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.

Welcome to Part 3 in our continuing series on high notes.

If you missed Parts 1 or 2, you can find them here:

The Secret to High Notes-Part 1

The Secret to High Notes-Part 2

There are a lot of wacky ideas out there about how to approach the upper register.  Let’s try and keep this simple.  I believe the goal is to play the entire range of the trumpet the same way.  More than anything else, this takes coordination.  We started building that coordination with half-steps.  We’ll continue today with lip slurs.

Today’s magic number is 5.  We’re going to start on low F# (yes-low F#!) and slur out 5 notes in this pattern: 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5.  Then do the same thing on low G, Ab, A, Bb, B, and C.  Here’s a demonstration:

Easy, right?  I thought so.

Next we jump up an octave and start of F# in the staff and do the exact same thing, using the fingerings 1-2-3 for F#, 1-3 for G, 2-3 for Ab, 1-2 for A, 1 for Bb, 2 for B, and 0 for C, so that we connect all of the partials of the overtone series:

The concept remains the same- take a easy breath and blow through the entire line.  Aim for consistency of sound and no air between notes.

Guess what’s next?  That’s right- we move up another octave, keeping the same concept:

The concept is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  This is the range of the trumpet where people start doing anything they can just to get notes to speak.  When they find something that works, they proclaim they’ve discovered “The Secret!”  And here’s the problem: sometimes these techniques can work.  But now you’re playing the trumpet in (at least) two different ways.  This makes playing music harder.

Now there’s one more step.  And this is where it gets really fun.  We’re starting on F# (fingered 1-2-3) on top of the staff, playing 1-2-3-4-5, then sliding out to the F# above.  I write “sliding” very intentionally.  This is the part of the horn where the valves don’t help very much, so we must blow out until we find the center of the note we’re looking for, building the coordination of how to find it into our entire body (which includes the ears!).  Continue through the rest of the valve combinations (G: 1-3, Ab: 2-3, A: 1-2, Bb: 1, B: 2,  C: 0).  This gets us all the way to double C:

I believe the sliding part to be very important.  It can be tempting to try and force that last note out by any means possible.  What I want is for you to build each note as a natural result of blowing consistently through the entire range of the trumpet.

A short word about equipment- I practice this exercise on the mouthpiece I use for lead playing (and yes-I use different mouthpieces for different jobs).  There are a lot of trumpet players that have a mouthpiece for lead playing, but they don’t practice on it.  This is a mistake.  If you want to feel as comfortable as possible on a mouthpiece, you should integrate it into your practice routine.  That means practicing both technique and music on it regularly.

This is an exercise you can do every day.  Place it at the end of a session in which you’re practicing fundamentals.  Play each step focusing on an easy breath, clear and full sound, and smooth transitions between notes (no air!).  Play until the top note doesn’t speak (this won’t always be the same each day).  It doesn’t take that long, but can help build the coordination so that your entire range is always available to you.

This exercise is offered as a simple way of building a consistent approach to the entire range of the trumpet.  It’s 4 steps to double C- how much simpler can it get?  Go back and watch the the first segment of each video.  Notice how similar the setup is each time.  If you’ll take the time to learn to play the trumpet one way, it’s actually considerably easier in the long run.