Dealing with uncomfortable situations

 I was very busy in the last weeks and unfortunately didn’t make it to update the blog as I wished. A short vacation following by great musical experience – playing in a big show with mainly songs from different musicals with some great artists.

My original plan was finally to write about Random Practice and to give examples. However, honestly, I couldn’t find the time to do that.

Surprisingly I found another topic to write about. The idea was taking some “lemons”, turn them into “lemonade”, and write about it! As we started with the very intensive schedule of the shows, including the crazy hot weather in Denmark those weeks– I started to have some minor injuries or wounds around my embouchure. I guess that the combination of hot weather, a lot of sweat and many hours of the mouthpiece on the lips playing high and loud notes – result in injured lips.

I noticed a few days ago a small wound on my upper lips. Of course, the first thing was to panic, but I immediately started to re-think it. First, I calmed down and decided to be positive. Let’s see if it affects somehow my playing, and if so – let’s see what I can do about it. As I started my daily warm up before the show, I noticed that as I go up in the register, probably using a little bit more mouthpiece pressure on the lips – I feel the wound and it is not so comfortable. Again, I tried not to stress about it and decided to let go of the feeling and stay much more focused on the music. Thinking about my tone quality and solfeging the music in my mind all the time. After a few minutes into the warm up, I just forgot about this tiny thing. I made it through the 3 hours show successfully. Although I spend quite a lot of time in the gig on the high range, it didn’t bother me so much. I had a great time!

The importance of our mental preparation and strength while playing the trumpet, is one of the most important lessons I have learned, and still learning. Arnold Jacobs once said, “There is no need to think about our lips before we play any more than we have to think about our vocal chords before we speak. Listen to good sounds in the head and the embouchure will follow.” He also said, “What you feel like (while playing) is not important. You should focus only on what you want to sound like.” I heard exactly the same things in many different variations from my professor, Kristian Steenstrup, but I could never trust my lips and always had to “check” how does it feels and go by that. I started my day by checking how my lips feels today and if it is a good or a bad day. However, after some years, I learned how to let go of these thoughts and to focus on other things, like the music and the sound quality I want to have.

That leads me to one of my biggest discoveries in the last years. I think I will write about it separately but just to give you a small teaser – for many years I was dealing with a very bad stamina. I got tired so fast and it was the most frustrating thing about my playing. The idea of getting tired was always there. I avoided some pieces because they are tiring, or collapsed in the middle of a piece, just because this phrase considered to be tiring or tough.

Today, I really believe that after learning how to play efficiency and of course practicing on a daily basis to stay on shape – one of the things that helps a lot not to get tired is my mental preparation and approach. I could never finish my master exam or playing a 3 hours show, mainly on the high register, if I was thinking all the time about my lips conditions and thinking about not getting tired. The moment I let go and successfully thinking about the music – I noticed I almost never get tired. But as I said – stay tuned and check that on my next post.

H. L. Clarke - Technical Studies

After talking about flexibility I would like to share with you my way of practicing the technical studies by Clarke. I think that the flexibility drills together with Clark's studies and Arban's book of course - those are my Trinity. I'm trying to to those drills every day and I try to do them as much as interesting as possible. I will have a separate post about random practice but I will just say that except of playing the drills with different kind of variations I also shuffle the drills. That means that I do flexibility, Clarke and Arban in one practice seesion in a random order. But as I said - more about it in the next post.

For now, just a few more words about my Clarke routine. I think those studies are fantastic to work about so many things and aspects of trumpet playing. First - those drills help me to make sure the air flow is consistent and without interruptions. The other thing is that I use those studies to practice different articulations and dynamics. I like to combine legato and staccato to make sure I use the air the same way and I use the repeats in the studies to use different dynamics. In this way I train many different aspects in just one drill. Very efficient! 

So here are some short examples of how I make the drills more interesting. One way is to expand the registers. The other way is to use other keys and scales rather than major key. So it can be minor, augmented or whole tones for example. I also love to change the rhythms. In that way I never get bored, never practice mindless and always stay concentrated and in focus. The last thing I do - I change dynamics from forte to piano and vice versa. I always try, as I already said in my other posts, to keep the tone quality and to have clear articulations.

H. L. Clarke - Technical Studies: 2nd study (minor and rhythmic variation)

H. L. Clarke - Technical Studies: 2nd study (augmented)

H. L. Clarke - Technical Studies: 3rd study (expanded)

Breathing Tools

I would like to introduce my breathing tools. Those are tools I use daily in my routine and whenever I need a reminder for doing things more efficiently. I can really say that those tools changed my playing. I learned (and still learning) how to work right with my body and make things much easier.

Breathing bag

Every practice, I start with some exercises with the breathing bag. A 6 liters bag which helps me to train my breathing, learning to use the whole capacity of my lungs and be very active in my breathing. I start with slow breathing, in and out, in a 5-beats bars. I am trying to fill and empty it as much as possible and I keep the air in motion in every moment. Either I inhale or exhale, there is never a stop in between. Afterwards, I train my inhale by taking a full breath in a short time. First on quarter notes, then eighth notes, triplets and sixteenth. It is very important and helps a lot when I need to play some passages with very quick breath.

Breath Builder

This tube with the ping-pong ball inside is a great tool. The only thing you need to do is to keep the ball up! The first time you try it, you will probably blow much more then needed. That is an important lesson about how not to force or over-blow the trumpet. The second thing you learn is, usually, how to keep the air going in or out, without any stop in between. Very important and very easy to see it with that tool - no moving air - the ball is down. On top of that, I sometimes use it to practice some air patterns of an excerpt or a difficult phrase, to make sure I keep all my airways open the whole time.

Spirometer

One of the tools which completely changed and improved my playing. I use the spirometer everyday after the breathing bag exercises. I play some Cichowitz - Long Tones Studies with my mouthpiece attached to the spirometer. This way, I make sure I have a thick and sustained air flow without any closing. Again, as in the breath builder, it is very simple. If the air does not move - the ball will fall. Great indication and a great tool.

Breathing Bag Exercises:
* 5 in 5 out
* Quarter notes - 1 in 4 out
* Eighth notes - 1 in 7 out
* Triplets - 1 in 11 out
* Sixteenth notes - 1 in 15 out

Breath Builder Demonstration

Spirometer Demonstration - V. Cichowicz "Long Tones Study" on mouthpiece

Flexibility

Before arriving to Aarhus (for my studies), I felt that one of my biggest weaknesses was Flexibility. It was always a challenge to go from one register to another. It was frustrating to practice it and I never felt any progress. I hated it and I felt that I just didn't know how to do it and wished it would somehow come together at some point. 

When I started my studies in Aarhus it was a good opportunity to just sit and solve it. I started with Bai Lin studies. Very basic and slow. First, I worked with small intervals in the range of one octave. The book is written very well and the difficulty is gradually developed. After one week of mouthpiece work and very slow practice, making sure I kept the sound and tone quality, I went forward to bigger intervals and range (Decima / Perfect 10th). And so I enlarged the intervals and range. I tried to use as many books and different drills, firstly so that it would be more interesting, and not boring, which would lead to mindless practice, and secondly because I felt that the more variety of drills and ways to practice flexibility, the faster I would improve.  

Today I can really say, as nerdy and weird as it might sound, that I love doing flexibility. I do it every day, especially after the warm up, combined with Clarke and Arban drills (I'll write about random practice separately very soon) but I always do a bit more of it here and there. I really feel how important a skill it is and how it improved my playing. We meet flexibility in many different places in the repertoire. Very recommended books for flexibility are Bai Lin, Irons and Collins.  

I attach to the post some examples for exercises from Bai Lin. Again, I do my best to stay open as I go up with a big fat sound, keeping the quality all the way up and down the register and trying to play each note in its center. 

Thank you for reading - comments are always very welcome! 

Eyal 

Bai Lin Flexibility Exercises

Bai Lin Flexibility Exercise

Warm up

Here is the real first post about my routine and a short example of what I am doing in the practice room. I thought it would be symbolic and logical to start at the beginning. I guess this post will be a bit longer because I have a lot to say about the studies and some background about the method I learned. Don't be scared, I can't imagine myself writing such long posts in the future. 

So, one of the first things I learned and established when I arrived in Denmark was the method of Song and Wind by Arnold Jacobs and the Chicago School. I won't dig into it now because it's a very big method but I will explain a bit about what I am doing and why. Firstly, I start with some breathing exercises, which I'll write about in a separate post, and then I do some mouthpiece playing and rim playing.  

The main part of my warm up is the Cichowicz- Long Tones Studies. Most trumpet players know them, and it's almost like a hymn for warming up for many of us. I do them daily with some adaptations and shortcuts in order to get to the upper register a bit faster, to avoid mindless playing, and to not get too bored. 

What I really take care of while playing those studies (sometimes I even call them songs), is first of all the quality of the sound. I won't continue to the next one if I am not satisfied with my tone quality. The idea is that the studies are very simple so that you can really focus on the sound and especially the singing. I really try to, and many times literally do, sing with the trumpet as much as possible, playing very lyrically and trying to imitate a good singer (or a very good trumpet player). I make sure that I take a full breath each time and very importantly - I don't hesitate before the first note. My body functions are only breathing and playing. Inhale and exhale. I really make sure there is no stop in between. 

Next, I make sure that I keep the good tone quality as I go up and down the register. I don't want to close anything or to squeeze anything. I try to play as big and as fat as possible all over the range.  

In the short clip attached here (again, taken with my phone with no editing at all), I demonstrate one of the last studies I usually do in my warm up. I try to achieve is big fat sound in all the octaves, all the way. A good breath with no stop before the first note. You can see I expand the original study a bit just to challenge myself to connect all the range from the mid-low range to the high range and all the way down to the lower range. I love the feeling after those studies and I feel ready to dive into my routine of playing whatever I need: Drills, solos, excerpts, etudes. No matter what - I am ready :) 

Thank you for reading, please very free to comment, ask questions, give feedback etc

V. Cichowicz Long Tones Studies (expended). Trumpet - Eyal Weinberger

Introduction

Hi! 

So, in this very first post I would like to introduce my idea and vision for this blog. I have no intention to write very long posts but I feel like this first post demands an explanation and an introduction to what will come after. 

After almost four years here in Aarhus, I feel that the process I have been doing has come to a place that gives me enough confidence and experience to share it with my friends, colleagues and whomever is interested - my musical agenda. In these four years (which were just another phase in 20+ years of playing the trumpet), I have felt like a mouse in a laboratory experiment. There were some great moments and, of course, some very bad moments. I learned a new method of playing, which I think is very healthy and accurate. To establish that method, I had to practice for hours every day, but not only practice the trumpet. On top of practicing basic drills and musical pieces, I put a lot of time and effort into mental practice, listening to great recordings of great musicians, dealing with anxiety, and much more. This process was, and still is, an every day one, and I feel very much that I am always in that process. It's an endless, but a very exciting, one.  

My goal is to post short samples from the practice room here, accompanied with explanations about what I played, why, how, and everything else which may be interesting. It may be a sample from an etude or drill, a phrase from a piece, or an orchestral excerpt. It can be anything. Also, it will be recorded with my phone without any editing. It's more accessible and easy to share and also more realistic. I'll try to share my practice room atmosphere as much as possible.    

I really hope you will be able to gain some benefits out of this blog and enjoy following it. Comments are very welcome anytime! 

Eyal