Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Know any good D's?


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Posted by K on October 27, 2003 at 15:35:37:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Know any good D's? posted by Mary Ann on October 27, 2003 at 14:19:18:

We don't disagree on the importance of understanding the relations between horizontal and vertical pitches.

When I taught brasses I always made duet playing with the student an important element: playing roots and thirds, sometimes improvising over the long notes played by young students. Good teachers can do that without having their part written out.

But at home the students most often practise alone, so one has to direct the students' attention towards the pitch problems most often found in their instruments.

The goal should be, that they can play in all keys with a good intonation. The "mediant" will be a good command of the equally tempered scales with some flexibility upwards and downwards to a adapt to vertical situation in real music making. No easy goal, but a necessary one.

One pitch topic, which is hard to explain vertically, is the one of leading notes. Brass players should master those as well as string players do. Including the match in sound, which implies, that leading notes and tonicas are played on the same partial. Most trombone players are good at that, so players with valves could be equally good.

Any teaching should be based on a full understanding of our diatonic system and should strive to teach all students the same understanding.

Amateur brass playing will have no great future, if the goals of the initial teaching is to have the students learning just the fingerings needed "to play in the local community band".

Students coming from other instruments, especially the piano, can make very fast progresses on brass instruments, because they start out with a good understanding of the whole diatonic system.

Some conductors may be good at solving problems for the less educated brass players, because these conductors have a bunch of tricks in their bags.

However they will have to start from scratch with every new problem, because their players have no understanding of the fundamentals and cannot handle these

The level of playing among upscale students has been on a constant rise over many decades.

If brass instruments shall stay interesting as amateur instruments, then the existing amateurs will have to take a serious attitude their own musicianship.

In very different parts of the world the amateur bands are greying at a high speed. Which youngster would want to invest his/hers dedication into a medium, which will not sound good, no matter how much they practice themselves.

What I have written here could be interpreted as a dismissal of "new horizon"-type bands. It is not so. Such bands work on their own terms and have a great social function.

And dear Ma!

Sorry that my reply to you came out as a compilation of my thoughts on this thread as a whole. But it was your posting, which made me enter the keyboard.

Klaus


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