Developing a Rich Sound

Yes, we have to use more air a lot of times. Yes, we have to squeeze and push and all those things because we have hard things to do on the trumpet. I do not like that feeling. That feeling is the feeling of getting tired, and that feeling is the feeling of losing endurance. I have a lot of students that come to me, especially younger students, maybe just getting into college, and I'll say, okay, well, especially if it's an early lesson, I'll be like, alright, let's warm up together. So show me how you warm up, and they say, well, I do long tones, long tones. Great. Do me a long tone, and then I'll see this. You know, kind of like, so doing long tones is great. Don't get me wrong, but I think there's a productive way to do it and a not so productive way to do it. Again, we've talked about the pushing versus releasing, so that's obvious, but that's why when you think about long tones, think about, you know, maybe a long tone going into another long tone going into, and that's why the Cichowicz flow studies are really, that's why everybody does them, that and the stamp, because it's not stagnant, yeah? We're moving on the trumpet. So if we just take what we're talking about, what we talked about through the bends, and bring that to the flow studies, again, I like to use G on a B flat trumpet just as my kind of home base, but if we take those concepts and really start now to think about using the mechanics of our body to produce a beautiful sound, a centered sound, a balanced sound, an efficient sound, that's what I'm after. So if we take a simple flow study pattern. Now here's what I don't want. As I go down, and I think this is something that separates, I think, professionals from students or separates professionals from other professionals that, like in audition situations or just generally speaking, when you have different sounds on different registers, it's not that attractive. Or rather, I should say, it's very attractive when you have kind of a consistent sound. Yes, high notes sound different than low notes, yes, there's a rich tone inherent and there's bright tones inherent, yes, there's all that complexity in a sound throughout the registers, but can you keep the same kind of legato in different atmospheres of the trumpet, right? We're in a different place when we're playing middle C than we are when we're playing a high G, for example, my high G, not like triple high G, but high G on top of the staff. So do you sound different when you're going... You know, do you have to use more air to get down there? Do you have to push? These are just questions to ask yourself as you kind of step away from the band room and find a corner that you can hear yourself and think about refinement of sound. So as we do these and if we take the same key and just kind of expand upward and downward, we want to think about, do I have a consistent tone, do I have a consistent legato from one note to the next? And if you don't, that's again a whole other universe that you can explore to try to get. So again, and now I'm self-conscious about it, whether you breathe through your mouth or through your nose, either way, this wants to be the end result. You want to make your shirt into a slim fit shirt, you know, everything, you want to kind of grow into your body and you want to take up space. I'll never forget being a young kid and having the chance to have pretty regular lessons as regular as possible with Wynton Marsalis, and he by and large breathes through his mouth. When he takes a breath, you can hear it. I mean, go now and look on YouTube and listen to him play. Like you'll hear, he goes, like, it's this like amazing breath. But the thing is, when he breathes, like, don't stand too close to him because his chest just goes like that. He just unfolds. I mean, he's just like this. He just takes in air. The visceral sensation of being next to somebody like that, taking in air, you just know something amazing is going to happen. And you can do that too. Also, like, you know, next time you're in a conversation, a heated conversation with somebody and it's going back and forth and everybody's getting really shallow in their breaths and I told you not to park there, we're never going to get in the restaurant. At that point, just take an awesome breath. And by and large, you will win that conversation just by being grounded with your breath. So breathing is, I mean, it's everything, right? So where was I? Yeah, chikawits. So taking that breath in, whether through your nose or through your mouth, whatever, just be tanked for everything. So I'm also looking for the opposites. I'm looking for a round, big, dark upper register and a trebly, brilliant, focused low register because that's counterintuitive to what we normally get on the trumpet. Like up is tight and down is loose. So we want to fight against that. And the way I do that is by when I go down, I make sure I am in, I'm almost doing the opposite of what you'd think. I'm not pulling my tongue down and back. I'm actually doing more of a funnel to go down. So in a sense, I'm thinking about resistance going up and I'm thinking about resistance going down. And that's really helpful for a good legato and a nice sound, consistent sound. In fact, right there, see if you can hear it. Can you hear my tongue move? It's kind of gross, but like, can you hear it? Listen between the G and the A. I'm not just going to push the vowels down. Yes, this is causing resistance because we're going less pipes, but can you hear the, can you hear the, if I do it without the vowels, that's what's happening. I'm going from the to the E, and I'm doing that a little bit all the way up. My tongue is always moving. So no matter what I'm doing, my tongue is involved.