A hearty agreement regarding the Poper Guide. BIM and Balquihidder should get their acts together and publish them combined.

I spent an hour a week with Jimmy Stamp for a couple of years in the early 70's, before the Warm-Ups were published. After returning to the trumpet last year I purchased both the Stamp and Poper books (both pointed out to me from this list); even though Stamp had taught me many of the now published warm ups, I would have been lost without Poper. The BIM edition just does not include enough direction to guide one to what Stamp was intending, and 27 years since my last hour with Stamp meant a lot of the details were forgotten. Stamp was a master teacher, and Roy Poper did an excellent job of putting down on paper what Stamp used to communicate in person.

A typical hour lesson (for a semi-talented high schooler like me) was usually 10 to 20 minutes (sometimes longer) doing warm ups (lip buzzing, mouthpiece buzzing, simple scale figures to the more complicated sequences). The "actual" lesson was what you might expect; Arbans, Clarke, Schlossberg, Charlier,..., along with whatever in the solo repertoire I was ready for. Just good (well, sometimes good) trumpet playing. Warm up was just that. Getting ready to play. The warm up was as precise as possible but not musical. The rest of the lesson (or practice) was intended to be both. Doug Sheaffer's observation separating warm-up and practice is on the money.

I doubt Stamp ever intended his "method" to be the major focus of an entire session. I never even got the impression there was a Stamp Method. It was just the way Jimmy helped others to play better than they did when they walked in the door.

Greg Goodknight
Nevada City, California