Hi George, I just wanted you to know that I have really opened up on my horn since watching and practicing what you teach.(Air-Play).
The videos are an awesome teaching tool !
I also enjoy your sound an always read your posts. I am learning by listening to your comments on tpin.
I also purchased P.E.T.E off of your recommendation. It's good to mix it up with the pencil routines.
Thank You ......david ( I'm 56 and just love the trumpet )
From Paul
This is a highly efficient approach to the trumpet and efficiency I think is the key...
I started playing at age 5 in Clifton, NJ on a old boy scout bugle. By age six I was taking lessons with James Moscati who was in his 60's then (1952?) and although he was a wonderful man he was a clarinetist not a brass player. When I was around 11 I started lessons with Paul Bortnick, he was in the West Point Band and a student at Manhattan School of Music). He taught me the Schlossberg and at this age I could play loud high F's but I can’t say I ever “owned” notes above high D or E. I did it with force, muscle and tons of pressure to the top lip.
Being a pretty big, strong kid I was able to maintain this approach. All through my teens I studied with Nels Laakso who was a good teacher and player who knew about Costello and I remember him showing me the horn on the palm thing and telling me to stop trying to “bow the walls down”. In my late teens/early twenties I was a student at NYU/NYCOM and studied with Isador Blank, a little with Ray Crisara and I then ended up a Carmine Carouso student.
As I got older my loud high F's began to get harder and harder and eventually while working in a Latin band in the Catskills in the early 70's my chops quit on me. I was in my mid-late 30’s and to this point had only really worked as a trumpet player. I was experiencing severe top lip pain and when I tried to compensate for it by raising the mouthpiece higher on my chops I basically fell apart to where I couldn't play anything. A couple of Roy's students were working in those mountains, Bob Livingood and Paul Bogosian and they both spent time with me showing me Roy's stuff and I eventually ended up seeing Roy myself for a year or so. It didn't work for me , it never felt like a natural way for me to play and I ended up getting sidetracked and doing other things.
I got serious about trying to figure out this chop thing again around 1987 and a very good player down here in South Florida showed me the Donald Reindhart stuff and I worked hard at that for a number of years and while I did find some chops I still lack the power, range and endurance I witness in so many other trumpeters nowadays. I went back to school around in around 2002, finally finished my BA and as a Graduate Assistant I taught jazz courses while I earned an MA in composition. I received this degree in May of 2008.
Through all of this I have worked and I am considered to be a pretty good jazz trumpeter. Kenny Dorham whom I met in 1967 at NYCOM was my mentor and friend and musically he was the singularly biggest influence in my life. Perhaps gong in this direction was expedient too for I wasn’t expected to play lead but I never have made a real living as a commercial player.
I recently discovered George Rawlins' website and liked what he had to say and therefore I purchased the CD and have been studying it the past few months and doing what he says.
The breathing is especially helpful and I realized an immediate improvement in my playing from his “yawn/sigh” approach. His work led me back to the Stevens Book and I have been re-discovering his teachings. Since it didn’t really work for me in so as that I couldn’t turn the system into a dependable approach I realized it was a far more comfortable and efficient approach to trumpet playing than what I had been used to. I remember playing a real nice double C now and then while doing the drills and thinking “darn that was EASY!”
I found the whole jaw forward – open teeth set really hard to “get.” though and in a playing situation I would lose it and fall apart. I think the reason being I was already in my mid to late thirties and had 30+ years of negative reinforcement under me. My initial playing sensations formed so early on in my life were so deeply ingrained in my psyche and muscle memory!.
However just being exposed to a new, better way was now part of my experience and I have spent the past 35 years trying to play easier. I do put I never became the player I’d like to be in a purely physical sense. My role models are people like Clark Terry, Dizzy, Conte Candoli, and Kenny Dorham.
They could all play in a musical, lyrical way from low F# up to G above high C and Dizzy is on recordings playing lot’s of A’s! For me is not about the “flash” rather I frequently am shackled conceptually in a solo because my ear is taking me up but my physical self, embouchure, chops whatever you care to call it is restricting me to the middle register.
Thanks to George’s presentation of Costello/Stevens something I already thought I knew and had somewhat dismissed I am now finding new success with.
This is a highly efficient approach to the trumpet and efficiency I think is the key.
Hi George, I had two what I call "Aha!" revelations last week in learning how to blow this brass coiled snake better last week. The way to blow should be a relaxed "HAAA" always, not just in the range I'm comfortable with and not intimidated by. I did fine up to high E, which I find easy and comfortable. Then I noticed that in the transition between E and F my blow would change to some kind of an intense overdrive. Funny coincidence that I seem to have a brick wall (self-imposed) barrier between high E and F. When I consciously maintain the relaxed "HAAA" through that transition it gets easier. The sound should sit on an air column. I read that somewhere in your website last week. Somehow I got a clearer picture of that. The sound can just sit on top of a relaxed air column, and then everything can relax. My throat can completely relax, my lips can just relax and fully respond, and the sound is great! I can get rid of all the brutal aspects of trumpet playing. That mental picture kind of brings together everything I know and makes it work in a coordinated way. I still am having a hard time keeping the top lip down from high F and above, and I think I need to learn some more about subconsciously controlling the aperture up there. It feels weird about half the time still. Maybe statics will help with that. At least the air part got a couple of good adjustments last week. I also got interested in trying a KT bb, so I ordered one and expect to see it in a couple of days.
