We have to have a closer look to these warm-ups & their abuse. Also in Europe, we had & still have similar things than the Farkas warm-ups: The old fashion Josef Schantl method. It was abused the same way as is Farkas. Teachers & students as well thought that all exercises have to be followed point to point. If the exercise is going up to c3, the student has to play up to the c3. WRONG ! Double WRONG ! Why ? The student has not even improved the g2. So what to do ? Improve the (reduced) average range first and improve it again, not by the same exercises, but by equally cut exercises. The next exercises go higher for a half step. Until this next step is not improved & double improved, no further next step, means, the cuts remain the same: nothing higher than g2 or g#2. And the same is for the lower notes: step by step also. Quality before quantity, read: quality before range extension. PUNCTUM !!!
So no wonder, why your teacher & you did not make any progress regarding upper range extension. You cannot force that, except ruining everyday what you gained the other day. This is false ambition, false ambition. Everything must be acquired step by step not by jumping two steps perhaps. And what is so beautiful with the high range ? The whistling tone quality ? All seem to run for the high notes for their own satisfaction. Isn´t music a reproducing art & a mere service to the creators of the master pieces ? Not only for the professionals, but also for the vast mass of amateurs. Isn´t it a great satisfaction to take part on this reproduction to the joy of others, to the entertainment of other - no matter on what position ? Dont we need threetimes the number of tutti players than the first players ? (Except the two horn or eight horn pieces, few six horn pieces, some few three, five or seven horn pieces, rarely one horn alone - just to be correct). But there are many amateurs using playing music as some kind of self entertainment to sprinkle incense each other ...... The Smiley method might be found useful by some players, but it is not the only medicine. There are more than a single street leading to Rome ! - And, sorry Valerie, we professionals might know more books on horn playing than you even can imagine. Most of them you have never heard about. - Besides two players a hundred miles away from my area of seven professional full time orchestras in one city (three of them in the rank of the best paid & biggest in Germany) with 39 full time professional horn players, I have not seen any one using this Smiley method book. With the Smiley book it is the same with many others: one has to read them (best under the guideline of a rare objectively judging teacher) & work them NOT from top to bottom, but taking out the ESSENCE of it, the useful essence. If so, there will be a solution for most problems. But if one is not gifted for an instrument, if the person is physically not conditioned for a particular instrument, if the nervous constitution does not match the requirements for a particular instrument, all books cannot help, special if read alone without a guiding teacher. And remember: it is not you who judges your playing, but your audience. ============================================================ ================================================ -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Valerie WELLS Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 6:35 PM To: horn@music.memphis.edu Subject: [Hornlist] RE: Student quits ... blames horn teacher Good point, Matthew. But, I don't blame the horn teachers for MY decision to quit. I found other things I'd rather do than continue to blast my brains out & work my fanny off hours a day making absolutely NO gains in range for 2 1/2 years. That was so frustrating, that even NURSING seemed more appealing to a 19 year old college sophomore! ha ha ha! Now that I'm done with nursing & have found a humble trumpet teacher who has shown me HOW to increase my range, I'm enjoying playing the horn again! I'm now my blasting my brains out & working my fanny off for hours a day and actually getting somewhere doing it! It's so fun, now, I feel like a high school kid again. Life is grand! :o) (Please pardon me if my euphoria is a bit overbearing!) So you see, I don't blame my horn instructors for my decision to quit. I only blame them for not knowing how to pull myself out of the mire of limited RANGE LIMBO! Thanks, again, Matthew for giving me yet another opportunity to express my satisfaction with Jeff Smiley's balanced embouchure program. Valerie _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/hans%40pizka. de _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
