According to your very elaborated reply, I would say, that you could combine your great love for the horn with absolute pressure free playing & much reduced practice time (up to 96%), if you change your teacher still during this vacation time. It might be very wise of you, to attend the few conductor lessons to use your obvious great musical & analytic talents for a future career as conductor or so called "pest to the horn players".
Sorry, I have to oversleep your letter paragraph by paragraph, before I answer in details, may-be oversleep it twice first, which means you could wait for some 48 hours, please. Have to rush to the dress rehearsal of "Rodelinda, Queen of the Langobards", with its extensive horn parts (2 descant horns). ======================================================================= -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Im Auftrag von kerri c davies Gesendet: Donnerstag, 26. Juni 2003 14:11 An: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Betreff: [Hornlist] Hans Pizka's mouthpiece pressure questions answered Dear Hans Pizka: Thank you for your reply. I am in the middle of a horn teacher transition right now, and will be teacherless until the fall school semester starts in August, my first year of college. I am sorry it took so long for me to reply. Here I will try to assess your questions and comments to the best of my ability. 1. I figured that five hours of practice would be a good idea so I would be prepared for any possible competition with other horn players for chairs and positions in college. I also thought more practice would only do good, not harm. I thought that if I worked this hard, then I would one day I would find myself playing at the professional level, because three hours of practice a day was not good enough. I thought the only way to get stronger would be just to jump right off into it, in an immersion/osmosis kind of learning process. If I never do it, I'll never gain strength in time to meet college's musical (and the professional playing world's) demands. 2. When I tire out to that point, I can't play an a1. 3. I thought that once you have gained the strength to play 20 second long tones, you should make it harder to hold them out so you'll get stronger. So I did. Because I don't have the range I used to when I am playing pressureless, I decided to make up for that lack by making them longer. If I cut down long tones by one octave because I can't play the extra upper octave, which is about fourteen tones, I multiplied that by the twenty seconds, that means that I cut down on my playing time in the long tones (not including the measure in between tones rest) by 480 seconds, if my math is correct. I just tried to make up for some of that lost time. 4. Most beginners resort to pressure at that point unless they are taking lessons with an anal retentive teacher, don't you think? Obviously I got away with it seven years ago. I didn't even get the privilege of private lessons until about two years ago. I can play this note, but it's the last note of these long tones in Number 3 I was telling you about. At this time, partials start dropping in the middle of this note and I can't pick them back up, so it is the last note of my long tones. 5. I start the slur on the c below the staff, then to the F at the bottom of the staff then back down to the c below the staff, them from there I slur to a1 then to the F at the bottom of the staff, then from the F to the c1 then back down to the a1, then from the a1 to the F at the top of the staff, then from c1 back to the F at the top of the staff, then I climb back down with the whole process backwards. There's a name for the slur- I think it's called the Romington Slur, but I am not sure if this is spelled right. Check with my horn teacher, (former, I guess) Chris Bonner, he'll tell you the correct name. 6. Before, I ignored pressure altogether and never seemed to have a problem with normal notes. I just needed to use excess pressure to get to the a2 and above. I still do. But I am also having difficulty trying to figure out how much pressure is okay, because I always have an obvious ring, and Farkas said that this is bad. He said it was one of the most serious faults a horn player could have, and I wanted to fix it right now so I wouldn't have to deal with the issue when school starts. By "burning in hell", I mean I sound better with pressure than without, in my opinion. My playing is fuzzy and buzzy when I try to play pressureless, but everything else leaves an imprinted ring. When I put the horn on the shelf for pressureless open lip slurs, everything above a g1 comes out as a mouthpiecy sounding buzz, and no partials, just my lip. The c1 sounds like just a mouthpiece, not a horn tone. I don't understand. 7. Starting all over sound awfully painful, it's like what I experienced when I mailed in the message. I told you it was like being a beginner all over again. But I would end up losing my scholarship to the college I am going to and disappoint my college band director. Six weeks is a lot. I love to play my horn, and I'd be really sad to not play it for that long. I did have fun playing until this pressure issue stood in my way, but I want to make a living from this one day. Not an extravagant one, of course. I'll take whatever I can get. To reduce air pressure, perhaps a larger bore horn will help with back pressure, which will help reduce mouthpiece pressure? I have never heard of this either, but I don't question your knowledge. I always thought more air support was good, but perhaps less air pressure will reduce the buzzy fuzziness of my reduced pressure tone, so no air will escape the corners. 8. Physical abilities?... What does this have to do with horn playing? I don't know how to describe how strong my face is to you, other than what I have already given you, Professor Pizka. It's the only face I've ever had, so I have nothing to compare it to. I've never had this awakening before, that I've perhaps cheated my way through playing the horn. I was told by my former teacher not to do anything unassisted, my teacher next year will accompany me in fixing embouchure issues. But I would be glad to hear your advice, Professor Pizka. Thank you, Brittany Davies _______________________________________________ post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] set your options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/hans.pizka%40t-online.de _______________________________________________ post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] set your options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
