Tuning Slide 5.2- What I've Learned

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.
—Henry Ford

As I get into the fifth year of The Tuning Slide I took some time to think about what I have experienced and learned since that first August at Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop. I have decided to put it into the form of a letter to Bob Baca, the director of the workshop and my main mentor these past four years. I am not ignoring the other faculty and people at home who have been part of this journey with me. Together they have helped me implement the ideas and more to where I am today!

Hi Bob,

Well, I missed the trumpet week at Shell Lake this year. It was a tough decision, but I have an opportunity to do some different kind of stretching in my musicianship and I’m taking it. As I told you I will be going to an adult concert band camp in Door County in a couple weeks and couldn’t swing both this year. But more on that later in the year. Instead I want to summarize the many things that you (and the others) have helped me achieve.

What I have learned from these past 4 years:

1. Routine!
I remember from these years at Shell Lake that you and the faculty have often said that one plays a high C the same way one plays a low C. At first I didn’t understand, but I believed you and kept waiting for it to happen while doing what I needed to do. The time spent on playing the lead pipe and LONG TONES has paid off. Last year at the Brass Festival in North Carolina I found myself just playing what was on the page- and the notes came out. The answer to that was a routine. A routine that is regular and consistent.

2. The Basics.
I learned that if we don’t continue to work on our skills, develop our tone, practice rhythms and etudes, we can become stale. Over these past four years I have been renewed in my skills, I have practiced and discovered more ways to speak the language of the trumpet and to put more style and tone and life into it. If I am to grow in any way in my abilities I have to practice the basics- which you have taught me to do and then move into greater technical proficiency. All I wanted to do was be a better musician- and it has happened.

Many years ago I was a first-chair, lead trumpet with whatever skills a high school senior could have in1965. I have learned the importance of being a section player and have discovered all kinds of new techniques. I have never stopped playing, but in the past four years I went from “just playing” to “being musical”. I would never have believed it when I left Shell Lake after that first camp in 2015. I have been amazed at what can happen- and yes, as I have said before, even an old dog can learn many, many new tricks.

Perhaps above all else I have discovered the absolute necessity of never leaving the basic behinds. The Bill Adam routine has taught me not to forget or neglect these basics on a daily basis. I play 10-20 minutes of long tones in various forms every day. It is the foundation. I play exercises in all 12 major keys; I go back and use the first Arban exercises regularly; I discovered that if I can hear it, I can play it. My fingers now move more fluidly through muscle memory and my ears hear more through aural memory. I have learned to always have a beginner's mind!

3. Easy does it. Patience, slow down.
Don’t force it; don’t rush it. The secret to playing fast is to play slowly. Sometimes so slowly that you may not even recognize the tune. If it isn’t working, go back to the basics behind it. So simple, yet so powerful.

4. You can skip a day but you’ll never get it back
I have missed very few days over these last four years, mostly when I was recuperating from surgery and wasn’t allowed to play. Once in a while I may take a day off because there was no way around it. More often I will do the basic long-tones and scales for 30 minutes. On most days I play and now I can play a lot.

5. Listen, listen, listen
Pay attention to yourself in your own practice and to those around you in rehearsal. We practice alone to get to now our part. We rehearse with others to know how our part fits in with the others.

6. The Inner Game- trust self 2
The Inner Game ideas have been around a while and they work. I have known them for years; now I know how to better utilize them and to trust me - Self 2- to do what I can do.

7. Play out. Just do it.
Some may think that a “timid trumpet player” is an oxymoron. Put me in a group or public performance and I would become a timid musician. What a waste. It is exciting. That doesn’t mean to over-perform, be over loud or obnoxious. I means what it says- just do it!

8. Stretch outside the box
I know the importance of stretching one’s skills. It is how we grow. What I have learned in these past four years has given me some directions on how to do that. I enjoy it too much now to even think of stopping.

9. It’s at least 90% mental.
The basics of playing and performing music are the easy parts. Just keep practicing. This goes back to- and expands on the inner game. If you don’t think you can do it- you won’t be able to do it. But if you believe you can- you will- even if it takes months and years of practice.

10. Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the basis of a life of hope and growth. Being self-aware and then being aware of all that is around me and living within it- that’s the ability to be mindful. It doesn’t mean lack of growth or being content with just leaving things as they are. It means being attentive and in my musicianship knowing where I can go next.

That’s what I have learned. Here is what I have received:

A. Play like you like it- and you will like playing.
This is perhaps best described in the meme: If you don’t like playing long tones, you probably don’t like playing trumpet. Really? Yep! It is fun to discover something new with different ways of doing long tones each day. I really like playing and it makes a real difference each day.

B. Confidence
Two weeks ago at a community band rehearsal I had to play a solo part that I had never read before since the soloist wasn’t able to be at that rehearsal. Then I had to play some upper register lines. Yep- I did both. Confidence has built. I don’t get panicked when I see some of those notes or at a passage I would have backed off from before. Now, later this week, I will be attending that concert band camp where I have to audition. I am not the least bit afraid. Call out a major key- I can play any of the 12. Give me a sight-reading page- I know the basics. Am I nervous or anxious. Not any more. Now I am excited.

C. Energy and excitement
What can I say? They sum up what I have been given. The other day I was feeling a little under the weather and restless, unable to find something to direct me. My wife looked at me and simply said, “Go play your trumpet. That always works.”

And it did.

Thank you, Bob and the Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop. You have given me one of the greatest boosts of the past 30 years.

Crazy? Yep- crazy good!

Tuning Slide # 4.42- Moving from Voice to Song

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

I think I can hear your song, all of them, even now…
— Dan Millman

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been writing about finding one’s voice using ideas from Stephen Covey and others. Before finding out what that means here’s a recap.

• Voice:
✓ Your voice is your own “unique personal significance.”
✓ Your power to choose the direction of your life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation.

For that to happen we have to learn to convert different energies.

• Energies:
✓ mental energy into vision
✓ physical energy into discipline
✓ emotional energy into passion
✓ spiritual energy into conscience

Then, to find that unique voice find out what it is about you by asking some questions.

• Questions:
✓ What angers you?
✓ What makes you cry?
✓ What have you mastered?
✓ What gives you hope?
✓ As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
✓ If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do?
✓ What would blow your mind?
✓ What platform do you own?
✓ What change would you like to see in the world?
✓ If you had one day left, how would you spend it?

Then it is time to find your song. Here is my definition of your song.
• Song:
✓ The message you can uniquely share with the world.
✓ The way your voice is presented to the world.
✓ An outward expression of who you are.

There are a couple of ways to look at this that can help us move toward finding the song we are called to sing or play. One is an actual song that can be a “theme” song for you. It is a song that you turn to when you need support, a song that inspires, directs, comforts, enlivens you, makes you smile. We all have a number of these for different settings. But think about those two or three songs that are always your go-to song.

◦ What are those songs about?
◦ What is their message?
◦ How do you feel when you hear one of those songs?
◦ Why is it important to you?
◦ How does that message fit your life and the mission of who you are?
◦ Can you put this into one or two sentences, or even better, two or three words?

I talk about several songs since they may be in different places in our lives, expressions of different ideas. They may or may not be songs we play on whatever our instrument might be. But they are only a starting point- a way of discovering and then expressing you, your voice.

That can lead to the song of your soul. When digging around for thoughts on this I came across a Facebook page titled, of course, “Finding Your Song.” It is from Sangeeta Bhagwat who calls herself an Inner Landscape Artist in India. On the Facebook page, she tells the story of an African tribe.

◆ When a woman in one African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration that expresses its unique flavor and purpose.
◆ When the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud. Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else.
◆ And when children are born into the village, the community gathers and sings their song, one unique melody for each unique child.
◆ Later, when children begin their education, the village gathers and chants each child's song.
◆ They sing again when each child passes into the initiation of adulthood, and at the time of marriage.
◆ Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the bedside, as they did at birth, and they sing the person to the next life.
◆ If at any time during a person's life, he or she commits a crime or aberrant social act, that individual is called to stand in the center of a circle formed by all members of the tribe. And once again the villagers chant the child's song. The tribe recognizes that the proper correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment, but love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.
◆ A friend is someone who knows your song and sings it to you when you have forgotten it.
◆ Life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn't. (- Link)

There are a number of important insights in this. The obvious one that it takes a village is quite clear. We do not find or develop our song in a vacuum. It may be something that only we understand, but it is found in interactions and relationships in some form of community. Thus the importance of finding a community that is willing to take the time to know you and who you are while not allowing you to stay stuck in a spot. The community is one that can nurture and challenge, comfort you when you are afflicted and afflict you when you are comfortable while always expressing compassion and support.

Our song then becomes associated with us and with our own unique journey. Even those of us who do not live in a community where the tribe finds your song and sings it to you, the environment we surround ourselves with, the people we pay attention to, the mentors, teachers, and guides who come into our lives lead us onto the paths if we pay attention and internalize the direction we are moving.

Where that can take us will be next week. Until then look at your community or communities that you are part of. Which ones nurture you and which ones ignore you? Who are the mentors who have that something that enhances your life and uplifts your soul? Think about what they have taught you, directly or indirectly, and how that has allowed you to be the singer of your own song.

Don’t get hung up in words, just listen to your heart and see where it leads.

Tuning Slide 4.41- Finding Your Voice (#2)

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Cover bands don’t change the world – you need to find your unique voice if you want to thrive
— Todd Henry, Accidental Creative

Last week I started a series on finding our voice and our song. I talked some about Stephen Covey’s The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (2004). The 8th habit is “find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.” Covey says that voice is

Your power to choose the direction of your life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation.

I looked at the cancerous behaviors that can be barriers to greatness- such as complaining, comparing, contending. But Covey also talks about those who do success and become what he calls “achievers” or those who do find their voice.

Achievers, those who manage to find their “voice”:
▪ develop their mental energy into vision
▪ develop their physical energy into discipline
▪ develop their emotional energy into passion
▪ develop their spiritual energy into conscience – their inward moral sense of what is right and wrong and their drive towards meaning and contribution.

That is quite an insight, in my opinion. He sees that we have four types of energy- mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual.

▪ He starts with the mental since as we have talked about before, a great deal of success is found in the “mental.” We have to first know where we are going. That’s vision, which comes from developing and directing our mental energy.

▪ But doing isn’t thinking. Doing takes a different energy than mental. No, will power is not what works. What we need is the actual physical energy to move ourselves in action. We know that from the need to practice, build endurance and range, and become flexible in embouchure and fingering the trumpet. But there is other physical energy involved, namely the physical ability to do the work in the first place. This is we need discipline. Physical energy becomes discipline- doing it.

▪ But these two energies, like all sources of energy can run down. The next energy he calls emotional energy which gives us a boost. I like his use of the word passion to describe the focus of emotional energy. Passion is a powerful force. It helps us focus the vision and the discipline into what excites us. Look at the definition and some synonyms for passion: an intense desire or enthusiasm for something. I.e. fervor, ardor, intensity, enthusiasm, eagerness, zeal. Adding these to our vision and discipline and we have more energy to work toward finding our voice.

▪ Finally Covey adds spiritual energy and conscience. Spiritual energy gives life to what we are doing. It grounds us in what is right and the better ways to live and work and treat others around us. It gets us in touch with powers, inspirations, and directions beyond ourselves. Conscience then gives our vision a moral and transcendent quality.

That’s what makes your voice so important- and unique. It doesn’t matter what field you are working - or playing - in. These four sources of energy help me discover me, who I am, what’s important to me, how I want my life to be lived. We don’t just imitate someone else, we are not a “cover band” for someone else’s music. This is ours.

While working on this I was listening to music. On my shuffle along comes a great Bob Dylan song- "All Along the Watchtower." But it wasn’t his version. It was the one far better known- Jimi Hendrix. Was Hendrix leading a cover band? No way! It was Dylan’s song, but this was Hendrix’s voice! The same is true, for example, in the amazing Coltrane recording, "My Favorite Things." It is, as many already know, a song from the musical/movie The Sound of Music written my Rodgers and Hammerstein. Yet Coltrane’s version is unique and definitely his own. It contains his vision, the discipline to work it out, the passion he had for music, and his own spiritual vision. It is no cover version- it is as original as the Rodgers and Hammerstein version.

That doesn’t happen often. Only those who have found their own voice will be able to move in this direction. Todd Henry, who I quoted above, has 10 questions that will help you find your voice. He posted these at Accidental Creative. He says that we may start with emulating others (being a “cover band”) but we must move beyond that to our own uniqueness. Here are his ten questions.

✓ What angers you?
✓ What makes you cry?
✓ What have you mastered?
✓ What gives you hope?
✓ As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
✓ If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do?
✓ What would blow your mind?
✓ What platform do you own?
✓ What change would you like to see in the world?
✓ If you had one day left, how would you spend it?

◆ Spend some time in the next week thinking about these questions. Put them in a journal or diary and play around with them. I am adding nothing in the way of my explanations. I will let you do that for yourself. Then see how we can apply that to moving with our voice (your power to choose the direction of your life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation) into your specific expressions, your song.

Why? Well, back to Todd Henry:

We need you. You are not disposable, and your contribution to the rest of us is not discretionary. Do not abdicate your contribution. If you do, you will spend the final days of your life wishing you’d treated your time here with more purpose. Today, here, now, in this moment, resolve to uncover your voice and to begin acting to effect change in this world. You may be reluctant to accept the role that you can play, but resolve to engage. Die empty.
— Todd Henry, Accidental Creative

Tuning Slide 4.7-

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The feeling of togetherness- not togetherness as in some rigid lock step, but togetherness as in dance- is vitally important in music making.
-Barry Green, The Mastery of Music

Barry Green is the author, with Tim Gallwey, of the classic book, The Inner Game of Music. His second book looked at The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry. In this book Green expanded beyond the Inner Game ideas into developing “true artistry” in our music. Every couple weeks I am going to take one of these ten pathways and bring it to my life and the applications to the Tuning Slide goals.

In The Inner Game of Music Green talked about two of three disciplines than demands mastery. The first was the techniques, the second was concentration. These two are basic, essential, foundations of making music. The conflicts and agreements of our Self 1 which is always ready to remind us of our mistakes and Self 2 which is the innate and intuitive side that knows how to do it are the building blocks. The third discipline is developing what Green calls, “true artistry.” In my view this takes the technique and concentration and begins to develop musicality. To find these, Green looked at different instruments and different people who seem to live and even embody these 10 pathways. He interviewed them and put it all into this book. Let’s start the journey with Green.

Pathway #1— Communication: The Silent Rhythm (Ensembles and Conductors)
I am working under the assumption that we are musicians because we like to make music and that we practice so that we can do that with others. A solo recitals can be nice, but that isn’t really what making music is all about. Even practicing with a play-along CD doesn’t get to the real joy of music that playing in a combo or band can. In order to play well with others there has to be some way we learn to communicate with each other. There has to be some method, style, trick, or just plain intuition that leads us to do more than just be a collection of musicians doing our own things and hoping (or believing) it works together. And most of the time we have to do it without speaking, on the fly, in the midst of a piece.
Green calls this the “silent rhythm” that unites us in communicating with the audience. He calls it “non-verbal, rhythmic union.” Musicians playing in a group get into something called “entrainment.” They sense the rhythm of the music as played by their colleagues. No one is micromanaging the rhythm through conducting. They feel it. As the group locks into a pulse they become more in tune and more efficient and musical in their playing. Yes, there is a science behind it.

In 1665, Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, inventor of the pendulum clock, was lying in bed with a minor illness and watching two of his clocks hanging on a wall…. He noticed something odd: No matter how the pendulums on these clocks began, within about a half-hour, they ended up swinging in exactly the opposite direction from each other.

Research has shown that the reason for what Huygens noticed is in vibrations (sounds) on the wall caused by the pendulums swinging works to move them into synch, in tune with each other. In reality this falling into synch is improving efficiency. The two pendulums are no longer working against each other. They are “in tune.” In order to get to that point as musicians we have to go back to the technique and concentration Green related to in the Inner Game. We have to know how to play the parts we have- mistakes, flubs, ineffective fingerings can get out of synch with the rhythm.

We must also give in to the group. We must cease being a lone musician who just happens to be playing with others and let Self 2 do its thing. Self 2 is not as worried about your own technique. Self 2 knows what you or I can do and just wants Self 1 to let us do it. Self 2 knows what’s needed- so let it happen. Distraction, whether by the hyper-critical or hyper-analytical Self 1 or a lapse in focus can easily get you out of synch. Concentration- mindfulness and surrendering to the music- keeps us on.

As we share that with each other, Green lets us know that we are receiving guidance from the music itself, from its pulses and chords, phrases and rhythm. In so doing we receive energy (those vibrations) from the music and our colleagues in the group. In Eastern philosophy there is the idea of “Qi” or “chi” as energy. (Hence Qigong and T’ai Chi). As we play in a group it is that same type of energy that is being shared, silently yet powerfully among us.

Green talked to both percussionists and conductors to explain this idea since it is they who must most fully embody that in the group for all of us. They can get the rhythm, or even set it and communicate non-verbally with the rest of us. As we all fall into it, the “groove” sets in and, well, then it “swings” no matter what the genre of music!

But it is not something that can be forced. One of the musicians Green talked to (Ralph Towner) called it a “zen thing— as soon as you think you have its you lose it.”

There are no secondary roles in music: everything you do affects the total music. So it is critical to be one hundred percent attentive to everything, all the time, and hear the whole as it evolves.

Is it any wonder that right behind “sound” is “rhythm” in the building of musicality? Green concludes:

We don’t just play notes: music is a live current, and we navigate it. This current can be shaped and gently guided, but not pinned down…. The moment we interfere too much, the music’s power, effectiveness, and flow will be disturbed…. We have to be silent, attentive, and sensitive to its shape. We have to intuit a silent rhythm that has the power to unite us. We each have unique capacities to respond to the music, and the better we understand, the more we feel, the closer we will come to the true spirit, and the more artistry we shall have to express.

Just like life.

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
— John Donne (1572-1631)

---

The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry by Barry Green, chapter 1, pp 21-43.
(2003, Broadway Books.)

The Tuning Slide 3.17

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

True enjoyment comes from

activity of the mind and exercise of the body;

the two are ever united.

-Wilhelm von Humboldt

We have been talking about how to become a musician this month- at least in behaviors, actions, and attitudes. At the heart of it is always that priority list:

1. The music
2. Our colleagues
3. The audience
4. Ourselves

Unfortunately, since it puts "ourselves" last, people often use that as an excuse NOT to take care of themselves. We end up pushing ourselves beyond our limits into wearing down of our energy, skills, and careers. The issue of balancing extremes that I talked about last week in relation to our actual playing is just as important when it comes to taking care of ourselves. It can be so easy to mess up our lives by not paying attention to what’s important in how we look after ourselves. We ignore warning signs of extreme fatigue, we think that we will always be able to do everything we have always done, we will not take care of our body, mind, and spirit. Many of us will actually take better care of our instrument than we will of ourselves.

In reality if we don’t take care of ourselves we can easily get into deep trouble physically and emotionally. In the end the music we produce will suffer, the relationships with other musicians will deteriorate, and we might not have an audience to play for. Taking care of ourselves, I am convinced, is the same as cleaning, caring for, and tuning an instrument.

Last summer I explained to Bill Bergren at the workshop what I was hoping to get out of an individual lesson. He took my horn from me, pulled out the tuning slide and looked down the lead pipe.

“When was the last time you cleaned this?” He looked in my mouthpiece, handed the trumpet back to me and just shook his head.

I cleaned it that night- and there was way more of the ugly green gunk than I wanted to see. That green gunk is a metaphor for what happens to me when I don’t take care of me!

So I did some surfing around the Internet and found many good bits of advice as I got ready to write this week’s post. They sum up the different areas of our lives that need self-monitoring on a regular basis. That is the “mindfulness” that I talk about so often. The better we pay attention to ourselves and what is going on around us, the better we will learn to take care of ourselves.

I put the things I found into a series of categories:

✓ Balance
Avoiding extremes
✓ Breathing/Relaxation
Developing tension releasing activities
✓ Commitment
Making self-care non-negotiable. (It has to be part of the daily routine!)
✓ Exercise
Keeping the instrument of self physically tuned
✓ Gratitude
Developing an attitude of humility and grace
✓ Mindfulness
Learning to be self-aware both inwardly and outwardly

First, on the Musician’s Way website, (https://www.musiciansway.com/blog/2009/11/the-12-habits-of-healthy-musicians/) Gerald Klickstein had twelve habits of a healthy musician. Here are the ones I felt fit best with this post:

• Manage your workload (Balance)
• Heed warning signs (Mindfulness)
• Minimize tension (Breathing/Relaxation)
• Take charge of anxiety (Breathing/Relaxation)
• Keep fit and strong (Exercise)

On the website Psych Central (https://psychcentral.com/lib/how-clinicians-practice-self-care-9-tips-for-readers/) there was an article about how medical clinicians and counselors learn to take care of themselves. Here are some of the tips from there that seems most appropriate.

• Remember that self-care is non-negotiable. (Commitment)
• Put it on your calendar — in ink! (Commitment)
• Know when to say no. (Balance)
• Identify what activities help you feel your best. (Balance)
• Take care of yourself physically. (Exercise)
• Surround yourself with great people. (Mindfulness)
• Meditation (Mindfulness)
• Check in with yourself regularly (Mindfulness)

To be a healthy musician, then, let's put these together:

• Mindfulness:
  
  • Check in with yourself regularly
  • Heed warning signs
  • Meditation
• Gratitude:
  
  • Surround yourself with great people
• Balance:
  
  • Know when to say no
  • Manage your workload
  • Identify the activities for relaxation and renewal that can help you feel your best
• Commitment:
  
  • Put your self-care activities on your calendar in ink
  • Remember they need to be non-negotiable
• Breathing/Relaxation:
  
  • Minimize sources of tension
  • Take charge of anxiety
• Exercise:
  
  • Take care of yourself physically
  • Keep fit and strong

As to that last one, I have been a wannabe exerciser for years. I manage to keep at it for a while, then something changes and I get lazy or off-track. (I have been a certified group trainer, as well.) Yet I have always known and experienced that when I am taking care of myself physically through exercise and better eating, I am better overall, and I am a better musician. There are many places to find ideas about exercise for musicians. I came across one set that was really helpful. The site is Take Lessons (https://takelessons.com/blog/fitness-exercises-for-musicians) and they had a wonderful bit of information for musicians. They also had a number of links to helpful videos. Here are seven of their ten ideas, chosen more by my own experience to share:

• Yoga- Stretching and movement with balance and intention is a great metaphor for musicians. We can learn it well through yoga. The website talked about “power” yoga. Not a necessity in my opinion. Yoga will do it without all the extras added.
• Core Exercises- The core, the abs, are the supporting foundation for all good health. They provide a way for musicians to be more focused and relaxed because they are well supported. The benefits of a strong core I don’t think can be overstated! Pilates is an excellent way to build this.
• Posture- We have all heard that having good posture does a lot- we just ignore it. Yet a good posture will support better music. It also has a lot to do with breathing. And efficient use of breath is essential to those of us who are wind musicians!
  (http://brassmusician.com/posture-and-breathing-by-mike-white/)
• Arm Strength (biceps, triceps, shoulders)- Think about holding the instrument! Need I say more?
• Cardio- A healthy heart will help get that air moving and increase endurance.
• Neck & Shoulder stretches
  (http://www.musicnotes.com/blog/2014/06/17/stretches-for-musicians/)
• Meditation- Yes, this can be an important part of exercise. Next week I will talk more about this in relation to T’ai Chi and Qigong.

I hope I am preaching to the choir in this post. I am a strong supporter of self-care. It is not being selfish. It is taking care of yourself as a way of helping others. It is in line with the instructions you hear on an airplane. If the oxygen mask drops down, put yours on FIRST before helping even a little child put their on. You can’t help if you aren’t safe yourself.

Take care of you. It’s the only you that you will have.

The Tuning Slide: 2.26- Watching and Listening

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Sometime it is just neat to be in the audience when music is being made. Part of the discipline of being a musician is to go and hear others playing in performance. I have had a number of opportunities to do that over the past few months and have come away with some insights that I hope I can apply to my own public performance. In particular I have had the time to hear some types of music that I don’t personally play. When I go to a concert where I am hearing different types of music, I kind of mentally prepare myself with five questions. These help me focus on the music, not so much from a technical aspect but from the perspective of a music fan. These questions:

• What’s familiar?
• What’s different?
• What’s new and interesting?
• What do I like about it?

What can help me in my own playing and performance?

The most interesting concert for me was the Russian String Orchestra in a relatively small (500 seat) venue. It wasn’t quite like sitting by the stage in a club environment, but it was close. I very seldom get to hear strings in person. And even less do I get to hear “just strings” in person. Strings have a unique and wondrous sound in an orchestral setting. I can still remember the first time I heard an orchestra in person. I was 22 and just about to graduate from college. I spent the summer in Austria and there I heard a chamber orchestra perform in a local cathedral. I was swept away. The sound of such an ensemble is hard to match.

The Russian String Orchestra consists of 16 string players, violin to double bass. My first thought was, “Gee, that’s about how many we have in our big band.” But there wasn’t a trumpet, trombone, saxophone - or amplifier- in sight. Which is the first thing that caught me up short; this is a 100% acoustic performance. There’s no manipulation of the sound, what is there is what you hear. It is not a “large” sound, but it does get through. It has an amazing range of dynamics. The quiet subtlety of a pianissimo section is almost breathtaking in its simplicity- and wonder. That they can easily move from that to a fortissimo that brings thunderstorms to mind is even more amazing. The ability to have that kind of control over one’s instrument is almost miraculous.

Which is the first thing I took away from the concert. The hours of practice it takes to be that controlled in your music is critical, as I have talked about before. But to hear the results of that practice shows what a great gift it can be to the audience. Trumpet players aren’t traditionally known for their subtlety. Maybe it is worth working on that. Yes, it is difficult in a big band of brass and woodwinds to get that, but the result- for the audience- is priceless. Music is not just blasting away or developing high screaming notes or even a fast chromatic run. The silence between the notes may be just as important, which is where the subtlety can be born.

The concert itself was purely “classical” string music-style. No pop numbers adapted for strings. It was the real deal. And, no surprise, it used all the same notes that every other band I play in uses. The rich variety of music available to us to hear and play is remarkable. On top of that, it also follows many of the same rules that I have been working on with my jazz improvisational learning, and most certainly what I find in Arban’s, Clarke, or Charlier etudes.

The second thing I did was I listened more closely to get the groove of the music. I could pick out certain musical progressions that I am trying to become intimate with- variations on the ii-V7-I cadence found in so many jazz and popular numbers were there. So was the eight-bar phrasing at times, giving me the movement I could flow with. Hearing the music being moved around the different instruments, allowing each section and, on one piece, each member, to show off their virtuosity was entrancing. I moved with the music- and it became even more alive.

Again, how much work goes into that? These musicians were more than proficient- they were professionally expert! Part of what they have done is to learn the music, feel the rhythm, and then allow the music to transfer through them and their instrument to their fellow musicians and to the audience. That is back to the control of their instrument (remember self one) allowing the natural development of the music to intuitively come out (remember self two.) But what I took away for me, beyond the practice and “Inner Game” thoughts, is again those three things we have talked about before:

1. Every time you play you have a great- not a good- sound.
2. You have great- not good- rhythm.
3. You have great- not good- ears to hear the sound.

All three of those came together with what I was hearing.

The third thing that I have learned to watch when musicians are performing is how do they look? Are they just doing a job, or are they interested, engaged, even excited. I had seen that in a concert of Irish music and dancing the week before. Those young people were remarkable in their raw energy and their ability to harness it for the show. They were not polished like, say, Riverdance. But they were every bit as good. They were excited by the performance and the engagement with us the audience.

I saw that same kind of excitement with the Russian Strings. They were having fun. Being in such a small venue I could easily watch their faces, their eyes, the movement of their bodies. I saw them look across the orchestra and smile when someone did a great job. I watched them lean into the music and get ready for the next section that was important to them personally. I saw the little communications that passed information from one to the other. They were intensely involved in the music, they liked the music, and they were excited to be able to play it.

Part of that comes from their incredible intimacy with the music and the way they have learned to listen and work with each other. They may all be highly skilled, but they clearly know at this point in their careers that they need each other. I hope they never lose that. Part of it, too, is that they, like the Irish group the week before, truly like what they are doing. They get that from their conductor. He loved directing the music; he loved the opportunities this orchestra gives young people; he is excited by sharing it with us in the audience, even when the microphone didn’t work as well as he wanted it to. He was contagious- the orchestra caught it. The orchestra was contagious- and we caught it.

It was a great evening of music. But it was also a great evening of learning for me and a reminder of why I do what I do with my music. Yes, it feels great to be able to build my chops and, for example, move through 12 major scales with little effort, or (Mr. Baca, Steve, and Warren take note) regularly hitting that high “C” and “D”. But if that is all I do, it will be nothing more than a selfish endeavor. It is in the performance that the true magic of music does its work. Therefore:

• Deliberate practice to be able to give better performances. Develop the breadth and subtlety of the music.
• Maintain the interest in finding new ways to be excited by what I am doing.
• Stay engaged with the music and the groove in performance so it can fit together.
• Put all these together on the bandstand or concert stage.
• Be contagious and let the audience catch it.

The Tuning Slide: 2.24- The Magic in the Music

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

I said last week that, as usual, Bill Bergren had opened a new thought pattern for me in my post on his teaching a non-trumpet player how to play. Here, again, is his response from last week:

Everything I did was in reaction to the student. It's all about understanding the concept then articulating/communicating in your own words and style. IMO this can't be expressed in the written word and is the reason Mr. Adam never wrote a book. Imagine the master in Zen In The Art of Archery writing a book on his methods. I don't think so.

I bolded the part I want to talk about this week. It is, in essence, a challenge to the written word as the sole way of learning how to do something. He mentioned an older book: Zen in the Art of Archery that was written in the early 1930s and updated in the late 1940s. It is the first of many books that have taken the teachings of Zen and applied them to any number of other activities. The classic from the 1970s, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of the more famous. Such books, to oversimplify them, are philosophical discussions based on or around particular subjects. They take “Zen” ideas and apply them to life.

Here’s Wikipedia’s description of the archery book:

[German philosophy professor Eugen] Herrigel has an accepting spirit towards and about unconscious control of outer activity Westerners heretofore considered wholly to be under conscious-waking control and direction. For example, a central idea in the book is how through years of practice, a physical activity becomes effortless both mentally and physically, as if our habit body executes complex and difficult movements without conscious control from the mind.

Herrigel describes Zen in archery as follows:
"(...) The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art (...)"

It is a short book and an easy read, unless you want to allow it to work on you. Then slow down and listen to it. I could do a number of posts on what I wrote down, but let me take a few ideas.

Part of what this boils down to is that learning “technique” is not always enough. For the archery master Herrigel studied under to have given him a step-by-step description of the way to become proficient at archery, would not have produced a master. For us to simply know that pressing a certain valve or combination of valves produces a certain note does not make a good trumpet player. The “inner game” books by Timothy Gallwey and others present the same ideas in a different form. But I want to stick with the “Zen” idea for this post to give a slightly different perspective from the inner game. This perspective may actually prod us further into being less conscious about our playing and more in-tune (intentional phrase!) with ourselves, our playing, and our fellow musicians.

So what might “Zen and the Art of Music” be like? I found this description from David Michael Wolff, founder and conductor of the Carolina Philharmonic with that very title:

Music has a certain magic to it, a magic infused with zen. If you start to see the energy underneath music instead of dwelling on the surface emotion, you see that lines of energy and rhythm guide the architecture… How can you work with the flow of energy instead of against it? Just as a great martial artist can defeat the opponent using his own energy, so a zen music master learns to bend musical energy to his will, or better, ride it effortlessly by bending himself to the will of music. -Link

Bend yourself as the musician to the will of music. But in order to do that you must also “see” the energy in the music and that there is a structure, an architecture to the energy and rhythm. Somewhat like the inner game except this clearly says that there is more to being a good musician than getting “self one” to be quite so “self two” can get in the flow. It is saying that together, self one and self two can get in the low with that is already in the music waiting to be released. Yes, self one will attempt to shoe-horn and pressure the music to fit its ideas, but sooner or later self two will say “Relax! Hear and feel the power underneath!

Personally I love the idea in this. I know there is “magic” in the music that is waiting for the musician to share it. The technical notes on the page or the strategies we learned in Arban’s or Clarke are the starting points, but they only work on the surface. They help us feel familiar with the technical aspects of playing, but if they don’t move us to hear the music energy, we will simply be playing the notes and not the music itself. I find that exciting. That means for me that in each piece of music I am working on, whether an etude in Charlier or an old band favorite for a concert, there is something more than meets the eye. We can call it the architecture, but that is made up of the rhythms and energy connecting with us.

Bach is one of the best examples in this for me. It is precise, almost mathematically correct. It is some of the most “logical” music ever written. But that isn’t why Bach’s music remains as unique as it is. Logic and precision can get pretty boring. If you hear the “metronome” in the performer’s head, you know the performer has missed the point of the music. But listen… there’s the amazing love of Anna Magdelena in the notes or the soaring craving for God that sings like heaven in Bach’s variations on what we know as “The Passion Chorale.” Yes, it can take technical skill (i.e. years of practice) to get that into a performance, but it’s the emotions that make it a real musical event.

How do we achieve this zen-like attitude?

Many of these are what you would expect.
You have to know your instrument, its feel, its balance in your hands, the way it centers your sound. Think playing the lead pipe along for this. That’s one of the ways we begin to connect with our instrument.

You have to build your strength or endurance. Think long tones centered and improving as you feel the center.

You have to breathe with your instrument and the music. Think long tones and the Clarke exercises.

You have to practice. Herrigel is told by the Master, “Don’t ask- practice.” There are aspects of practice that are important like singing the piece, playing it slow enough to know what the notes feel and sound like, recording yourself, listening to other recordings. All of these are not a prescription to zen and music, they are simply part of the practice. A classic zen idea is to realize that you will know it’s happening when it is time. Until then wait with patience- and keep practicing.

One way I have found that seems to be working for me is moving beyond simply playing scales to improvising on them. I have never been able to improvise, except when singing along with a song, alone, in my car. I am a jazz lover and am empowered by listening to it. Since Shell Lake’s Adult Big Band Workshop two years ago I have been moving toward experiencing what improvising is life. I went through the technical stuff of scales- major, seventh, and minor. They began to feel familiar under my fingers. I was accomplishing several of the things I mentioned above- the instrument, endurance, breathing- technical skills. I just kept practicing. I had difficulty playing with the Aebersold CDs, so I stopped trying. It wasn’t time. I did slightly better with the iReal Pro app on my iPhone, but still struggled.

Then, one day, it was time. As I finished playing through my scales one afternoon I decided to play around with the scale. I started improvising. By ear. (It’s amazing how much faster we can play a scale or a riff if we don’t have to look at the music. I was flabbergasted!) I played with scales and chord arpeggios. I then added a structure of rhythm. Finally I started adding structure of chord changes. I started working on 8- and 16-bar blues changes, then some ii-V7-I changes. I started playing them in different keys. I wanted to look in a mirror to make sure that it was still me playing the horn. The freedom that gave me was nothing short of miraculous. I started composing melodies across the changes. Sure, they were very elementary and quite dull, but I was doing something different.

I was experiencing the zen.

I then started applying all this to a song I have been wanting to arrange for our quintet- the folk song Sloop John B. I worked it out by ear, then I started playing with it, checking different rhythms and chord changes, descants and the like. All by ear. I began to experience the zen of this song. I then heard new things that I could play and ways to truly move beyond simple improvisation to some slightly more interesting variations. As I did this the power and energy of the song became apparent. I could feel it in my horn and embouchure. (I know that anyone who loves technical stuff will probably give up at this point. That’s okay. It is working for me!)

Each time I play through the song now, I get a different insight into its structure and energy. I am almost ready to be getting the composing part going. Because I know the music, the song’s zen, it will be more interesting than if I had simply done some technical study and fit that to the song.

Be careful, of course, that you don't get into some bad habits. It could be easy to get used to doing things some incorrect ways. More on that in another post. For this week, Zen works. Go with the musical flow- it's energy and rhythm, its architecture and texture.

Bill, as usual, you’ve done it again.

And as usual, thanks.

The Tuning Slide: Using Energy

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music has always been a matter of Energy to me,

a question of Fuel.

Sentimental people call it Inspiration,

but what they really mean is Fuel.

-Hunter S. Thompson

Energy.
Excuse me for a digression into physics. What IS energy?

Actually "energy" can be defined as a number of different types of energy.

• Kinetic energy of a moving object,
• Potential energy stored by an object's position
• Elastic energy stored by stretching solid objects,
• Chemical energy released when a fuel burns,
• Radiant energy carried by light, and
• Thermal energy due to an object's temperature.

An important bit of knowledge about energy:

• All forms of energy are convertible to other kinds of energy;
• energy can be neither created nor be destroyed;
• it can change from one form to another.

Why all this about energy? Well, it started when I came across a note from the camp last summer that said we should always play with the same amount of energy. It shouldn't matter if we are playing the "1812 Overture" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb." The energy needs to be the same. A soft and gentle passage needs as much energy as the loud ones we trumpets are known to love. A slow, prayerful piece has to come across to the listener with the same amount of fullness as a Sousa march.

I know that on one level that sounds like a dream, something that is almost an oxymoron. How can one have quiet energy or powerful softness? Then I noticed a You Tube video of the Canadian Brass doing their wonderful arrangement of Amazing Grace, a trumpet feature. As I watched the lead trumpet I realized that I couldn't tell by looking whether he was in high or low register. So I turned off the sound and watched. He played with the same ease- and energy- whether he was loud, soft, low, or high. Which is why the piece is so powerful.

Energy is not about pressure or loudness. It is about the underlying power. Reading the list of types of energy shows that there is a lot of energy in an object just sitting there. But if that object is a car, its energy changes significantly when traveling down the road at 80 mph.

Let's take that nice center concert F, our G. When we were just starting to play we couldn't play it loudly or softly with equal presence. When we went too soft- pianissimo, it kind of went flat and lost its sound quality- its energy. When we tried to play it loud- fortissimo- it cracked and splattered. We really hadn't learned how to master energy.

As we have moved through our learning curves on playing we have discovered that we can play pianissimo without losing quality and fortissimo without splattering. This is an essential part of our improvement as musicians. It is a lot of work to get to that point. Every group or band I have ever played in has had that same problem. We have greater difficulty maintaining energy on slow or soft pieces. We have greater trouble holding a note's sound when it's a slow half of whole note in a passage. Or what about coming in on a pianissimo high A or Bb?

Several things come to mind about that. First is what Mr. Baca talked about when he would do a master class or session with us at camp. Perhaps it is best described in this quote from Don Jacoby:

We never blow to the horn.

We blow through the horn.

We never blow up to a note,

we blow out to it.

-Don Jacoby

When I took the lead pipe off my horn and just played through it, I discovered the energy in the note even though there was no note as I was used to hearing. Remember that energy and play with the lead pipe back. Go up the scale and play each note with the same energy.

Which is the second thing about this energy discussion- support. The support of the sound, the note, is part of the energy. Look at the list above. The support is the potential energy of the note and the elastic energy of the expanding and contracting diaphragm. It is there with the kinetic energy of the air moving between our lips into the mouthpiece and through the horn.

The reason this works is the third thing I realized- energy is neither created or destroyed. It always is there, it is just transformed. With our music, we are transforming the energy from all these sources into sound energy (not listed above). It's all energy. Therefore, the better or more controlled and utilized our energy is, the better the sound.

Which brings me back to the same old line:

• Practice, practice, practice

But not just playing, being deliberate in our playing. Take time to play those long tones. That was a real revelation for me. When I started doing that in a regular, intentional way, my sound improved almost immediately. I was learning how to control, utilize, the energy more efficiently. I was building support in my lungs, diaphragm, and embouchure so that the sound can be maintained.

In one of the Jazz Academy videos on You Tube, Marcus Printup of Jazz at Lincoln Center, suggests doing a whole series of soft, triple-p, concert Fs as long tones.The result is learning how to maintain energy. It gets us listening to the sound more carefully. We experience what energy feels like as we make the sound.

As always we need to be intentional about what we are doing. Even if you don't have a detailed plan (and I never do, hence I will not say you should, even though I probably should!) have a series of intentionally developed routines that allow for the energy to be channeled into music. We discover our own sources of energy and how to utilize them for the benefit of our playing.

By the way, I think this is one of the reasons why most practice instructions say to quit before you get tired. If we have lost our energy, the music we are playing won't have as much and we will learn incorrectly. To rest, to take a break and recharge our energy is important. We will get more endurance as we continue, but over-doing it on one day and then having to recuperate isn't helpful.

As always, I will add, that this is all

• just like the rest of life.