Category Archives: Trumpet Lessons
Reharmonizing and Arranging a Song for a Student: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
Vander has been studying trumpet with me for a few years now, and due to his family’s busy schedule, had accumulated a lot makeup time. To try and help him recover some of that lost time, I came up with the idea … Continue reading
Some Trumpet Practicing Guidelines From Another Discipline
Alex (one of my high school students who has been mentioned in this blog before), recently had to miss his weekly lesson in order to attend a summer camp. This particular one was held by the Civilian Marksmanship Program, and … Continue reading
Mapping Out a New Jazz Tune
What kinds of things do you do to learn a new jazz tune? Of course we learn the melody, but if you are planning to improvise on the tune and it’s chord changes, your work has only just begun. I … Continue reading
Rhythmic Scales
Jazz is one of the many languages of the musical world, and those who wish to speak it in a spontaneous way must be familiar with its vocabulary and grammar. Complete command of all the scales and chords that are the … Continue reading
Pedal Tones- A Foundation for Correct Trumpet Playing or a Waste of Time?
Years ago when I was in college, many of the school’s trumpet players began to follow the Claude Gordon Method, which started with a series of long tones chromatically descending into the pedal register of the instrument (named after the … Continue reading
2013-2014 Colorado All State Band and All State Jazz Band Auditions
All of the information for the 2013-2014 Colorado All State Band and All State Jazz Band is now available on line. Here in one place are all the links for trumpet and jazz piano players (and more), along with some supporting … Continue reading
Avoiding the Dark Side of Success
The world constantly presents us with challenges. Sometimes we find their solutions quite readily, or we may struggle with a problem for years. And other times we might just give up, or even ignore the dilemma altogether. Finding a successful … Continue reading