Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from October 22, 2017

Passion Outside the Box

We trumpet players, and brass players for that matter, spend so much time focusing on perfecting our brass playing and listening, that we sometimes forget how sublime music unrelated to brass can be.  This is not a criticism, but a reminder.  Find your music passion outside the box! I will share my personal passion for Chopin, Jacqueline du Pre, and Beethoven Piano Sonatas.  Every musician, especially brass players, should be intimate with Chopin and Beethoven piano works.  Why????  Have you ever tried to find and play the melody line of a Chopin or Beethoven piano work?  You will learn so much about expression within a ever moving tempo.  It's friggin hard!!  We learn to be playful with rhythm and expression through Charlier Etudes, my favorite for teaching this ability in trumpet lessons.  But, to go further outside the box, begin by listening to Chopin Ballades and Beethoven Piano Sonatas, a lot.  Chopin devoted his entire short life to writing only for the piano.  He knew his