Taking in a sufficient amount of air before playing trumpet is a very simple yet confusing action. Some say that “you take air in as if you are coming up for the last time when drowning”. I never did understand that one. Some say “lift your shoulders and fill your lungs from the bottom up”. Still others tell their students to “breath low”. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard that one. Some encourage the player to “take a long, slow breath through the nose”. That person must have very large nostrils and a long…

Some may ask, “Why should anyone need to oil their valves so quickly”? Trust me, it sometimes happens and being able to finish the job in less than half a minute can mean the difference between success and failure during a concert. Years ago, I sometimes needed to oil my valves in a short amount of time during a faculty brass quintet concert at UNI. It always seemed to be a challenge which required me to get the job done between numbers during our numerous high school concerts. We all have had incidences where one or possibly two valves began…

I would like to give the late Mr. John Beer (former trumpet Prof. at the University of Iowa) credit for this helpful hint for improving your percentage of success with upward slurs. During one of my lesson with my good friend at the University of Iowa, John pointed out the fact that I was doing my upward slurs the hard way and proceeded to give me instructions to correct this weakness. As I played, he said that I was playing the top note too loud. To me it seems logical to do until he played it his way. To my…

When the topic of tuning comes up, it usually pertains to an intonation situation but in this case, I’m talking about the coordination of your valve fingers. Lately I have been noticing that my low D, Eb and Ab in the staff have been so sounding unclean and today I finally found the problem. For some strange reason I had relocated my right hand in a different position than normal. This is usually caused by playing and not listening to the product. Once I found the cause, the solution was very easy. For some of you this might be a…