Trumpet Quotes
This collection of quotes has been collected from many
sources. The main places that they have appeared are on
the Trumpet
Players International Network (TPIN), and the
rec.music.makers.trumpet
Usenet news group. Any corrections or additions are
welcome.
Any instrument well played
will open my heart, but only the heavenly scream of a trumpet will
rapture my Soul – Joe Correia
There are two sides to
a trumpeter's personality. There is the one that lives only to
lay waste to the woodwinds and strings, leaving them lying blue and
lifeless along the swath of destruction that is the trumpeter's
fury. And then there's the dark side.
---Michael
Stewart (adapted from a Nike advertisement)---
We
grow up hearing that trumpeters blew down the walls of Jericho, that
Gabriel's trumpet announces the will of God, and that the largest and
hippest of all animals, the elephant, has a trunk mostly (we think)
for trumpeting. These grandiose images shape the classic trumpet
persona: brash, impetuous, cocky, cool, in command. Anyone who has
ever played in a band knows that if the conductor stops rehearsal
because a fight breaks out, if somebody takes your girlfriend, if a
tasteless practical joke is pulled, if someone challenges every
executive decision no matter how trivial, it's got to be a trumpet
player. That's just how we are.
---Sweet
Swing Blues on the Road, Wynton Marsalis 1994---
You
have to remember the trumpet is a mean instrument. Sometimes I feel
like throwing it out the window, it's such a beast. There are times
when it treats you so sweet and nice that everything comes out just
perfect.
Then you come back to it the next night, rub your
hands together and say to yourself your'e going to do it all over
again.
You pick up the horn, put it to your chops and the son
of a bitch says: SCREW YOU!!!!!
---Roy Eldridge---
In
music and art, there's this little window that we've got that the
whole planet agrees upon is a cool thing to do. It's all right
to make music.
--- Chick Corea---
to the graduating class at Berklee College of Music
Every
player, no matter how good, makes mistakes, but the very best
performers do two things: they don't tolerate them in practice
sessions, correcting the slightest mishap in an unhurried, determined
manner (also practicing with concentration and slowly enough so that
mistakes are not learned); and in performance, they react to any
error by immediately raising their level of energy and concentration,
staying loose and aggressive.
---Chris Gekker or Ray
Mase---
In a world of political,
economic and personal disintegration, music is not a luxury but a
necessity, not simply because it is therapeutic nor because it is the
"universal language," but because it is the persistent
focus of man's intelligence, aspiration and good will.
---Robert
Shaw---
The music business is a cruel and shallow
money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run
free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative
side.
---Hunter S. Thompson---
Rhythm
is not a matter of the ear or of the finger only; it is a matter of
the two fundamental powers of life, namely, knowing and
acting.
---Carl Seashore--- In
Search of Beauty in Music
Our inmost yearning, our
deep desire for harmony in an extra-musical, transcendental sense
feels affirmed, confirmed and calmed by music, and in this sense
music seems to me a message a lofty ethical message that brings good
tidings to the ethical part of our being from the mysteries of the
world of sound.
---Bruno Walter---
Music
gives us ontological messages which non-musical criticism is unable
to contradict, though it may laugh at our foolishness in minding
them.
---William James--- The
Varieties of Religious Experience
... digestion
exists for health, and health exists for life, and life exists for
the love of music or beautiful things.
---G. K.
Chesterton
After silence, that which
best expresses the inexpressible, is music.
---Aldous
Huxley---
There is nothing to it. You only have to
hit the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays
itself.
---Johann Sebastian Bach---
I
would teach the children physics, philosophy, and music; and of
these, music is the most important, for in the arts lies the
understanding of all humanities.
---Plato---
Trummet
ist ein herrlich Instrument, wenn ein guter Meister, der es wol und
knstlich zwingen und regieren kan, darber kmpt und ist gleich zu
verwundern, dass auff diesem Instrument ohne Zge in der Hhe fast alle
Tonos nacheinander auch etliche Semitonia haben, und man allerley
Melodeyen zu wege bringen kan.
---Michael Praetorius---
The
trumpet is a wonderful instrument when a good player is available who
can both control it and perform artistically, and one is immediately
surprised that on an instrument without slides, in the high register
nearly all tones are available one after the other, also a fair
number of semitones, and that one can play all sorts of
melodies.
---Michael Praetorius (translation by David
McNaughtan)---
Music is not
just the black dots on the white paper -- it's what happens when
those black dots on the white paper go into your heart, and come out
again.
---Phil Smith---
You
are what you practice.
---M. Minasian---
Release
the air, don't blow the air.
---T.
McIrvine---
Play like you are pissed off -- after all,
we aren't talking about midda' C!
---S. Englebright---
The
lips do not play the horn.
---H.L.
Clark---
If you think "song" you will play
song. If you think "kack" you will play "kack."
---S.
Kramer---
There's no need to "over"
correct certain notes and no need whatsoever to try and project your
sound.
---J. Ackley---
Use
lip buzzing after every playing session and you will be shocked at
the results.
---Clint "Pops" McGlaughlin---
The
trumpet can be the easiest instrument if you just let it.
---S.
Englebright---
You can't make it happen -- you must let
it happen.
---T. Phillips---
Hit it
hard and wish it well.
---Claude
Gordon---
Don't practice quickly and hope it gets
better; practiceexcellence and hope it gets faster.
---Frank
Campos---
Find a tempo at which you can
play a passage without a mistake.Play it perfectly 4 times in a row.
Then increase the metronome nomore than 8 beats per minute. Repeat
until you arrive at performance tempo.
---Dave
Evans---
You've got a little mud on that Cadillac. Mud
looks terrible on aCadillac. My job is to wash it off.
---Jack
Robinson---
Embouchure is only 10
percent of trumpet playing. But that 10 percent has got to be 100
percent right.
Horn in the head, horn in the hand.
---Arnold Jacobs---
Stay down as you
ascend and stay up as you descend.
---Jimmy
Stamp---
If I only played when my chops felt good it
would be about once every two weeks.
---Armando Ghitalla---
The
audience doesn't care how you feel; they came to hear you play.
---Bryan Edgett---
Always
play to the cheap seats. That's where the critics sit. Thepeople who
sit up front don't come to hear you play; they come to situp front.
---Dave Evans---
Be harder on
yourself in the practice room and be easier onyourself in
performance.
---Bryan Edgett---
On
working as a church musician: Often, the church is like Noah'sark. If
it weren't for the storm _outside_ the stench _inside_ wouldbe
unbearable!
---Chuck Colson---
Make
it sound like a dance instead of like a fist fight.
---Bryan
Edgett---
Emphasize the pick-up notes, the notes on
weak beats, and those on the weak parts of the beat. The notes on the
strong beats and onthe strong parts of the beat will sound full
because they fall instrong places.
---Bryan Edgett---
That
playing reminds me of kissing my grandmother. It's somethingI did out
of duty, perhaps out of love, but something that yielded no real
passion or joy.
---Bryan
Edgett---
That passage was played allegro slopozo.
---Joseph Primavera---
"P"
does not mean powerful.
---Bryan
Edgett---
Tuba, change beat one of bar 4 to a b-flat.
It is a b-flat.It wasn't the last time.
---Wayne Dorothy---
When
you play, make statements; don't ask questions.
---Arnold
Jacobs---
An amateur practises until he can play it
right : a professional practises until he can't get it wrong.
Todays
preperations earns tomorrows success.
Satisfaction is
the beginning of failure.
Failing to
prepare, is preparing to fail.
Losers make excuses,
winners find solutions.
Failure is not
an option, it's just a nagging possibility that helps me stay
focused.
Success in the big things comes from success
in the little things.
Long Quotes
When
I was very young, I thought of myself as a trumpet-player. Period.
I was obsessed by the trumpet. I practiced day and night. I
reached a level of playing that was as good, or maybe even better
than most of the guys in my hometown, Philadelphia. I was a
TRUMPET-PLAYER. The trumpet was the most important thing in my
life. I did not need friends. I did not need family.
I was a TRUMPET-PLAYER.
I grew
older, and found out that I could play with the best of them, I mean,
other trumpet-players. Somewhere along the way I discovered
Music. I then became obsessed with trying to make music on the
trumpet. My role models were woodwind players and singers.
I strove to make my playing as suave and sophisticated as the very
best of them. I was now a TRUMPET-PLAYING MUSICIAN.
I
had little people skills, I was always complaining about the other
guys. Why can't they play like me? Then I got married,
and still had no tolerance for my fellows. I started to see,
because of my relationship with my family, that the trumpet had to be
second to my family. What a shock! I found through some soul
searching that my whole outlook on life had changed. I was no
longer a TRUMPET-PLAYER, but I am PERSON.
---Wilmer
Wise---
Forward to Georg Rhau's Symphoniae, a
collection of chorale motets published in 1538, as follows:
I,
Doctor Martin Luther, wish all lovers of the unshackled art of music
grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ! I
truly desire that all Christians would love and regard as worthy the
lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly
treasure given to mankind by God. The riches of music are so
excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to
discuss and describe them.... In summa, next to the Word of God, the
noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls
our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits... Our dear fathers and
prophets did not desire without reason that music be always used in
the churches. Hence, we have so many songs and psalms. This precious
gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself
that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and
extolling God. However, when man's natural musical ability is whetted
and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note
with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music,
which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear
music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or
five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings
its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with
artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance,
where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace. A
person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a
marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not
deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear
nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.
The
following is a direct quote from Dodworth's Brass Band School,
published in 1853. The discussion addresses instrumentation of
small brass bands of that era comprised of instruments in the
sax-horn family, and of course the Dodworth-patented cornet.
His book includes scores of several tunes for a small brass band of
12 instruments plus drums, but makes the following statement that I
thought will get a smile even today. No additional comment
necessary.. [And, I'm not making any of this up as Dave Barry
would say.]
---Jerry Lahti---
The author would take
occasion to say here that the addition of trombones and trumpets is
more in accordance with public taste than with his own, for these
fine instruments are so constantly abused, by those who mistake noise
for music, that the appearance of one of them in a band, is an object
of very considerable annoyance. For what reason, almost all who
use these instruments think it necessary to blow them until they
crack or snarl, is difficult to understand; that it is so, will be
very generally admitted, for many players seem to imagine, that the
more snarl and crack, or less tone they produce, the greater the
effect, -- this is a most unfortunate error, and is an error that has
had a very mischievous effect upon the public mind, with regard to
brass instruments and bands, -- how unreasonable it is then to
sacrifice so many sublime effects for the mere matter of making a
noise, which appears to be the great object of many brass bands, as
if it was necessary to make up in quantity what was lacking in
quality, but noise is certainly a sorry substitute for music.
This
matter is not confined to brass bands only, the brass department of
many of our finest orchestras, conducted by the most able directors,
is used as if the only object of that portion of the orchestra was to
alarm the audience occasionally. However, it is hoped that
enough has been said to call the attention of the reader to this most
lamentable abuse of a truly noble branch of music.
Trumpet
Poetry
Ode to
Transposition
I think that I
shall never see
A marking as painful
as "Trumpet in E."
For E
requires augmented fourths,
And
leaves me frought with great remorse.
Since
D is only a major third,
A few
mistakes are all that's (sic) heard.
And
C is just a step away,
So seldom does
it lead me astray.
When searching for
transposition perfection,
B-flat is
always in the right direction.
For
mistakes are made by fools like me,
But
only God can play in E.
A Tone
Poem
by
Rick Pethoud
Fuzzy Wuzzy is my sound,
Crass
and strident like my hound.
No definition, my tone have I,
No
clarity; it makes me cry.
And pitch eludes me with
indignation,
But then, who cares 'bout intonation.
My high
notes squeak.
My low notes chatter.
My midrange sucks!
God,
what's the matter?!
But despite my woes I continue to play
In
hopes that my faults will leave me some day.
But until my troubles
have gone off to rest,
I'll keep up my playing
and yes, do my
best
TRUMPET VOODOO
My
tone is so bad, I'm so forlorn
I need
something new to stick on my horn;
whatever
works is a big temptation,
maybe what
I need is an incantation...
Bubble,
bubble, toil and trouble..
Bring me a
high-C and make it double.
Powdered
bat-wing, eye of newt...
all I want
to do is toot!
Some heavy valve
caps, or new valve oil,
(do I freeze
my horn or make it boil?)
A new
mouthpiece or two for sure,
I'll
scrape off the lacquer to find a cure.
Automatic
spit valves would be cutest;
I just
wanna be a real good TOOTIST!
A coil
in my tubes? Now that's the ticket,
but
I'm running out of room or places to stick it.
If
trumpet voodoo is what it takes
I'll
see what difference this stuff all makes.
With
a new grime gutter and a mute or two
I'll
circular-breathe till my face turns blue.
But
it just doesn't work, 'cause I still sound bad,
and
I think that maybe I've been had,
so
I'll send it all back, even tho it was fun,
and
get out old Arbans, and start on page one...
TRUMPET
Remember
this about the TRUMPET
You either
have to like or lump it,
Some want it
sweet, some want it martial
But no
one ever is impartial.
In old times,
at a trumpet call
A regiment would
scale a wall,
But now the army,
getting frugal,
Just wakes them with
a blatant bugle.
To sound it tinny
and acute
You stuff it with a pointed
mute-
(with dance bands derby hats
are normal
But symphonies are more
informal.)
Some trumpeters assert
it's best
To play it close against
the chest
But even they are due to
jump
When Angel Gabriel plays his
trump.
---Laurence
McKinney---
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