copy
the clean voice.
What do you mean by that?
So many auditions
have been won by somebody's brother-in-law
or favorite student over the years
that the union
all of us
complain and moan about it.
That, you know, you walk down the stage and it's
really obvious you have played your best.
This happened to me at one audition
just blew my mind. I had
I had the principal by
Wednesday say congratulations, Dave, you got the gig.
I had
one in December say congratulations, you got the gig.
I had people who didn't even
like me say congratulations, you got the gig.
And I didn't even get it.
His best friend got the gig.
And this has happened
over and over. So what's happened to a lot of unions
is you submit your
tape, you submit your resume.
Now resume's important.
You should all have a resume
if you're going to be doing major auditions.
Where do you play?
What have you done? Okay?
Alright?
And you submit all that
and so like typical of an orchestral situation
if there's a trumpet opening
like in the Phoenix Symphony, there'll be
200 people sitting face to face in the restaurant.
It's really
So out of that, they
might call 40 people in.
Okay?
And what you do
you literally pick numbers
out of a fishbowl
and you do number 17
and you go behind the screen.
The committee's out in the hall
and you're behind the screen and there's a monitor there.
Okay? Please play
excerpt number one.
And I'll have the excerpts up there
for you to play. Good.
Play excerpt number two. Play excerpt number three,
number four, number five. Play with the sheriff.
You know, there will be
no temples given to you.
There will be no stylistic ideas. They expect you to know them.
Play melancholy
to the B-flat. And the other thing, as a city
of orchestra situations, you've got to know how
that piece goes. Then
the committee goes in a great
way. Totally random.
Then if there's 40 people auditioning
there's some star
that's it, right? But I mean, usually they'll cut it
down to five or six people.
Then it's right on stage and you want to add together.
You just go for it.
That's usually off the hind screen audition
for.
They don't communicate
to you. They don't say a word. That's why the
monitor is sitting over there.
Please have that candidate play
patoushi again. It's a little faster.
You know, please have that candidate
play whatever.
And then they'll just simply
go out and they'll go out to lunch and stare at each other
like this.
And everybody hangs and you come back
and we'll post.
And then you'll go out on stage and play the rest of
the audition.
The last audition I did was like almost 12
hours.
Okay.
Another question is
when you're auditioning for a
jazz credits offer
resume. I would.
I mean, you know, we just
have a couple of different resumes. I have
a teaching position resume.
You know, I have my
orchestral resume.
So I have different resumes.
Okay. Sure.
You know, and you'll learn to happily butter
things up.
I played Stephen Hello Deli.
General High School.
You put it in there, you know.
You play, you listen, you know.
Okay.
Good. Any more other questions about auditioning?
Okay.
Transit position. Get a sharp pencil
and paper.
Sure.
Last year,
the two fellows auditioned for a top position.
The candidate player
did not get it because he
believed it.
Sure.
Sure.
Sure.
Yes. You know, look guys.
He's
made a good point.
This is a business.
Just like any other business.
And you have to take care of business.
It's time to think. How many trumpet
players do you think
are in
the United States who wants to be
a professional trumpet player?
It's nuts.
It's like attorneys, you know.
But it's like, you know,
and it's like a very
highly competitive business.
It's probably one of the most highly
competitive businesses in any way.
The nice part about it is it's also one of the friendliest
and nicest businesses.
Most of the time also. You've got to run across
as Carl says, the world's surest business.
But they don't last long. This is a
friendly business.
Okay.
Carl tells him, says, Dave, I want you to play.
We either be five more guys who you want.
I got you a five guys on call.
They're good players, they're my friends.
And if you flake out,
you're dead. If you're a flake,
you're flipping, like you were saying.
If you don't take care of business,
you will not work. There are
phenomenal trumpet players in LA
that don't work.
Scary. Just blow your mind.
They don't work.
Because they put guys on.
They talk about people.
They screw the directors over by saying
to themselves.
I'll tell you, you just
don't do that.
You just, you've got to take care
of business. An audition
is an awfully serious job.
And don't be discouraged.
You might do seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fifteen
auditions before you finally make them.
Very good.
Very good.
Okay.
That's a good one.
Any other comments about test roll auditions?
Yeah.
Well, a little bit.
To what it's worth, I think I heard
there were these skills that you tried eight times
to make them mad. Sure.
You know.
You're not, you know,
like I told Mike a good day.
Failure is that close to success.
Never going for it
isn't going to do anything.
And it's quite a set chance to be
good about that too.
I mean, it's like, my mom
is a real German lady, I'll tell you.
And she really did not accept me
as a musician until the first
time I conducted an audition.
And then she came out and she said,
David, you finally have made it.
Made what? I mean, one of my last nights in a big band, you know.
But it's true.
But it's like, it's,
parents have a weird attitude about it also.
We can put the toy away for the real job.
You know.
The subject of pay scale,
and major orchestras,
it's like, yeah, hello.
There's an awful lot of money out there
to be made in this business.
But it's a business.
You've got to take care of business.
Okay?
Kind of getting off the subject, but
God, don't be late in anything.
Never. Never. Never.
I learned that one time.
Don't be late.
Okay, transposing.
Transposition is
something that's inevitable.
All of you have done it.
A band member gets up and says, concert B flat scale.
You're transposing.
B flat trumpet, you're playing a C.
French horn F, K.
You know, transposition
is inevitable.
Somebody was asking me today about
C trumpets in jazz
columns. You know,
I'm sitting with jam on a can on F
and I'm trying to play jazz on my B flat trumpet in G.
That would drive me crazy.
Real quick, okay?
You go to a church thing.
A little ladies' county wedding bargain.
Can you play along with that?
Sure. Look, there's four sharps and a key
in three yards of B flat trumpet.
Right? Oh, you say.
You know, you're in trouble.
You get to a gig and
somebody has been really nice
and said, I'll transpose that before you get there.
Okay.
You did it wrong. You know, they did the half step
and they went down a whole step.
I mean, you learn all kinds of weird things.
The history of the trumpet
is one of the most
incredibly, unbelievably messed up
things in the world.
I mean, there is no standard
trumpet. There really isn't.
You got guys playing E flats
for everything. First channel on the set
plays E flat trumpet.
You got guys who never pick up a
B flat trumpet. You got guys who never pick up a C trumpet.
You got
Germans playing one instrument. You got French playing one instrument.
You got Americans playing a different instrument. You got
it's a mess.
You go back to the time of Bach.
You had C trumpets. You had D trumpets.
You had French horn F trumpets.
You had, you know,
every little hammer, every little composer
had a different pitched horn.
You know?
And it's just unbelievable.
You had key bugles in different pitches.
You had different sleeves.
You had unbelievable situations.
You sit down on an orchestra.
And you can play for weeks and weeks
and months and months and months.
And you can see a B flat trumpet playing.
Everything. Everything.
In your brain you look at a B flat part and it becomes a hard transposition.
C is what? Open.
Nah, it can't be open. Geez, it's gotta be first vowel or something.
You know? And it's amazing.
So the history of the trumpet
is such that you and French horn
that you must be able to transpose.
Okay? The two best
books are Caporelli.
Right here.
One hundred melodic studies.
Okay.
This is, to me,
the last word
in how to learn a transposition.
Right?
Okay.
Once you've got this one
pretty well wired,
you go on to Bordoni.
Twenty-four.
It's a French horn.
Bordoni.
Twenty-four vocalises transpired by what?
Choré.
That's close enough.
Choré.
This is natural.
Okay. Alright.
Now, there's another transposition book
called Stashe, which I don't use
because I think it's an unreality
transposition book because it uses key features all the time.
Yeah.
I hate that book. It's a dumb book because
99.9% of the time
you're going to transpose a lot of key feature anyway.
Okay?
These two books are marvelous.
Now, your first transposition you're going to run into
is C. Trumpet.
Okay? So ready?
Let's just count. Start jotting these down.
Okay.
C. Trumpet.
Okay.
The problem is you'll very rarely see this.
You'll see Trumpet.
Do.
Do.
I mean, you just see all kinds of weird things.
And it's definitely very rare to just see
where it says C. Trumpet.
You just aren't going to see that.
All kinds of strange things. C. Trumpet
means this.
Up one whole step
plus
two sharps.
Okay?
You add two sharps
to the key. Automatically fancy.
Okay?
So what does that mean? If you've got two flats
in the key, what are you going to do?
You're going to play the key of C.
If you've got three sharps in the key
since you're already playing the key of
D. Okay?
So, for example, here's a nice little tune
out of Caporelli.
C. Trumpet.
C. Trumpet
is fantastic
for you.
That is the most important transition
in Caporelli.
The C. Trumpet.
Okay.
You've got a Trumpet part
in the orchestra.
And it's just written down.
For example,
that's what's
in other keys.
It says C. Trumpet.
Okay? So it's a concert pitch.
So you've got to
transpose that up a whole step.
Oh, yeah!
That's what I was doing yesterday when I
was switching all those horns all the time.
It's like, what's he talking about?
You're more than playing. I'm doing the same
piece of music and doing 13 different
transpositions.
So now you've got that piece.
You've got to go.
And you're going.
That's candidate, okay?
You've got to be able to transpose C. Trumpet right now.
That's what 90% of your
church jobs are going to do.
You have to play C. Trumpet.
So you have to then.
Take some of your favorite solos out.
Take some of your favorite solos out.
Take them all a whole step.
Okay? That's really important.
What are you doing with C. Trumpet?
Are you playing a concert?
No, not necessarily.
I'll give you that in a minute.
Yeah, well, hold on.
We're going to talk B. Flat Trumpet
and you're looking at a piece of music.
I'll give you the music part in a few minutes.
Alright? Right now
you've got a B. Flat Trumpet in your hand.
Okay? And you're looking
at a C. Trumpet part.
You're reading off of a fake book.
You're reading off of
a choral book.
You're reading anything like that.
You're reading off of a C. score.
Okay? You're playing a C. Trumpet.
On a B. Flat Trumpet
up a whole step.
Okay? And you add two sharps.
Okay?
Now, the next
most important transposition is
D. Trumpet.
D.
This is what an awful lot of
Baroque literature is written in.
Okay? Good ol' Johann Sebastian
that ball. Okay?
Now, D. Trumpet.
Now, once again, we're relating all
this to a B. Flat Trumpet. You'll see why
I'm saying this later, okay? Now watch.
You get Trumpet and Rag.
You get Trumpet and everything else.
Kitchen sink. Okay. D. Trumpet.
Okay. Up.
Major.
Third.
Plus. Four.
Sharps.
Okay?
So.
You're looking at this.
You're going to play
this.
You're going to add four sharps to the key.
And.
You're going to
You're going to play this.
Right?
Okay. C is to E.
A major third, right?
Okay.
Or.
Or.
And here's where the Rocheu book comes in.
Ready?
Bass clap.
Add the four sharps.
And play what you see.
And bass clap,
that's E, F sharp, G sharp.
And that's D Trumpet.
You just got to remember what they're going to be.
Doctor, we're just talking
this stuff right now. In other words,
you can look at something
and just play.
So if there's no piano here,
all this one's gone.
D Trumpet.
Up and down, right?
Okay, now when I did that, in my mind,
I simply took
the treble clap
and turned it into a bass clap
and the sharps in that key.
That's all I did.
Not even thinking about it.
Okay?
That's where this book comes in. Rocheu.
All bass clap.
You know how to beat bass clap?
You're going to have to anyway.
Someday you're going to end up with a show, orchestra,
do something.
You know, Brasslin, Ted, Trumpet, all those things.
Hey, Dave, what's my note in the fifth measure?
For the fourth one.
You know?
Okay?
So you've got to know bass clap.
So D Trumpet
is your next most important transition
of a major third
of a major third
of a major third
Okay?
Your next most important transition
is A Trumpet.
Okay?
Now A Trumpet's nice
because you're not changing anything.
Okay?
So you get rid of this
and all you do is this.
You got A Trumpet
it's down a half step.
Does the notation change?
No.
You just simply put flats in front of every note.
Simple as that.
And what happens then is
sharps will become naturals
naturals become flats
flats become double flats.
So A Trumpet.
What are you going to do with this?
Cornet parts.
Tchaikovsky especially
wrote for A Cornet.
Okay?
So you've got to have that in mind.
The next most important transition
and this one is really important
is E flat
transition.
E flat.
You see this E flat
all kinds of weird names.
E flat transition.
And I'll show you right now
why that's incredibly important.
Okay? So if E flat
is up a major
a perfect
fourth
my theory teaches me it shouldn't.
So you've got
you've got say
let's just keep it simple.
C D E
F written.
And you want to go up a perfect fourth.
What key are you going to be in?
So you're going to be in F major.
So what's the name of the first note?
What does this become?
F up here.
Okay?
Now what does that sound like on a B flat trumpet?
It comes across like this.
If you've got
If you've got
If you've got
that becomes
a fourth.
Now here's why that becomes
incredibly important.
Transposition.
Piccolo trumpet.
Okay. Now this is why I say
it may be a B flat.
Piccolo trumpet.
Where do we use it most of the time?
In the Baroque region.
What is the majority of the Baroque region
rich for? D
trumpet.
Now listen to this.
You use the A piccolo
most of the time.
Okay. What's the distance
from D to A?
It's possible to go A to D.
A perfect fourth.
So now
you're looking at a D
trumpet part.
Okay. Look at a D trumpet part
and it's written here.
Okay.
So now you're going
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
And you're going to play
your piccolo trumpet.
The guy's a small orchestra
with a bass interval.
Right? Okay.
And you can't play your piccolo
trumpet. You play on the A side.
That puts you in
E flat
trumpet.
. .
. .
. .
. .
So
follow the logic one more time, buddy.
It says D trumpet.
That's a major third. What's a half step
up higher than that? A perfect fourth.
This is pitched in A
and the part's in D.
So you're going to read
that
down octave.
So now you pick this thing up
and you go . . .
. .
. .
. .
. .
. .
And you got it in the right key.
On the right horn actually.
That's E flat.
Almost everything you play
is that way. Good old
trumpet volunteers.
. .
. .
. .
. .
That nature, you're starting out with C and playing an F.
So on typical low trumpet,
90% of your music is going to be E flat.
On a typical low trumpet.
So E flat is very important.
If you have any desire to play some old B-speak,
you need to learn that kind of music to be able to play.
I'll come back to the next one
when the crash test is over in a minute, okay?
Yeah.
What do you think about that for playing the B-trumpet part
on the typical trumpet that's completed up a fourth?
Up a fourth, and then transpose and give yourself a half.
Yeah, it's a riot if you have to site read something like that.
You gotta be on top of this, okay?
Okay, so you have B-flat trumpets, all right?
Moving along.
F trumpet.
F trumpet, fortunately F trumpet is something you can avoid
forever if you want to see trumpet, okay?
F trumpet is up a perfect fifth.
That's what I drank last night.
But it's like, hello, all right.
So you got trumpet and F.
Rooknir and B-flat trumpets.
Rooknir and Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich,
all those big no names.
Yeah, right.
A lot of reasons why she's flat now, okay?
So you've got an F-trumpet part, say it starts here.
You gotta be able to transpose it at site
by adding one sharp and starting here.
And that's where that ends up being notated up there.
Now, the interesting part about F-trumpet parts.
The Mahler and Rooknir F-trumpet parts
were played on instruments the same size as French horns.
And they're very dark-sounding things, okay?
Really amazing.
The real F-trumpets were about like this
with just tons and tons of stuff wrapped up.
It's like a French horn.
And so you've got to get those guys
who are over-boiling those horns in an octave, okay?
You have to play a French trumpet like a French horn, okay?
So they're kind of wild stuff.
You've got to play them in a fifth.
All right.
Now, those are the most common transpositions
you're gonna run into if a B-flat trumpet, okay?
Now, let's go one more step.
A-flat trumpet.
Where you get an A-flat trumpet
is where you can play a C-trumpet.
I get to the point a lot of times
where literally this becomes home.
And you start looking at C and playing the first vowel.
A-flat trumpet means you're playing it down a whole step
and adding two flats.
So if you're playing your favorite tune or whatever,
you're, instead of playing...
["French horn plays"]
You're playing...
["French horn plays"]
You're playing it on a C-trumpet.
If you're doing a water orchestral playing,
this becomes home.
And you've got to learn to play things down a whole step
all the time.
Constantly.
You dance.
There you go.
["French horn plays"]
Yeah, that would drive me crazy.
That would drive me nuts.
Okay.
Yeah.
I don't suggest playing C-trumps with a jazz band.
I'd probably throw the guy out of the head,
you know, okay?
All right.
Then finally, the worst transposition of the lot.
E-trumpet.
All right.
My favorite story about E-trumpet is this one.
The William Taylor Overture.
Okay.
At San Diego State, one of the schools that are reset,
they, this semester, just read a thousand tones.
We just, or instead of pass on a whole bunch of stuff,
we just read.
So typical brass player,
we're sitting in the back of the orchestra,
gathering and coming out and going,
we're playing the William Taylor Overture, oh my God.
That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, right?
And all I have is my B-flat trumpet
for some stupid reason.
And, and it turned out to be one of those things
where you turn the page, your transposition changes,
and there's the call right at the top.
Okay.
So the second cover, and I'm talking,
Don Lane's Love Live.
And we hear this.
["Don Lane's Love Live"]
Right?
And I turn the page, I go,
oh my God, it's E trumpet, you know?
And you look at the part, it starts with a G, right?
["Don Lane's Love Live"]
That's where it's written.
And I'm sitting there like, E trumpet.
["Don Lane's Love Live"]
And that's how you clear out of there.
So E trumpet is one of those nightmares you play.
Isn't that one sound right?
["Don Lane's Love Live"]
Okay, good.
So what you got, E trumpet is up an augmented fourth.
Or down a demented fifth.
No, okay.
["Don Lane's Love Live"]
All right?
So it's an incredible mess, okay?
So you think of it, if you've got a C written,
you're gonna play an F sharp.
And you're gonna play an E and F sharp.
Now let's say you're looking at a piece of music,
and it already has a whole bunch of sharps in it, okay?
If you're looking at a piece of music with a lot of sharps in it,
don't think of it up an augmented fourth, demented fifth.
Because now you've got a flat.
You've got a flat, an augmented fourth.
The nice part about that is you never, ever
have to transpose that if you're on a C trumpet.
Okay, you just play a C trumpet.
["Don Lane's Love Live"]
Zing, all right?
Now, and we'll get to the bottom line in a second.
Now, here's what you were asking about here,
a little while ago.
As you change instruments, the transpositions change, okay?
C trumpet on a C trumpet is not transposed.
God knows I've done a few things.
You know?
D trumpet on a C trumpet is C trumpet.
E trumpet on a C trumpet is D trumpet.
["Don Lane's Love Live"]
E flat trumpet on a C trumpet is bass trumpet
and that's horses flat, so you go,
uh, what'd he say, all right?
Okay, so now that you've got a three-flat throat,
what you have to do is you have to then
go through your excerpts and learn all your excerpts
on the C and the B flat trumpet.
Because you've got conductors who want different sounds.
And that can drive you absolutely up a wall.
It's like going to a gig and you pass out in the mood.
You know, I'm in the mood.
It's written down in half-step.
You know, somebody gets published in that key
and you learn that solo.
You better, you better, you better bring it up.
Here you go.
Oh, there it is, there it is, there it is.
You're on the key, right?
It's like the first time it starts
is right somewhere with an orchestra, right?
Take a little clarinet.
I know this tune.
Yeah.
It's down a half-step in the orchestra version.
Take a little clarinet and it's like.
It's going into the top-point machine, right?
Yeah.
And so right, it's all the brass players go.
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
trying to grab onto the key section.
You see a group of them.
It's missing out on the string.
You know, stand up.
Go away.
You have to learn all these things, okay?
Now, one of the more uncommon transpositions
for all the instruments except the piccolo trumpet
is D-flat transpositions.
I'll write this one down.
I'll show you what that's headed for.
D-flat transposition.
Okay?
And look, you guys, really,
I'll tell you another reason
why you need to learn how to transpose these things.
If you ever do any arranging,
if you can transpose a canine trumpet
doing an arrangement of kicking the head, it's easy.
You can do piccolo, flute, E-flat clarinet,
B-flat clarinet, A clarinet,
alto clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone.
I mean, you've got all the strength.
You go, oh yeah, alto saxophone, that's tough.
Oh, very good.
And you just play the transposition
and your trumpet around with it.
So you take your instrumentation arranging class in college
or at Dick Grove or someplace,
and you know how to transpose all this stuff on trumpet
doing instrumentation arranging a piece of cake.
You just gotta remember where the instrumentation goes.
D-flat, ready?
S-flat, S-flat, S-flat, S-flat, S-flat, S-flat, S-flat, S-flat,
all right?
Okay, now watch what happens.
You might wanna jot this down.
Trumpet
in C
on
A
pic.
Okay, other than D trumpet parts, this is the other thing.
All of Maurice André's music comes in trumpet in C.
All the pic music.
Okay, why?
Because in France, the C trumpet
is the most popular one in what?
Okay, so now watch.
You got this.
It says trumpet in C.
So now if you got B-flat trumpet, you're gonna play this.
Right?
Everybody with me so far?
But now, you're gonna play this on an A piccolo.
What's gonna happen?
You're gonna crash and burn.
What's gonna happen?
You gotta change the whole thing around, don't you?
You gotta go, this has become a minor third.
Because you're moving the trumpet down another step.
From your B, a half step from your B-flat.
So you gotta do this.
Or
this.
You do that.
And on almost all of Maurice André's music
that he has published for piccolo trumpet,
you have to play the bass left.
One of the more famous things written for that
is the Baldy Gloria.
And it actually screams for piccolo trumpet.
It says, play on a piccolo trumpet.
You're gonna play it in front of a street quartet
or an organist or a lead choir or a whole other thing.
Okay?
And vamos a diogo.
And it's sitting there, trumpet and C.
So it's notated.
Beautiful.
It's notated like this.
["Baldy Gloria"]
Okay?
Then it says, C trumpet.
Pick up your A piccolo.
The first note's a written D.
So what do you play on piccolo?
F.
It's notated on a piccolo.
["Baldy Gloria"]
When you're on your very way, playing bass,
playing bass left on a piccolo way up there.
["Baldy Gloria"]
And you talk about mental gymnastics, okay?
But you have to work on these things.
Okay?
All right.
The next book, okay, we're on this now, okay?
Now we're going to the Bordonei book, okay?
This one here.
This is the next step in reality.
Everything I've talked about so far in transposition
has to do with the fact that you're playing one tune
in one key on one horn.
It doesn't work that way.
You sit down, you may sit off in a Mahler symphony
playing trumpet B flat.
Halfway through, it's switched to F.
Then it might switch to E.
Then you might have to play the polka part.
It goes to B flat.
In your braised language.
That's what I'm doing, okay?
A nice thing about this book here is
right in the middle of a phrase,
you'll switch transposition.
You're going to want playing something like,
I would care about that,
but you're going to want playing something like this.
["Baldy Gloria"]
D flat.
And what he's done, he's got the E flat
and then he's had it with the B flat.
Then he goes to F, the E flat to C, the G.
He keeps changing in the middle of phrases.
In your braised language, click and change gears.
Okay, now it doesn't get that bad in an orchestra,
but there are times we have to do one or two measures
rest of the book, especially when you're playing
Strauss operas.
The right part is Strauss' Solomon.
This guy has got absolutely out of his mind
when he's playing Strauss' Solomon.
Okay?
So the ability to change transposition instantaneously.
I think we'll go with that.
This book is great at that.
Or Doni, 24 Vocalists.
24 Vocalists.
Transcribed or trumpeted by Torek, P-O-R-R-E-T, all right?
And what's scary is some of the most famous pieces
are all transposed things.
And now what's happening is some publishers
are starting to publish all these things
for B flat trumpet.
And that's really driving them nuts.
Because you spent all this time
waiting to play those double things in the right horn,
knowing what you were going to do,
now you walk to the gig,
rehearsing it up and it goes trumpet and B flat.
Oh!
And your B flat trumpet is locked away somewhere at home.
You know, there's a B flat trumpet or a piccolo
or in one of the nuts.
So it gets pretty wild out there.
So transposing is a trumpet player's nightmare,
a French horn player's nightmare.
It's something you absolutely must play.
Okay?
You got any questions about that?
Yeah.
As far as suicide, which horn is,
suppose you go into the church gig
and what I'm getting at is it's important
that you match the other people in the section.
You're playing a person or a brass quartet,
saying, yeah, I want to use my C,
but the other guys and that would be flat
and you pretty much stick with what everybody has.
No.
I think, you know, it comes down to,
I switch horns for sound consideration.
When I play a person or brass quartet,
almost all of them I play my C trumpet.
A little more pop, a little brighter sound.
Okay?
In orchestras, for example,
if you're playing a Bach or Tana,
and there's three trumpet parts, okay?
Chlorino, Chlorino, the kind of the principle part.
You should go piccolo, piccolo, C or D trumpet.
You get the guy down here playing the bottom
on a bigger horn.
It makes life a lot easier.
Okay?
But I don't think so.
I mean, if you're sitting in an orchestra
and you're playing second trumpet
and you're playing a C trumpet,
the guy's playing a person playing a B flat,
then you might get some trouble.
Okay?
But if I'm playing first in the group,
I pick whatever horn that I want to play.
One for the guys who are in front.
Also, I didn't get to ask this yesterday,
but I know that, for instance,
whenever I see the main clip,
it's nice to use the rotary valve trumpet.
Well, yeah.
Most major orchestras own a set of other instruments.
They'll always make some loroke instruments
and they will use it for the brass.
And in Europe, they're still using,
especially in the Berlin,
they're still using the rotary trumpet.
It tends to be more conical.
It's a darker sound.
Okay?
We have some conductors.
You know, conductors, I mean, I own,
I hate to say it, 16 horn.
You know?
And we're going to do it for orchestras.
All I did was commercial music.
I own this horn and this not based on a single case
that I have.
I've seen them later.
These are the rotaries.
Yeah.
That belongs to the next thing on.
Why would that be a B flat horn or a C horn?
They come B flat, C, E, pick,
all the way through.
They've got a complete set.
Well, that would be a big.
So you necessarily don't have,
you probably have it in one of these.
Yeah, I don't own one.
I have a rule.
I never own a trumpet that doesn't pay
for itself in a year.
You know, kind of that way about playing things.
I have never been called to play the rotor yet.
Okay?
I usually cover things up pretty well.
B flat.
Okay?
But that's a good thing.
Orchestra conductors are weird cats.
I mentioned that yesterday.
They have a sound, they want it.
And do you got to make it happen?
Frank Kennerett.
Great, phenomenal, virtuoso player.
Scary boy.
He was here at the camp a couple years back.
I'll never forget that first one as long as I live.
It was drizzly, cold, rainy morning up in La Honda.
Okay?
And Frank's about, well, he's about this tall,
about this big, you know, just, you know,
like this big, black, all the way up there.
And he and I are rooting him.
And the first morning, the first morning,
I lay in the bed like, whoa,
and this sliding door opens up
and you hear this guy do a down regime.
Then you hear a guy do an up regime.
The guy on a C trumpet goes like this,
E flat above double C.
Orchestra, yeah.
You know, no rain for him.
And then, you know, there's another down regime
and it starts whipping around excerpts.
Just what happened?
You know, just, you know, whoo, whoo.
Started playing some concertos.
You know, I look over, he's outside the door,
you know, and just, you know, overcoat type of thing.
He's standing there, right, in underwear.
It's great.
And he's just sitting there playing away on the C trumpet.
The most incredible sound you ever heard in your life, right?
After about 45 minutes, he walks in and says,
well, I warmed up, babe, go ahead.
All right.
Go to the bathroom, see you later.
You know what I mean?
Right, yeah.
And this guy almost got fired from the foot
off the orchestra because Moody didn't like his sound.
You know?
And it's like, he played on a large four box seat.
You know, big bottom out piece, the whole nine bars,
took it to the orchestra, right?
And Moody loved it.
Just loved it.
Remember watching one performance
of pictures on an exhibition.
Moody took his bow, turned around,
looked back at Frank and went,
go ahead, guy, go for it, right?
And so Moody comes in with a whole different sound,
a completely different sound,
and drove him up the wall.
I mean, the guy got sick with all sorts of health problems,
just half going crazy.
And what happened was, he was racing on Friday,
jumped off a wall.
And it's like, he was saying,
he went over to Jardinelli's one day,
said, what do you got laying around?
The biggest one he got.
You know, some old, old, ancient sounder model,
26C trumpet.
He had a bell sound, this big of a mouth.
He said, well, they don't come any bigger than that.
Took it to the orchestra rehearsal.
And Moody said, see me after rehearsal, right?
And Moody says, I like that sound.
And that was the end of it.
And he just, you know,
orchestra conductors are real strange.
Horror stories, first step horror stories,
you know, writer, and just all kinds of weird things.
You know?
I mean, you also meet, I have to tell this to the guys too,
because some of those guys think they know what they want.
They'll go, excuse me, Mr. Evans?
Can you switch to a brighter sounding horn?
A brighter, sure, hang on a second.
Yeah, that's better.
Same thing with the horn.
It's another thing too about auditions.
It's funny, if you go for a band audition,
you're walking with one arm, and what?
If you want to get an orchestral situation,
walk in with a quad case of land all out.
Take time to oil it up your schedule.
I like this guy a little bit, you know?
Orchestral conductors are strange animals.
They love to see a thousand trumpets later.
They love to see a thousand trumpets later.
They love to see a thousand trumpets later.
They love to see a thousand trumpets later.
They love to see a thousand trumpets later.
Love to see a thousand trumpets later, right?
And they just go for sound.
But you can go crazy, guys, if I want that lighter.
The guy really knows what he's talking about.
Like I said yesterday, he'll say,
well, get me another E-flat trumpet.
Then he'll say, we'll get a C-truppet for it.
Okay?
So you can get a real thingy, I'll tell you.
Yes, you can get a trumpet in H.
Trumpet in H, yeah, that's a weird one.
It's like, there's only one here
that's closer to a rope horn, and it's long.
Okay, trumpet in H, okay?
All right?
Trumpet in H would be,
I just spelled bock in German.
B-flat, A, C, H.
H-truppet is B natural trumpet.
You got a B-flat trumpet,
pick up a half step, make it sharper.
In every one of Ron's symphonies,
he wrote a trumpet in H-flat.
I thought it was a joke, but it's not a kid.
That's funny.
That's what I'll do, all right?
And when you look at German editions,
it says trumpet in B.
We'll have a B, we'll also be in prison, right?
I don't even get the first time I saw that.
I looked at the same cover and I said, what do you think?
I don't know, trumpet in B.
Okay?
Trumpet in B.
The orchestra went, Trumpet in B.
Right, right?
Nice thing about a school, right?
It's just like, you know, the point up there
and the point things that just broke my dreams is great.
You know?
So you start looking at these things.
That's what I thought the Cafferilli book in front of
gives you all the crazy things.
Yeah.
Well, the strange part about Johannes Brahms was
he was alive at the same time as Arvinds.
So the valid instrument was around.
Brahms wrote a method book for trumpet.
And it's so funny to read the introduction
because everybody always thinks of Beethoven and Brahms
and all these guys in B.
Right?
You know, the mausoleum for writing music, right?
These guys, you know, come on.
Yeah, they had to lay down some 13-chord musicals, right?
And, you know, German beer, come on.
Yeah.
Well, this clarinet book is a clarinet book
by Johannes Brahms.
And in the introduction it says,
to my very dear friend, they're going to end up,
he says, and he says, here is a book for you.
God knows you need it.
It was a barn room clarinet friend of his
that was a drinking friend.
And he wrote this clarinet method for this guy.
And so there were clarinets around in the time of Brahms
but he wrote all of his trumpet parts
for the orchestral natural trumpet.
And it's funny, but, you know, the clarinet's been around
during that 19th century, but Brahms wrote a method book.
And he wrote all of his trumpet parts
in C, D, E, or H.
Yeah.
Transposing can be fun, right?