Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 16:29:50 -0500
From: Bryan Edgett <bedgett@safeplace.net>
Subject: [TPIN] Pedagogical Sayings - was Valve caps

Okay, I'll bite. Here are a few I use. I've included references of origin in most cases. In no particular order:

1) Don't practice quickly and hope it gets better; practice excellence and hope it gets faster. (Frank Campos)

2) 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 no more than 8 beats per minute. Repeat until you arrive at performance tempo. (Dave Evans)

3) You've got a little mud on that Cadillac. Mud looks terrible on a Cadillac. My job is to wash it off. (Jack Robinson)

4) Embouchure is only 10 percent of trumpet playing. But that 10 percent has got to be 100 percent right. (I don't know who invented this.)

5) Playing as inefficiently as you are now is relegating you to being a one-legged man in an butt-kicking contest. (My adaptation)

6) Horn in the head, horn in the hand. (Arnold Jacobs)

7) Stay down as you ascend and stay up as you descend. (Jimmy Stamp)

8) Get the ring in your sound on every note. (Mine)

9) If I only played when my chops felt good it would be about once every two weeks. (Armando Ghitalla)

10) The audience doesn't care how you feel; they came to hear you play. (Mine)

11) Always play to the cheap seats. That's where the critics sit. The people who sit up front don't come to hear you play; they come to sit up front. (Dave Evans)

12) Be harder on yourself in the practice room and be easier on yourself in performance. (Mine)

13) On working as a church musician: Often, the church is like Noah's ark. If it weren't for the storm _outside_ the stench _inside_ would be unbearable! (Chuck Colson)

14) Make it sound like a dance instead of like a fist fight. (Mine)

15) 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 on the strong parts of the beat will sound full because they fall in strong places. (Mine)

16) That playing reminds me of kissing my grandmother. It's something I did out of duty, perhaps out of love, but something that yielded no real passion or joy. (Mine)

17) That passage was played allegro slopozo. (Joseph Primavera)

18) The Volkswagen is going as fast as the squirrels can run. Give the squirrels a break.

19) "P" does not mean powerful. (Mine)

20) Tuba, change beat one of bar 4 to a b-flat. It is a b-flat. It wasn't the last time. (Wayne Dorothy)

21) When you play, make statements; don't ask questions. (Arnold Jacobs)

Cordially,

Bryan Edgett

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