Teaching Brass
An interview with Kristian Steenstrup
About Teaching
Brass, Vincent Cichowicz says:
Kristian
Steenstrup's Teaching Brass is a most
comprehensive and detailed treatise on the pedagogical requirements
associated with sound principles of performance on a brass instrument.
His treatment of the laws of physics, physiology and psychology
provides a wonderful guide to the interrelationship of these
disciplines in performance practice. His research and documentation are
impressive and I believe this volume to be a worthy addition to this
field of study
We
had a short "cyber-talk" with Kristian:
Before we start talking about
the book, could you tell us a bit about your background as a trumpeter
and teacher?
I grew up in
Holstebro in the western part of Denmark. Nobody played anything in my
family, but in the 4th grade my school offered everybody to get music
lessons for a year. I wanted to play clarinet because I thought it was
a saxophone, but my teacher thought I should play the trumpet, because
I was the one who made most noise in my class. I quickly fell in love
with the trumpet and pretty soon I played in the local marching band. I
entered the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus when I was 19. I was very
fortunate to experience Vincent Cichowicz doing a masterclass there and
I just knew intuitively that I had to study with him eventually. Three
years later I travelled to Chicago where I studied for 2 years. After a
while there a friend recommended me to take lessons with Arnold Jacobs.
His teaching went very well along with Cichowicz' teaching, so I had a
fine combination going on. Earlier I knew about Alexander-technique, so
it was natural for me to take lessons with John Henes who not only is a
fine Alexander-technique teacher but also an excellent trumpet player
and a former student of Jacobs and Cichowicz. Every week I went to hear
the Chicago Symphony play and I learned so much from listening to
Adolph Herseth who I also had a couple of lessons with. So fortunate I
was to be around these great teachers!
How
did this book project start?
During
the last 10 years where I have been teaching and giving clinics
extensively, many have asked me to write something about this since
there is a lack of literature on the subject.
First I was just very curious myself about efficiency of playing and
the complexity of the human body and the mind's control of it, so I
listened to hundreds of hours of tapes of master classes and lessons
with Arnold Jacobs. I made notes and even transcriptions of these
master classes, and I thought there was so much valid information to
pass on. At the same time this opened the door to a lot of other areas
that would be interesting to explore, so I started to do a lot of
reading in related areas. At one point I travelled to Chicago to go
through Arnold Jacobs' library to see what literature he went through
to get his knowledge. Then I got some time as part of my position at
The Royal Academy of Music to write a book and the project could start.
The book turned out to be very different from what I expected, because
once you get into science it is not so easy to postulate things, you
have to back up with facts. Then you start to realise some of the
complexities involved and every time you open the door to one subject,
other doors open to other subjects, so my book really started to expand
into different areas. During the process I started to get some of the
answers I had been pursuing for many years, so it was really an
interesting project.
In
the introduction you mention Arnold Jacobs educational concept "Song
and Wind". Could you elaborate on that?
Jacobs
used this phrase to simplify what is necessary for a brass player to
think about in his or her performance. When the brass player "sings" in
the head, that means when the brain is involved in mentalizing the
music or conceiving the music simultaneously with the actual playing,
this thinking will be the stimulus that results in the reflex-response
in the musculature of the lips and tongue. So much teaching is involved
in trying to control these separate elements of the entire complex
where Jacobs believed that the intelligent level of the brain should be
involved in the musical programming and that what he called the
computer level of the brain would act out the organisation of the
musculature involved. This is so close to what a singer does. The brain
of the singer is organizing the different degrees of tension in the
vocal cords based on what he conceives musically. The brass player is
just sending the nerve signals to his lips through the facial nerve
instead of sending it to the vocal cords through the laryngeal nerve,
but the thinking is very similar.
So the training of the musicianship, the song, of the individual is
very important, because this is what tells the lips what to do. A brass
player occupied with trying to have the "correct embouchure" and
feeling it usually does not have much consciousness left to think
musically and then a seemingly fine embouchure does not receive the
information about the subtle differences in the degree of tension for
each note.
"Wind" refers to
the wind player's programming of the
respiratory system. When the wind player is trying to control muscles
in performing the task that will supply the embouchure with the
appropriate aerodynamic conditions, it can be hard to differentiate
between the different muscle groups involved. Some of the muscles are
inspiratory and some are expiratory. If we try
to control the muscles directly we might just trigger some of the other
tasks
that the respiratory muscles also participate in, for instance
childbirth,
defecation or hardening of the abdominal wall for protection of the
internal
organs etc.The sensory feedback
from that
area of the body is very limited, so the conscious control of it is
also very limited. When the windplayer orders the
blowing of wind at the embouchure or the reed by thinking of blowing
outside the body, the brain organizes the different muscle groups in
performing this action and is not confused into doing other
tasks.
In
some of the recent brass method books I have seen, you can find advices
like: "Hold
a pole about 1 1/2 m long (about 5') jammed between a wall and the
so-called support." Why
is it, that so many brass educators still are so uninformed about
breathing?
A lot of prominent
players and teachers have recommended procedures like the one
mentioned, and it is very hard to argue with a master performer's
authority. For a long time almost everybody in for instance Denmark
would believe in such a practice. When I came home from Chicago in 1990
this conviction was more normal than not, so it is not even many years
ago.
If we study singing techniques we can see that the "tight-gut" method
has been taught in especially the old German school of singing and
probably this belief has flourished in this part of the world and has
got into wind teaching, maybe because of lack of literature and
research specifically for wind players.
As mentioned before, it can be hard to know what is going on down there
while playing, because of the superficial sensory feedback from that
area, and the good trumpet player may feel some tension in the
abdominal region playing fortissimo in the high register using the
abdominal muscles. He might mistakenly associate this feeling with
pushing down the diaphragm at the same time, so the abdominal muscles
and the diaphragm are cancelling out each other's actions and just
participating in hardening the abdominal wall and not moving out any
air. Then he
might teach this as being the power for playing and this is in
accordance with tradition. But
it is interesting to see how these beliefs are challenged and
eventually
evolution will show what strategies of using the respiratory system
survive.
John Henes recommend your book "for every wind player".
What in the book would be of specific
interest to a woodwind player?
The dominant part of
the book is about
the respiratory aspects of playing wind instruments, and this does not
distinguish between the different groups. The human physiology
functions
equally on all instruments, the aerodynamic demands are just very
different
between for instance a flute and an oboe or between a trumpet and a
tuba.
Finally,
where can people get the book?
o.j. 2004