Tartellog

Welcome to Part 4 in my continuing series on The Secret to High Notes.  Should you have missed Parts 1-3, and shame on you if you have, you can find them here:

The Secret to High Notes-Part 1

The Secret to High Notes-Part 2

The Secret to High Notes- Part 3

The problem I want to focus on today is that we’re stuck in a system that is propping itself up.  A lot of teachers and players have never conceived of, or worked on, the entire range of the trumpet as fundamental pedagogy.  Since they haven’t done it, they consider it “different.”  Then there are players who play in the upper register that might not have great fundamentals in other areas, like sound production.  These people will also tell you that the upper register is “different.”

So, to grossly overstate for clarity’s sake:

The “legit” players will say that they would have to give up sound quality for high range.

The “lead” players will say that they would have to give up high range for sound quality.

And since Teacher X or Player Y says it, and they’re good, it must be true.

It’s not true.  

Let’s take a look at the Arban’s book.  If you’re a trumpet player, you should already have, and know, this book.  There are sections that address a number of very important issues for trumpet players.  It is an excellent book that should be in every trumpet player’s library.  That being said, Mr. Arban wrote this:

One may easily ascend as high a B flat, but the B natural and the C ought to be made use of very sparingly.

Even with E.F. Goldman adding that high D had become commonplace, and Claude Gordon adding that the range of advanced players extends to double C and above (in their editions of Mr. Arban’s book), the exercises never changed.  Since Mr. Arban thought of C as the top of the trumpet range, and that it should only be used occasionally, his entire book reflects lack, ignoring the upper range of the trumpet.

I regularly see people post some version of:

“90% of music is below high C”,

which may or may not be true, but doesn’t seem like a good excuse to not be able to play 10% of music.  The post is usually accompanied by the idea that everyone should focus on playing the trumpet fundamentally well, and not worry about high notes.

There is also a lot of “pedagogy” out there trying to show you why high notes are different, and how to be able to play them.

Because the pedagogy has been so “either/or”, trumpet players continue to believe it, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  There are so many great players, playing a wide variety of styles, that play with great sounds throughout the range of the trumpet, it’s shocking to me that people still cling to the idea that high notes are somehow “different.”

If you’ve read Parts 1-3, you’ll see this concept again and again:

The entire range of the trumpet is one thing.  

Once you conceive of range this way, then the fundamental approach to the horn clarifies, as the focus is to play the trumpet one way, allowing yourself unlimited potential growth, and much more musical freedom.