| O.J.'s Trumpet Page | Artists and personalities |
Background
Hans Gansch was born in 1953 in Kirnberg an der Mank,
Austria. At the age of seven, he received his first music instruction
from his father Johann Gansch (on the recorder and the small drum).
When he was 11, he started playing trumpet in a band lead by his
father. He studied trumpet with Professor Franz Veigl at the Anton
Bruckner University in Linz.
From 1974 to 1976 he held the position as principal trumpeter with the
Brucknerorchester Linz and from 1976 to 1982 he held the same position
in the Symphony Orchestra of the Austrian Broadcast. From 1982 to 1996
he was first trumpeter in the Orchestra of the Viennese State Opera and
with the Vienna Philharmonic. Since 1996, Hans Gansch has been trumpet
professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
How to play trumpet
At a masterclass in Oslo, March 2007, Gansch talked about his teaching
philosophy.
How to play trumpet is a subjective thing. “I sometimes change my mind about this.”
Some very few lucky ones have no problem playing (they have musical
talent, good teeth and lips). The great majority of players have to
find out how it works for them - they are not so called naturals.
“I had talent for music, but I have
problems with my uneven lower teeth”. To compensate for this, he
said that as a young player he developed a false embouchure (put his
lower lip behind his upper lip to get high notes). Since that time he
has been working for almost 40 years to get rid of this bad habit.
The
idea is to align the upper and lower teeth and strengthen the lower lip
and cheek muscles to resist pressure from the mouthpiece. This will let
the upper lip be free to vibrate. He demonstrated the different role of
the lips by doing a lip buzz and then putting his finger on the lips.
When he put it on the lower lip, the buzz was a bit disturbed, but it
continued to sound. When the finger hit the upper lip, the sound
stopped immediately.
Pre warm up
First do some strong breathing to get rid of old air. To get ready for
playing it is usually smart to do some simple relaxing and focusing
exercises away from the instrument. Sit in a comfortable and relaxed
position and take in air through the nose. Let it slowly out through
the mouth with an open feeling. Repeat and try to let the air out even
slower.
To get the whole body more relaxed but focused, you can then do some
yoga type exercises where you feel different part of your body. Feel
the right thumb – is it getting warmer? Then, feel the left thumb, feel
the right toe, feel
the left toe, etc, etc.
Warming up
The warm up starts with some loose flapping with the lips to get the
blood flowing. Then he starts with a “favourite tone” in the middle
register. He only plays this tone until it is clean. First he
concentrate on the start of the tone – try to hit “the bulls eye” (the
centre of the pitch). When that is ok, he goes to the “middle” of the
tone – try to get it to flow as free as possible.
When this tone is good, keep it in the head and go to other tones. It
is important to be patient and not rush on in a warm up. By working on
just one tone, you establish a very good foundation for all the
playing. A problem for many trumpeters is that the practice is full of
mistakes. Stop doing that!
Next step is short tones. Same procedure here, work until one is clean,
then go to other tones.
About trumpet playing
Sometimes we need to put trumpet playing into perspective. Gansch
mentioned a few points to think about:
Masterclass
Hansc
Gansc talking to two great young talents, Audun and Lasse
Photo:
Jørn Simenstad
In
the masterclass, Hans Gansch returned many times to the points he made
about the playing basics. Very often he asked the students to avoid
doing too much movements when playing jumps, etc. :
By thinking like that, the player will
develop a more economic use of the embouchure.
Solo recordings: