Latest / That's Not Spit, It's Condensation! / #200: Chris Martin - NY Phil Principal Trumpet's Practice System

Transcript

#200: Chris Martin - NY Phil Principal Trumpet's Practice System · That's Not Spit, It's Condensation!

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to That's Not Spit, it's condensation.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Hello and welcome to That's Not Spit, it's Condensation.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Ryan Beach, and uh this is a very cool moment for me for two reasons.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: Number one, obviously my guest as somebody who needs no introduction, but just in case you are unaware, I'm joined by Chris Martin, who is principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic, previously of Chicago and of Atlanta and Philadelphia.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: So a very, very storied career and also teaches at Juilliard.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: I worked with Chris at Northwestern way, way back in the day.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I actually haven't I wanted to make sure I said this.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: You taught me like a little trick for this end of the second movement of Shasti 10.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that that sex tuplet scale that goes up.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: You just taught me like uh an easier version of the scale that sounds a hundred percent right.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I've used it in like the five or six times that I that I've played that piece.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to tell you that all these years later.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was it's that's a I mean, among many other things that you taught me, like that tip has come weirdly, it's come in handy a lot.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, anyway.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's also special for me because it's episode 200.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: So um it's just a wild thing to think.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: We started back in 2019, and here we are, 2016, uh, 200 episodes later.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: So um I'm excited for this episode with Chris.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we're just gonna talk a lot about preparation and what it's like to do a job like his and how does he mentally wrap his head around success and achieving that success and all that type of stuff.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: So before we get started, Chris, I just want to thank you for giving me some of your time so we could chat and uh learn from you.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Ryan, I appreciate it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's great to be on It's Not Spit finally.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've listened to a lot of them.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and uh you uh you've done an amazing uh body of work already.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: 200 episodes is great.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm honored to be part of it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh yeah, that the valve trick, there's a few of those.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I was teach I was working with uh some of my students last week on um Prokofia Fifth Symphony.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in the end of Prokofia Fifth Symphony, there's another, there's a similar like kind of hard, fast scale in the first trumpet part at the end.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was also teaching them some cheater fingerings that worked pretty well too.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Those those uh those are probably some of the most useful aspects of my teaching tricks and cheats to make it easier.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, this is not the first question I was gonna ask you, but like, are these things that somebody else has passed down to you, or are you just kind of like always poking around seeing how can I make something easier and more efficient?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, sometimes, right?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I mean, everything is almost everything is passed down.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, everything that everything in my career is built on my good the great fortune I've had to meet and work with the the wonderful players and artists who've come before.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's one part of it.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I'm also always trying to tinker and figure out a better way.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm one who, and this probably this may enter into our conversation today.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm one who's always looking for um maybe an easier way, but also sometimes a harder way and some or an alternative way, so that you know, when you when you when you have a lot of concerts to play, uh, or you have one big concert in one big moment, you have two options or three options to try to make something successful.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm always kind of looking for that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think we're gonna find some common ground there because I've you know, as it you would assume, interviewing someone like you on my podcast is something I've wanted to do for a long time.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: And if I would have interviewed you two or three years ago, I think we could have had a good conversation.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: But to interview you now, I've just uh learned so much about effective preparation and I've learned so much about how to prepare for a big event like an audition or a concert or a recital.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm I'm now at a stage where I'm constantly looking to test my ideas to see are they good?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Do people agree with them?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: Where would somebody push back so I can just continue to refine?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think we're gonna find a lot of common ground on being types of people who are looking for, constantly looking for ways for more efficiency, even when it feels like, and I've got some questions about this later, but even when it feels like to other people, how could this person possibly keep getting better?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like what would that look like for them?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I know you're somebody, I assume I know you to be, I've heard you speak in ways that you're kind of constantly looking for it just to see if it's possible.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm very excited to dig in.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, to start actually the interview.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I am big in my coaching about having a goal and a picture of success.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: Andres Erickson would call it like a mental representation of what you want, all that stuff.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, to kind of frame the conversation about how you prepare and what you value, I would really enjoy hearing from you uh how you right now would define a successful performance and like what you are looking for when you are trying to prepare so that you kind of know that you've reached it, so to speak, or that you know you're in the ballpark of what you're looking for.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's that's that's a great question.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of profound, actually.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Easy and a tough place to start.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all right, sorry.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's good.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I think um the the thing I always I I I focus on myself and with with my students, but especially with myself in a in a live performance, is um does the music transcend the technique?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the number one priority.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: When when we're practicing, when we're trying new horns, trying new mouthpieces, trying a new articulation, trying a new way to breathe, we're we're trying to we're trying to master the technique to the point that uh the technique becomes invisible to to our audience, to our colleagues, maybe not to ourselves, but at least to to those outside of um of our of our ears.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when I when I think about what the best performances I've had in my career, they're the ones that it started and I felt like I was just singing from start to finish.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, of course you have to think sometimes breathe this way, set this way, set the tongue here.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, I was thinking musically and communicating musically.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of it, at the end of the performance, the feedback from colleagues from conductor from audience is such that that feeling is um is uh confirmed.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's this the short answer.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a successful performance to me is one in which even if I'm thinking technically or process driven, the audience doesn't feel that way.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out which direction because you said something a second ago that I would love to dig into.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you saying I'm mostly thinking about singing, but every once in a while I have these little cues.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm kind of interested in digging into this, but I know I might be opening up a little bit of a can of worms, so to speak.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: So can you speak a little bit to as broadly or as specifically as you want what you mean by that?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when I think about performing, my feelings about performing, I'm curious your feelings about performing, but my personal feelings as a as a human about going out on stage in front of 2,500 people and uh uh blowing through a tube, as my wife affectionately calls it.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um which is which is uh the whole thing is kind of crazy if you really think about it too much.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's maybe best not to deep dive too much into the whole thing.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: But but when I think about my feelings, it's always excitement, it's always uh a sense of wonder, curiosity, what's gonna happen, how's this gonna be?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also also always a little bit, a little bit of nerves, a little bit of um even fear sometimes.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And to be honest with you, I don't really, I don't know a colleague uh of mine who doesn't have some combination of all those things.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think when I was a student, I used to imagine, well, one day I'll be a professional and it'll just be fun and easy all the time.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I won't feel nervous, I won't feel as nearly as anxious, and that's just not the case.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have I've been doing this for 26 years in orchestras, still feel it every concert, even an easy one.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have colleagues who've been doing this 35, 40 years, um, big names in the field, they're the same way.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it's not about to me, being a being a performer, having a good performance is not about only positive feelings.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there are moments in every performance that there's a bit of uncertainty that creeps in.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um my chops feel a little funny on this one.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh played a concert last night, actually, that that uh the concert order, the first time we played every piece in order was the concert.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: The conductor wanted to do uh different orders for every rehearsal.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so the so, which is always fun, right?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's always great.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure there's a good reason for it.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm sure.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: No doubt.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh moving on.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: But so the first time we played was was the first concert last night.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so it played the first piece on the second half was a modern, very small nine-person chamber piece with some really soft and really awkward, like wide licks.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like if there's like a 15th slur from a low B to a high B flat P and Smo.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for that.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and then from that into a Schumann symphony.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so there were moments last night that I, especially in the Schumann, that I thought, oh, this is a little funny, going from that piece on the piston trumpet to this piece on the rotor trumpet, you know, different mouthpiece.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there were moments that I thought, I don't know where this note is gonna be.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh it's not that you never think of those things, it's not that you never have uncertainties, it's that I practiced hopefully in such a way that when the uncertainties come, I can fall back on the techniques I've used, I've tried to find in here to give myself a little more confidence to just go for things.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And really at the end of the day, Ryan, the best performances uh that I've ever had are the ones that I just had the confidence or the stupidity to just go for it.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's sometimes it's based on, you know, that that part of it, here's what I would say, that part of it, uh, to all of the students out there, being able to go for it, that part you have to always have in you.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Even even when you're a high schooler, um, a college age, conservatory students, young per young professional trying to make it seasoned professional, you have to have a willingness to put yourself out there and really go for things, especially on a brass instrument, especially on a high brass instrument, you know, with a mouthpiece that small and uh and a throat that small and partials this close together.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we got we have we have to be brave, we have to be courageous, and sometimes we have to be a little bit dumb to really go for it out there.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean dumb, dumb, like intellectually dumb, but I mean shutting it all off, kind of single-minded, exactly.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Single-minded in our in our purpose.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: This is gonna be a very annoying question, but you hear go for it a lot.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm curious if you want to say a little bit more about what you mean, what you're thinking of, what's the picture in your head when you think of going for it?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I know it's a bit it's a bit cliche, right?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's a so nuts and bolts.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there's things I do in here um to help me find a note.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so what's if you think it if you think in your mind, like and this is to you, Ryan, but also to everybody listening, if you think in your mind, what's the number one hardest thing to do on a trumpet?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or what is the one thing on the trumpet that gives you the most trepidation, uncertainty?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's first attacks, you know, picking the horn up cold, uh, after you know, 15-minute tacit movement and playing first notes.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I do I do a lot of things like shoebrook attack practice every day, um, all dynamics, all ranges.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I do a lot of lip bending, I do a lot of um air attacks and lip attacks and attacks without the tongue.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I do a pretty big chunk of that every single day to to constantly sort of I was gonna say whittle down that that trepidation or that uncertainty, but it's more about it's more about keeping it contained.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: So like if we don't, you know, it's kind of like mowing the grass, you know.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you you know, if you mow the grass every seven days, no problem.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you leave your grass for a month, you got problems.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take a long time to get it to deal with all of the mess.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's these parts of our playing, there are lots of them, but these parts of of trumpet playing um are kind of like that.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have to we don't have to keep them all at 100% all the time, but we've got to keep them like at a 85-ish percent, 90% level.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are times for certain pieces that we know this particular element of our playing has to be at 100.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, soft high notes have to be at 100 for Moller 9 for uh, you know, uh your triple time has to be at 100 for um for um rebel for uh for Alvarada, absolutely.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so kind of so the practice room is for that, is for keeping a having a sense of where all of these techniques are and keeping them in that range that is always usable and consistent.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then once we have then once I have that, if I have that feeling, then I uh I have had a conversation with a former colleague of mine in the CSO about this.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you feel in the practice room that you have done everything you can do, then it's much easier, not easy, but easier to go out on stage and say, okay, I've done everything I can today.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, here on March the 6th, I'm gonna go on stage and do the best job I can being myself in this moment and know that if whatever happens, tomorrow I try to do a little better.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I've found that attitude to be liberating in performance because there's when do we arrive on the trumpet?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Never, yeah, never, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's no such thing as perfection.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the wonderful, beautiful things about it.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, music generally, we never arrive.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we, and I used to do this, I have to say, when I was younger, I used to think I'm I'm they need to be, I need to be perfect.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I need to never miss a note like like Herseth or like Phil Smith.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I and and the reality is you're never gonna be perfect.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Those guys were incredible, phenomenal, still are, in Phil Phil's case, but they weren't perfect, and they would tell you themselves they weren't perfect.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about perfection, it's about being, it's about uh, well, number one, and this is sort of more meta, but if you're gonna be a musician is about being a human being and being an honest one.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is like what is music?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's human communication, right?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and sort of it's one of its most universal forms.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're gonna be the best musician you can, you've gotta, for me, I'll tell to myself, I've gotta be honest that I'm just a human being and I'm not perfect.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as hard as I try to be, to as hard as I try to attain that, never gonna be.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can stop, if we can sort of cease that pressure on ourselves to be perfect, to try to be perfect, to try to appear perfect to other people, that's the big one.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and just be ourselves and and own not only our our foibles, but at the same time, the things that make our voice our own special, unique, you know.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we can talk about this a bit too.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you find your sound?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would love to, I would actually love to talk about that because it's it's in the coaching that I'm doing, I'm more and more and more feeling like I'm trying to push my clients in the direction of like there are certain quote check boxes we have to hit, and maybe we can get in a little bit to audition preparation if we want to use this as a transitionary period um through this lens.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm starting to see that one of my beliefs, I've been talking about it in terms of brand recently.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what is your brand?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: What do you what do you like?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: We have to have all of these, like we have to have good, solid fundamentals, and we got to play the right style and we got to make sure things sound easy or whatever.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: But above all of that, like what is something that somebody might think of when they think of you, if that makes sense.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: And we get to choose that in some sense if we want.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it's just what people say about us and our and and how we've developed.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: But I feel like there's some room surrounding how to understand even how to begin walking in this direction for someone who doesn't like how do you choose?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you know this is what I want versus this is what I want?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so I find this to be a I would love your thoughts on this, actually.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a great, it's I love that.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love this too.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's for me, I I'll start with me and then we'll go to others.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: But briefly, my sort of journey, my journey in finding sound started really with uh probably from the womb.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was born.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: My my dad was a band director.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he started a drum and bugle corps.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so from before the time that I could uh breathe on my own, I was hearing those sounds.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my first memories, my earliest memories, and the but the majority of them are of being on the road with drum and bugle corps.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Spirit of Atlanta was the drum and bugle corps he started.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so from the from the first, um I I remember hearing the the brilliance of those bugles, those old G-Bugles they used to play.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: In those days, it was like one valve and two valve, G-Bugles, like hardcore, you know?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and uh the sort of the the the power and the brilliance and the matching of that is the the first real memory I have of music.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um so that was sort of the foundational principle of my sound, and then I was really lucky to meet um through my father, a wonderful teacher in Atlanta where I was from, a guy named Larry Black, who I don't know if you ever crossed paths with Larry Black.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: I know of him, obviously.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's a wonderful guy, ex wonderful, excellent player.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: He um, if if many of our listeners don't probably don't know him at this point, but you may know his company leather specialties.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's was around for a long time, still going making mouthpiece pouch, leather mouthpiece pouches, leather valve guards, leather trumpet cases.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, industrious, really hardworking guy.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he he taught me not only he gave me my first experience with tinkering and trying to find solutions and find new ways, but he really helped me grow my sound.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because we we I would go to his house very often for three and four hour lessons on Saturday, and we would spend at least half of that time just listening to recordings.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, listening to recordings, then play the play the excerpt back from the recording, then listen to the recording again, and then talk about what's different, why.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, you know, so Herseth played that note a little longer there.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Herseth played a little more front in the note there, there was a little more brightness there, you know, all the things, and and trying to really tease out what are the little things he's Bud was doing, and and how is that how is that different in what I'm sounding like?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a really formative experience for me.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the same time, I think while we're listening to other players who are older than us, more uh just different than us.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, in my case, I was 16, 15, 16, uh uh, listening to players who were in their 40s, 50s, and had been playing in major orchestras for decades.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And trying to understand trying to understand not only the difference in my playing and their playing, or my sound and their sound, but um what is it about my sound that is different?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what is it about my about my sound that is personal and that I should keep and grow and develop?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, for to be specific, I always had, I really had from the beginning kind of a nice warm sound.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like even on a trumpet, I it kind of sounded like a cornet.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was lucky in that I had a teacher who encouraged me to think of in keeping that and including that in my sound going forward.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so for all of us, that's the case.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us, some of us I think are naturally inclined to make a brighter sound, some of a warmer sound.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us are more inclined to the high range, to the mid-range, to the low range.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so being as as you grow and as you spend more time developing as a player, knowing knowing what your strengths are and owning them is just as important.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just as important as wanting other things from other players.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So balancing those two together is key for me.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's interesting you describe that process of you're not just passively listening, right?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: You're actually trying to dig in, and obviously with somebody else too, who can share their thoughts on it and really challenge how deep you can go at that early stage.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: So okay, I'll just give you an example of.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Of, like, at some point, this has to change over from I'm listening to this person, or it doesn't have to, but I think for a lot of people it doesn't.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I think for people who get to your position, uh, it does change over from I am listening, and maybe there's some emulation going on to I have a certain amount of certainty in this is me, this is the way that I do it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so I would be interested in talking about that, but I'll share it through a story where I was working with a client and we were talking about he was like, Oh, well, when I'm playing this, I uh I was struggling.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then I thought to myself, well, I wonder how Phil Smith would sound on this.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, and then it was better, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, that's super cool.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then so it's it's a crude example, but I was like, but do you think like Chris Martin thinks how does Phil Smith sound on this and is deliberately trying to copy what Phil is doing?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: Or do you think maybe there's some inspiration there, but Chris eventually like takes a stab and says, This is what I think it should be?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Even if I agree, even if I want to sound like Phil, making that shift towards this is my way, I think is a super important step that needs to happen for conviction and for a commitment in your performances.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be very curious to see how you would pick that apart.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, you're I think you're already spot on.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think you would you should you should definitely keep doing the podcast thing.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I can I'll just go now.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, but no, I so I can give you personal ex personal story.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the reason, yeah, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think the reason I'm asking you is because at a certain point in time, like I just think people might look at you as like, oh, you're just like Chris Martin.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: But like at some point in time, you had to step into, I think, and I know I'm sorry to interrupt, you're about to say it, but like I'm really interested from a for if there's tangible understanding of like when if you made a decision to do this, if it was like this.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: And if that's the personal story, then I am a bad podcaster and I shouldn't have interrupted you.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: So you got one on each side now.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, I really it it it's both.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's both.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So for me and for my in my for my personal story, um the my first exposure, you mentioned Phil Smith.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: My first exposure to Phil Smith, other than in person, I should say.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: In person was at a uh a summer brass camp.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a five-day brass camp in '93, long time ago.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was an incredible thing, like amazing.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: There were only about 12 or 15 participants.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you just basically hung out with Phil all day, every day.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then he played he played a recital at one point, and then we all had to play solo piece on a recital.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: But mostly what you did is play master class.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I remember, I remember in like a in like a basement room in this school, like cinder block walls, you know, like concrete floor, you know, pretty boomy.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody, somebody playing Haneger for him, opening of Haneger and Trata for him.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they sounded good.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: They really sounded good.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then Phil said, So Phil was sort of famous for this.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: He would say, Well, uh, try uh um, let me just play for you.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then he played.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And not only could you feel the the power, the conviction, the the difference in the weight and breadth and the energy and the sound, you but I felt to change something in me.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I literally I felt physically like, oh, like watching him breathe and then watching him blow that way.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I've never done that before, but I think I can try that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that was sort of that was the beginning of my journey to becoming um a first trumpet player.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because I really, when I started, I really didn't know, I really didn't know or really honestly even really think I could be a first trumpet player.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I was I was like a I was a pretty player, nice and and sort of I fit in really well in a section, and I enjoyed playing brass quintets and I enjoyed like playing solo pieces.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: I loved the orchestra, but I didn't know.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was the that was the moment I will never forget it in July of '93 that I and I went, I left that class and I went to the to practice and I started doing it.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I my sound changed inordinately, like a hundred percent difference in that, just in that week, really, and in that summer.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I remember people commenting, like, what happened to you?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really just from it was just from watching him and and experiencing it in the same space.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had, you know, I I I've had the same similar experience with my students.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I I this is a another story to come back around.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: So last last week I was in a lesson with one of uh the grad students at at school, and we were talking about I think pictures opening, and we're talking about the way that different players might play this.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I was trying to, I've showed um so the the way Herseth might do something, where you have like a very crystal clear attack.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I couldn't do it exactly like him, but I tried my best.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Really clear crystal clear attack and like pinpoint, you know, accuracy.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, and I think the way Phil Smith would play this is a bit longer line, a bit more sustained, a little bit less in the front of the note, but really connected.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And my student looked at me and said, like, just when you just like when you say that and then try to play it, you sound different.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh so even now, like I have my default way of doing things that's kind of built on their ways.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if I try really, really hard to mimic them, it's not perfect, of course, and I'm not suggesting that it is, but it but my sound, I can change my sound just based on really strong ideas.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think to to everybody listening today, trying hard to do that, trying really hard to change your sound, to change your style, to really match a model is uh is like is I one of the best things you can do to grow your sound.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you know, there's that old, like there's the old cliche, like, you know, in order, you know, in order to know your home, you have to go away for a while.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's that's absolutely true in in music.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think I I spent a lot of time as a student playing in big bands.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: I played lead in all the big bands at at uh Eastman, all four of them, um, through my time there.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm no Maynard Ferguson, believe me, but I was able to do it.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to find a way to do it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was never gonna be like the the the high note king, but I was like, I was able to do it.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Charlie Charlie Geyer, my former teacher, he yeah, our former teacher, he said that.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: He said, he said, you know, I heard you play in the in the band, big band last week, and like you're definitely no Maynard Ferguson, but you got it done somehow.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, thanks.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's high praise.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, um that was another experience that that helped me grow and helped me push out of our comfort push out of my comfort zone and find a way to make a brighter sound, a more leading sound.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that was another thing that helped help me kind of arrive at this place I am now.
• 29:04
  unknown: Yeah.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, it's it's great.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, if I were, I mean, I'm not this won't be a pushback, maybe it's a follow-up, but at some point in time, how do we not get lost in trying to emulate other people?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's a good question.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: How do you come to like when you decide, how do you come to when I'm gonna play pictures in the New York Philharmonic or in an audition, I have to have a way of doing it?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you uh have a uh a way of defining what that is that you've made your choice of what you want?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think I think we have to I think we have to we experiment.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were talking about in the beginning of our conversation, we were talking about tinkering and trying to find new ways and new solutions.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's really no different here.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, my my way of playing, I I I sound like me because of, you know, because of certain physical attributes, the way I'm built here, the way I'm built here, just like you do, just like we all have our own physical attributes that contribute to the way we sound.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing, there's no instrument more personal than a brass instrument.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um doesn't mean it's better.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's better, but right.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: But there's not there's not there's no way of playing music that is like literally as personal as a brass instrument.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: The sound comes from inside of us.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter how many, no matter how many lessons we ever take or teach, there's no way to know exactly what's going on at every step of the way.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: We know we know fundamentals, we we know principles that apply generally, but there's no way to know with absolute certainty every single thing going on.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so we do we so much of what we do is by feel, by instinct, and by desire, really intellectual desire, emotional desire.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, speaking of that, I was listening to I listened to a clip of um uh Esteban play in the opening of Moller Seven Last Movement uh the other day.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, talk about like desire.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like that there's no better example of like just like absolute passion to play something to make this this moment happen.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's great.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure most of you have seen it, but if you don't go find it, it's awesome.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so but I think that we have to you say I mean I mean it's cliche to say we'd have to make a choice, but if if we've tried all the things, if we've tried as many, as many ideas as we can think of, as many, if we followed at least two or three different examples of a way to play something, then we have to sit, we sit with it, right?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: We sit with it and say, what feels right to me.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um like if I tried to play everything, every single big excerpt the way Phil Smith did, I mean, I'd probably end up with a hernia.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Surgery.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to, so you know, I gotta, we our our own sort of our own um our own self, our our own sort of emotional, uh intellectual connection to music, to the trumpet, the sound that we make personally, that eventually, that that not eventually, that that is an equal component to to our desire.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so somewhere in the middle there, we sit with it and we find the place that feels right.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: So at the end to answer your question, you know, it it's we have to do what feels right.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes what feels right is just what feels natural and safe.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes what feels right is not that.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes what feels right and what is right is to take a big chance, is to take take a bigger breath.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or or sometimes, um, you know, for example, like the like the famous, you know, occ Octaf C lick in Zarathustra.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, sometimes take taking a risk means taking no breath or small breath to play that lick.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of for for that one, for example, we get in trouble sometimes if we overbreat, you know.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, you know, you ever always think about this, like especially if we're talking about high range uh and strength, you know, any if you're talking about playing a high C, yeah, gotta get you gotta get the high C out.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like ever, like look at the throat of your mouthpiece, even if you have like a 22 throat, pretty small still.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not a lot of air can go through that thing.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so in that particular case, sometimes it can feel it can feel wrong or scary to not take a very big breath to play something fortissimo, but that's the right way to go.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just one small example of of this way of kind of experimenting to think outside the box to then know in the moment what feels right.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and one of the I appreciate that sort of unpacking that.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and I think one of the reasons I'm very interested in it is especially through the audition lens, I just have this belief that the people who have sort of chosen something are the people that can be plus all of the can I play the trumpet really well and can I play with good time and good pitch?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: But the people who have chosen uh are people that are more attractive.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: Even, I mean, again, like committees will have their preferences, and that's for the committee to decide.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: But on our side of it, the auditioning side of it, people who have chosen can be just come across with more conviction and there's a certain level of confidence that can come with this is what I've chosen to do.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: I would be, I mean, I would be interested in the committees you've sat on, and I know at this exact time, so say as much as you feel you can say, because there's some auditions happening.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: But when you're on a panel or or just in general about auditions, do you find that to be true?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: Or or what things do you feel like help separate other players, or what has separated you and the auditions you've taken?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just kind of curious for some general thoughts and we can dig in uh to specifics later.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is a timely conversation.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is here, you know, um audition season for for music schools and conservatories is wrapping up this week.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this this month I'm sitting on about 80 hours of audition committees between between the philharmonic and school, which is uh yeah, it's great.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a lot, but I'm I'm like I need some practice time here.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: But but it's really been it's been very instructive, actually.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so let's begin at the end.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like we say this a lot, and and I want to be careful, and you you call me out because I I don't I don't I don't want to say things that just sound like cliches or aphorisms or easy answers.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the the fact is that on every committee I've been on that's been successful, i.e.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: somebody got a got a job or got a position in a studio or whatever, they had a way of playing that was their own, that was true, that was truly their voice.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the more important than anything else, more important than pitch and rhythm and uh and uh technique uh and dynamics, more important than all that is the voice.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've heard this from from colleague after colleague after colleague, committee after committee.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: The the person that wins a gig, and it's let's be clear, it's really hard to win an audition.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Any audition, anywhere at this point.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: The level is so high.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's almost never the person that never missed a note.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's rarely, it's never in fact, in my, I can think of one audition, one round, uh one person's round of one audition where they didn't miss a note and they they didn't get the job necessarily in the end, but they advanced.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that, it's not the missing a note.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to miss notes, sure, of course.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's not that.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the voice, it's the telling a story.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody telling a story.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: How do you tell a story with pictures at an exhibition?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like everybody knows it, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it it it's all these things.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's you know, going back to this idea of the the work you do in here, and the this the the the questioning you do in the practice room, the questioning you do walking down the street, driving, driving your car, the the asking yourself in your playing, the asking yourself in your mind, do what do I want to sound like?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want to how much do I want to sound like?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: How much do I want to sound like Esteban?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: How much do I want to sound like Putin?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: How much do I want to sound like me?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: The more you ask that question, the more I promise, I promise I've seen it in me and I've seen it in students.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: The more you ask that question, not only not only are you guaranteed to find an answer, you are guaranteed to be committed to the answer you find.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so that that that now coming back to the auditions, I I really, I really believe that you can you can hear.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can hear in someone's playing.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, coming back to this idea, brass instruments, the trumpet, it's it's as honest as it gets.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the trumpet, who was it?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Was it uh Dizzy Gillespie, I think.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was Dizzy who said.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that quote.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know what you're talking about.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: You like practice the trumpet and you win, and then the the next day it wins, and then you die, and the trumpet wins.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: The trumpet always wins.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we still get up every day and we keep trying.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right, right.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so I I I have to say too, like, that there is a there is a for me, like I'm a pretty chill, mellow person.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there is an element to that adversarial mindset that I do find sometimes helpful.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some of the best performances I've given have been when I was in, to be honest, a pretty adversarial mindset.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's nothing wrong with that.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like music is music is there to communicate all things, all aspects of of human existence, of of states of being, states of mind, states of feeling.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there's nothing wrong with that.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's something useful to explore for us.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage my students, I encourage myself to think about that.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do how do you play when you're mad?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: How do you play when you're mad?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you play better?
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: If so, that's okay to admit that.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe it's and it's okay to use that.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, a couple things.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I again, like I call me on the cliche alarm, but like, you know, finding yourself, knowing yourself.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I was when I was in my 20s, I was constantly questioning, you know, am I am I strong enough to do this?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Am I am I am I strong enough in the chops?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Am I strong enough in my head to do this?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I and now I'm 50.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've got three kids, uh, and I've I know who I am to uh to the to the highest degree that I have in my life.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point, I know, I know that I'm strong enough to do this.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: I also know what my limitations are.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'll never program a Brandenburg after a Burkner Symphony again.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you that.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is a that was a bad idea.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: This was a long time ago.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know my limitations, and I I but I also know my strengths, and I know with whatever time I have left playing the trumpet, I know what I want to do with it.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: I've got a very specific example of something that I I think could be provide some nuance.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, you and I have worked together uh at Northwestern, and then I don't know if you remember this, but I drove up from Indianapolis when I was there uh for that year, and we played.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I I I have you know a bunch of memories.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but one distinct memory that's useful for this conversation is playing pictures for you.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: And what you saying, telling a story reminded me of this.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_03: That um I think I think some nuance to the I'm gonna listen and emulate versus me is when I played it for you, I remember distinctly you talked about like especially the last two phrases, maybe thinking about each phrase, maybe not more volume, but having a little bit more intensity, like you feel like you're headed somewhere, like architecturally towards the end.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just each phrase is exactly the same dynamic, exactly the same shaping.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so that it would really end feel with some sense of finality, if that is a way to describe it.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I just felt like that is an example of something that is like another layer deeper from just pure emulation, where you've made a specific choice of a thing that you want to do that will portray storytelling in the way you want to do it, or some character or some emotion.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_03: And if that is a frame for thinking about making specific decisions, do you have more thoughts on how you go about doing this in your own preparation for performances?
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: Or do you do this more often, or is it just in the context of our side or auditions and the concerts?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: You're just free-balling it, so to speak.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm curious for your take.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember that.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I remember the I remember those times with you.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sound great.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sound I'm I remember when you start playing, and I my my first thought, this is kind of the worst thought when you're teaching a lesson.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: The worst thought is like, man, they sound really good.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what am I gonna say?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta think of something to say that's not total BS right now.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was that was our time to go.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, but that's but I do think of it that way.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: I do think of the promenade that way, and that and so so big picture.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: If we think about we're talking auditions, right?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so these excerpts that we play for auditions, 20 seconds, 30 seconds long, maybe a minute.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in in in great degree, because it's the trumpet, they represent high emotional moments in these pieces, right?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the opening of pictures, right?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: The it's the very first notes of the piece, right?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Ravel wisely gave it to the trumpet because it it it it commands the attention, right?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: It demands the attention of the audience and pulls them in on this journey.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um same thing with the ballerinas dance from Petrushka, right?
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: The the the music, the music is dark and angular about this sort of the villain character, you know, and then you have immediately this moment of like brightness and brilliance when the when the elegance and beauty of the ballerina comes.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um Alpine Symphony, right?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: These moments these moments are high intensity, high emotion.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we're when we're playing, when we're thinking about performing in an audition, working these excerpts, performing these excerpts, I think it's important to keep in mind that these moments are they're they're filled with a possibility to communicate this kind of this level of emotion.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so like every, and I tell I I think I I this is a mantra of mine.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in an audition as a trumpet player, you have very little time to show who you are and to show what.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can do, and so every single note matters, every single moment has to tell a story, and it has to tell a musical story in service of the music, but you also have to sell tell a story in service of yourself.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to sell yourself in every single bar, and that doesn't mean you have to be perfect every single bar, but every single bar has to have purpose and meaning and direction, uh as well as good time and good pitch and good all the things, fundamentals.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's that really it's really important.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now sometimes that sometimes that means sometimes that means you show a lot, right?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that means like in the case of pictures, as we were, you and I were talking years ago.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: What what how's pictures marked?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Forte, right?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of words at the top that basically tell you to play, you know, um, you know, you know, squarely at Allegro tempo, um, with a kind of a serious tone, you know, Russian style, yeah.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: All the things, right?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Charlie.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: I remember Charlie used to say it was like in a Russian style, not too fast and not too slow.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Something like that.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, having sat on having sat on um a bunch of trumpet sat through a bunch of trumpet auditions this month, I will tell you that there is still a wide range of promenades out there in terms of tempo and style, and that's fine.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and I from people who have advanced through rounds, there are people who played it differently, and that's fine.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I want to say this really clearly.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: For me and for colleagues I know, I'm not looking for somebody to play exactly the way I'm imagining it in my head.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really not.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm looking for I'm looking, I'm looking to hear someone play who sounds excellent, sounds natural, sounds like they own the music, and they're and they're playing it their way.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that means I don't like it.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or I don't I disagree with it.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if they play it and they own it, I'm like, cool, I got it.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: You do you.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you get the gig, we can argue about it later.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, um yeah, I mean, it's that's the direction I feel like I've been going in, even in my own audition preparation.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we don't have to get into the specifics, but I won Alabama and that had a long string.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_03: The is eight auditions over 11 years of not advancing in any audition, even though I felt like I was playing better than I've ever been.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: And um and then the and then at what broke that string was I auditioned for principal in Atlanta last year and got a ended up getting a trial.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I can say, and this is kind of a little bit of a segue, it's a it's a segue into the actual audition preparation, because what I believe did that more than anything was developing a system that caused me to actually improve through the process of preparation.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't just stay at the level and at what I was at and just keep like I was like actually like fixing things.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: But the other thing I did is I actually just made a decision about what I wanted versus trying to play the way Barbara told me to play, you know, and then also considering people like you and considering people like Stuart Stevenson and James Vaughn and Elmer and some of these people who had had a lot of audition success, right?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: People who were advancing in auditions, what did they have that I don't have?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: Or is there something in their playing that I could, it's like you were saying, that I could try?
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and I love the way you're talking about this because you're saying like you just got to sit with it and think about it.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: I've been talking about it as like just to consider what would it look like for me to have a little bit more of what they had?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something I and I feel like once I started going in the direction of like not necessaring who I am, but adding to who I am, like adding a more robust understanding or at minimum, who do I have to be in an audition to be successful, versus like, is that different from a concert?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so, sorry, I'm ranting or rambling a little bit, but to me, this is such an important part of audition success is like having your having made a decision about what you think is the right way and then preparing in a way where you can demonstrate that consistently.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I would love to talk about how you prepare to demonstrate things consistently in the context of an audition, but obviously it's you probably apply loosely apply these things other ways.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: So I've got like uh this is that series of quest, unless you've got sort of a follow-up to that, please.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, that's great.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk like nuts and bolts.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I've got this list of questions I sent you uh from on the email.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe we'll just kind of go one by one because they're fairly sequential.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: So the first one was you talked about having it.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_03: So this is from a 2006 article about in the ITG journal about you preparing for Chicago.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_03: So we're gonna kind of root all the way back then and then build upon that.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: So it talks about having a maintenance period of a few months, then shifting to a few weeks of performance practice for the CSO audition.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: Can you walk me through the differences for these periods?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: How you came to structure it?
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: This okay.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: So, what are the differences?
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_03: What kind of made you go in these directions?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then what are a specifically the thing I'm interested in?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_03: What are the focuses for each of these?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what are you trying to accomplish during these periods?
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: A few months of maintenance.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's like that's that's somebody with no kids right there talking.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: Fair enough.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: And like we could also talk about how this has changed in in the years just 20 years ago, you know?
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I was I was speaking of my personal experience at that time, right?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and I I that I was playing first trumpet in the Atlanta Symphony.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I was, you know, I was playing a lot already.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um but so maintenance period, essentially what I'm getting at is in order to in order in order to prep effectively for an audition, which is a really highly specialized thing.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as I think you alluded to, performing in an audition is not the same as playing a concert.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's much more akin in my experience to to playing a recital.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just playing a recital of very short but wild, wildly diverse pieces.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so prep preparing for that is built on a foundation of really of really your best your best health and shape on the trumpet.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: So uh maintenance period for me.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I can I can send you um, I'll I'll can share with you sort of a calendar I made years ago to kind of just as a as a kind of a starting point for scheduling out your day and your week and your month and the stuff.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that'd be great.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's based on for me when I was a student, I was practicing, you know, like four hours a day on average, maybe a little more.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you're playing a job and you have life, um, it's a little bit hard in my experience to play practice four hours a day and also have a job that you need to sound good on when you're there and not be chopped out.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: And also you have, you know, well, life kids in a family who yell at you if you're not around, and understandably so.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um it's about like finding the most efficient way to build had to have solid fund consistent fundamentals every single day.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: So roughly for me, it looked a good maintenance period for me looks like 45 minutes to an hour in the morning.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Where you know, get your air going, your your buzz going, you get your bins, your stamps, your chickowits, your Schlossberg, your Arbin, uh your um all your good fundamentals going on.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Your shoe brooks, of course, right?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked about that.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then you've got another hour in the day where you're working on, you're playing a good round, a good like diet, three, four, five different styles of attudes, uh, solo repertoire that you're that you're wanting to learn that may be coming up, and of course also hitting some excerpts, right?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's like maintenance period.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like just for me, I was always my trumpet regimen was always built on an hour of fundamentals minimum, an hour of atudes, and then um some of the whatever chunk of time you need to work a repertoire.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really what it is.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: And some you can change it, you can change it as you need to, right?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can do a couple hours of fundamentals if you need hit isolate certain specifics.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's the maintenance.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then on top of that, once you have that really steady, then then you talk about, then you talk about moving into audition preparation where you maintain your fundamentals, you maintain an a an etude session, maybe not quite as long, and then you have another big chunk of time where you're shedding atudes, learning them, understanding, listening, mimicking recordings you love, finding your way, the thing we've been talking about for for the first part of our time here.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and once you have once you have them, um, I think of it like a three-tier system.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: You have kind of A, B, and C levels on excerpts.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: So your A excerpts are ready to go today.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody called you and said, Ah, there's an opening in the final round tonight, can you show up and play?
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're ready to go on level A.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Level B is like you've got them, but they need a little more consistency and a little more understanding.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then level C is you don't know them yet, you can't play them yet, you have to shed and listen and figure it out.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so audition prep time is like a month-ish, usually, I would say for me, for most people that I've worked with, getting everything up to an A level.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then from there, um, and this is for me the has been the most important key for me, is the performance practice part.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be a week, can be 10 days, can be two weeks, it could be three days, depends on your situation and what you need and what your life will allow.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that to me is really that's the key.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because what's one of the hardest things in an audition is the is the loss of control.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we're practicing, when we're practicing, we choose when to play something.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: And even if we like even if we do, you know, the random, the random excerpt generator machine and we pull a list and we do a mock, we're still kind of deciding when we're gonna do the mock.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to an audition, you lose that control completely.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be a very difficult thing to adjust to.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you talked about going a long string with without um advancing or getting a job.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: I started taking auditions as a freshman in college, um, and I took about 14 before I got anywhere.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: I got that's not true.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: I took I took one in the first one, I got to the finals.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: After that, I took 13 before I advanced again.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sorry, semifinals.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then I took 13 before I advanced again, all through college, all through college.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and I and one of my biggest problems was this was I I, you know, I was I was, you know, I I was a bit of a control freak.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when I would go to practice, I would do my mocks and I would do all of my shedding and do all the things, but I was never I didn't I wasn't accounting for the the lack of control we have when we show up at an audition.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: We we show up and we we get if we're lucky, we get like a you're gonna play in this hour, but you don't know exactly when, right?
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes a committee goes super fast through players and you might they might tell you you have 30, 40 minutes, and you get 15 minutes from now you get a call.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or the up or the opposite happens, right?
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've done I've I've made every mistake in the in the warm-up room you can make.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've gone, I've I've not played enough and gone out ice cold.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've they told me 15 minutes and it turned into turned out to be an hour and 10, and I like warmed up six times.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time I went on stage, I was like completely like rubber chops, nothing, right?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like Leonore III was a stretch.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: I did it all.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and uh so so this this idea of like performance practice and preparation for an audition, it's it's warm up in the morning.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: And like for me, this has always been the case.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like warm up in the morning is non-negotiable every day, so that so that we have the always this foundation to build, right?
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: We have good, we have some level of consistency in the chops so that we have a level of so that we have a good connection with the mind to the body, that we know that whatever happens in this day, whatever, whatever the conductor does in their crazy rehearsal order, or whatever happens in this audition, if they ask me to play uh the opening of Moller Seven six times and play louder each time, which happened once in an audition to me, uh, we we're ready for it.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're at least we're as ready as we can be, right?
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: So morning warm-up is non-negotiable.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then in this in this period, I'm talking about of prep performance prep, you make mocks for yourself, but you do them at random times.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: Every single day is a different setup.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I can I'll send you just one example of this.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's you know, so sometimes so for example, so on Monday you might warm up in the morning and then you do a pro you do a uh a mock uh 12 minutes after you finish practicing.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the next day you might warm up and then do a mock six hours after and try not to play at all in between.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or think about what I should do, should I play a little bit every couple hours or should I just leave it?
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you experiment a little bit in this time because you've built for a good chunk of time, several weeks, a month, a couple of months, you've built a good foundation of these fundamentals and good strength and health.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you can experiment.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: So this is and this has been really helpful to me.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was really helpful to students, to um my brother Mike, when he was preparing for his Boston Symphony audition that he won um back in the day.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: So this is just one example, right?
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't spend too much time here.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I I I really do think that that aspect, the sort of the chaotic element of auditions, the not knowing what's gonna happen, if we can prepare for that in our practice and also in our head, so that when we go there, we just we say, you know what?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've done again back to this original idea.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've done everything I can.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've I've I've tried, I've I've put everything I can into this.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said, like you've you asked all the questions and you just you decided how does how does Ryan want to play these pieces, right?
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you put all that together, you show up to an audition, and you can just be yourself.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can just you have the confidence, you put yourself in a position to to sound like you no matter what they no matter what is thrown at you.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I it's very cool to hear you use this language because it's the most recent audition I took was principal in Philly, and I was I was in the finals.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't make it to the super final round, but that is because I didn't quite play like me in the final round, right?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_03: I I was going through some whatever stuff, and I there was a lot of great playing, but I could walk off stage.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_03: There's this weird sense of satisfaction, if that makes sense, which like I know that if I just put together the package I know I'm capable of, I could have stayed in the fight, but it's like that's not what happened on that day.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_03: But it's very interesting to hear you sort of share this because I remember vividly, like in my, I did a lot of like for me, it's like the last like seven to 10-ish days I'm running mocks, like you're talking about.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_03: And there would be a day where I would like warm up here at home, and then I would have to like do the like here, like do the dishes, and then like take, you know, take a my kid to taekwondo or something.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then so I wouldn't play in between, and then I drove to our hall and then to play for somebody, and then they made a list, and then I just sat down cold and played the list, right?
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's I feel like very similar or exactly what you're describing.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I would like to share with you something that I was really trying to hone to see if this is also something that you value if you see it differently.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_03: If I could play well in that scenario, that was a secondary benefit, if that makes sense.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: To me, the primary benefit was giving, like challenging myself to stay mentally engaged on the things that would cause me to be successful, regardless of how uh positive or negative I felt the situation I was in.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like to me, that's like what I was I was almost saying if I could stay mentally engaged, I could, that was the best chance I was gonna be able to have for success at the audition.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm curious if you see it similarly or or differently, because I've grown to really feel like this is the thing that allowed me to feel like there's nothing that they're gonna be able to do that will stop me from playing the way I want to play.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, completely agree.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: I completely agree.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: The point of our preparation is not to sound amazing in the preparation.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: The point of playing mocks is not to sound perfect in the mocks.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: Really, the point of the mocks is to is to test ourselves and and push our boundaries and and figure out if we do lose focus, why do we lose focus?
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: What was it about that?
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: What was it about that particular recipe uh that caused us to slip a little bit in our mind?
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in 90, 90 plus percent of success in performing is mental, right?
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like chops are important.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: We talk, we my wife says this all the time.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's an organist.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, you guys, you talk about your chops all the time, but I think it's just to distract yourselves from the fact that you're crazy.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's all the problems up here.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's probably true.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: She says it with love, though.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: I bet so um, no, it's it you're absolutely right.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like the hard the hardest thing to do is to stay focused on what on what matters.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what matters, you know, go back to our inner game of tennis vibe here, like what matters the most it is not winning the job.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you can come to a place where you don't care if you win the job, you don't care, and this is the harder part, actually, I think, is you don't care if you don't advance out of pre-levels.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: What you care about and what you focus on and what you live for is to be in a be in the moment to play like you the entire time.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh the f the first time I actually did this, um really did it, was the the f the first audition I won was Philly, was in Philly.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: And from start to finish, I stayed completely in the moment.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you that one of the biggest reasons why is that I I knew I had no chance to win the job.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had I knew I had no chance whatsoever.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I I knew the Philly Orchestra through recordings, I'd never heard them live, I'd never met Dave Bilger.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I didn't go to Curtis, you know, and I and I I knew and I was like, and I was also like I was 22.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I've there's no chance for me to win this job.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna go, I'm gonna, but I'm gonna work, I was in full-on work mode, right?
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: And unemployed, like looking at possibly living in my parents' basement, and I was like determined to find a way not to do that, right?
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would, I was really, it was to be honest, it was like kind of a hack.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a hack.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was easy to stay in the moment because I genuinely thought I had no chance.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: The hardest part was as I kept advancing, and when I really, when I advanced to the finals, I the voice started in the back that said, Well, maybe you like maybe you really do have a chance at this.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I immediately and I remember this, I I like I I I didn't meditate back then, but I was basically meditating.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: I would just sit quietly in the hotel room alone and just tell myself, basically tell myself, no, you don't, you have no chance.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: All you can do is play your way.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I because I all I only saw it as a stepping stone in the process to the next one, to hopefully find the the one that I would have a chance to win.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I can still remember I played the final and uh pretty hard final and played a super final with me and one other player who was excellent.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, this is good for and that at that point when I got to the last to the last the last final round with the just the two of us, then I did allow myself to say, well, you know what, this is pretty cool.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so no matter what happens here, I remember saying to myself, this is no matter what happens here, this is pretty cool.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_00: I must be doing something right.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I played the last round, and and I remember they they threw up a little site reading, which was uh Bruckner 6, the last page of Bruckner 6.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or no Bruckner 3, sorry.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_00: There was the opening of Berkner III, which has a little D minor call in the trumpet, and then it was the last sort of the last sort of shout chorus of uh of the end of the symphony, which is kind of the same tune, but in D major.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this was at the end of the second round, and I was starting to get I remember starting to get kind of tired, but just thinking, like, just just just play, just play, like just play.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I missed the accidental, like I played it in minor.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the and Wolfgang Savalish, the music director, he I remember he threw his arms up, he's like the most classy, like three-piece suit all the time, like perfect hair, very put together.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: He threw up his hands, he's like, no, no, no, then he lost it, and I was so I had to play the whole thing again.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: But my in my recollection, this was 97, this was a while ago, but in my recollection, I did not play it perfectly, but I did play the F sharp instead of the F Nat.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_03: You got that right the second time.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: I got that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: But like, but but and even then, like, even then, I thought, well, okay.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was dumb.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: But okay, fine, it's over.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: And but I I was able through, I was able through, again, like through just single-mindedness to to stay focused on just my play.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I've taken sense auditions since then that were the opposite of that.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the last audition I took for the Philharmonic was the first time that I've ever like been directly in competition with former students.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and that, and that was that was a different kind of mental exercise for me because I thought, okay, so this could be like this could be the first audition I lose to one of my former students.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the interesting.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a thing.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, and I was like, and I had to sort of make peace with that, you know.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, if that happens, that's cool.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: Good for them.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like that, and like it would hurt for sure.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: To but let's be honest here.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like it would hurt, it would sting, but at the same time, like you, you know, you'll get to a place like that.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: Good for them.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: But then I but then I had I said the same thing to myself.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, that's all for later.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: But for now, all you can do is play.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that's actually such a cool perspective because I have this belief that belief that the outcome you desire is possible is kind of a prerequisite, right?
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you don't necessarily believe that, let's say you could win Philly, to me, it's harder to do the type of work and to commit yourself to doing the kind of things you'll need to do to be able to have the outcome.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like you may not understand how you may not be feel like you're guaranteed to win it, but to approach it like it's possible.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_03: So do you feel like even though you thought there's no chance, you still must have worked in some sort of way where you believed success could have been possible?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because at least the way I feel think, and you can please like tell me I'm wrong if you disagree, but it almost feels like there's a certain amount of you that must have believed it was possible for you to do all of the work, or else you may not have even gone in the first place.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think there's any truth to that?
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's definitely truth in that.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: I so I I definitely I believed that it was possible.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I believe I believed in then my that I believed that I was a good enough trumpet player to do that job.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm a I'm I'm a very humble person.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I really am.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_00: But in my playing, even back then, I was 22, right?
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: So 22 is very different from 50.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like but is it but as a 22-year-old young person, I believed I could do that job.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I had I had just enough hubris to believe that I could play in the Philly Orchestra.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I but I also at the same time I said I I and you're exact you're so right to point this out because that that is a that's just the most important component is to believe you can do it and know that you have the ability and the capability to do it.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that is true, that is true as a musician every single day.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have to believe that we can do this.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's kind of anyway, I'll we'll come back to that.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I believed that I could.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: I believed I was capable.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_00: I believed that it was a possible outcome, but I but I but I reinforced in in myself that it that it probably wasn't gonna happen.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because there were I had other I had other experiences in auditions where I thought, oh, I'm like, you know, top player in my school.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm sounding pretty good these days, you know, and I'd walk into an audition and think, like, I should play really well today.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was, but I mean my mind I wasn't focused on just I wasn't focused on the music.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't focused on what did I want to sound like.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought I was focused on the ending.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was focused on it's probably gonna be a positive outcome today.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: That was not for me the way to go.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um I don't know how deep we want to get into this because I know that if you're a busy man, should I lay down on the couch all day?
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_03: I just I really want to try to see if I can understand how you practice.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I understand how deep this can go, but I feel like the other I have to imagine one of the other main things that separates somebody like you from a lot of people who believe it's possible and they really want it, is that you understand how to practice in a way that will produce the outcomes that you want.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm curious, I don't really know how to specifically ask something because obviously you and I probably have very similar ways of thinking about things, but we have very potentially different ways of talking about it.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so can I give you can I give you the two the two things that I do in my practice that are the most important?
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_03: Let's just that's a great place to start.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start there and then we'll build out.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they're different, but that there's only two of them.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it's the the very first thing I do every day.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's for me, is the that and I didn't used to do it.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't used to do it this way.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I was a student, when I was a high school or college student, when I was even young in my 20s, I didn't do it this way.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in my 30s, when I started playing first trumpet a lot and I realized it how much it costs you to play in an orchestra day daily, weekly, playing a different program every time.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_00: When I when I realized like what was happening to my sound and to my response and my playing, I realized very quickly that I have to do something, I have to change something here.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I do in the very first part of the day, um, I have this whole rhythm, and people who've seen me in a master class are probably like, here it goes again.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_00: But like, so I so number one, so I I like I call it like building outward, building, building out from in to the trumpet.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's simple, people do this.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Judy Saxton has a great method for this too.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_00: If if people have seen that.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't look up hers, it's great.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, finding a way, whatever you do, to get your breath to get your air right, number one.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've tried a lot of different things.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've done like breathing bags, PVC pipes, I've done like the power lung thing, which is pretty cool.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um just really simple exercises, just kind of blowing air through the horn.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tony Plug has a great method for this.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: We can get into this too if you want, but um Paul Barron has a great book uh called Trumpet Voluntarily that he talks about some some really good air air activation exercises.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_00: The stamp book, you know, uh uh has really good ideas for air, but they're all great.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're all good.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I do I do kind of different ones every every every couple days.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll change it up just to just based on how I'm feeling.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, number one, get your air right.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Get your and by getting your air right, it means getting it activated.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Barbara had this great phrase in her her practice book.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_00: To be a poet on the trumpet first, you must be an athlete.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so we have to be ready for the physical challenge of playing the trumpet.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of again back to that adversarial relationship.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to look at the trumpet, uh kind of like living with a kind of like living with an alligator, you know?
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like as long as you feed it, as long as you like feed it the right things, you can keep it under control.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if you turn your back on it or you you you you let it if you let it take over, it'll eat you lunch, right?
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um getting your air right.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, bringing the air to the lips.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So again, a little bit different every time.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I do just free buzzing with the lips, sometimes I do um uh just pedal like some pedal buzzing, some easy glissondo, and then going to the mouthpiece, buzzing a bit on the mouthpiece, stamp five note is great.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um gliss glissandos to pedal C and back up, whatever.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of different ways to do it.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then into the trumpet.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Usually I do a little bit of lead pipe buzzing with some bins and glissandos, and then into the trumpet.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so by the that all takes about five minutes, maybe sometimes a little longer, depending on if it's a tough day.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's really that's number one thing that I do that has changed the way that the way that I um receive response from the trumpet and am able to sort of more consistently deliver um response through the trumpet.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that finding having finding finding a recipe for yourself that delivers consistent response so that you know when you pick up the horn, you can feel it already where it is, before you ever hear a sound.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's been really key for me.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's number one.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then number two, um on the opposite end, when you're practicing pieces, when you're shedding lit, when you're shedding or excerpts or solos or whatever it is you're working on, whatever rep you're working on, or etudes, being think being as creative, being as outside the box as you can be, um, with how with how you approach these licks.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'll hit one one image that I always think tell myself is like, imagine, imagine that you're gonna write, you're writing a practice book now.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're writing a practice book for this excerpt.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna put in there?
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like the Schlossberg book, Max Schlossberg's famous, famous book.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't write a book.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't, he didn't set out to write, he didn't even, he didn't even put the book together.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_00: His son-in-law did that.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_00: That book is just it's just exercises that he wrote out by hand that he thought of to try to solve a problem.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Usually, maybe in himself, but often it was for his students.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you can think of, you know, tell yourself, okay, if if I'm Max Schlossberg today, what exercise am I going to create to solve this problem?
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's been the that's been really the the number the number two thing that has helped me find more better consistency is being your own coach, right?
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what that's what we as student as teachers and coaches and mentors, that's what we're trying to do for each other, for our for students who come to us, young players who come to us, help them be their own teacher.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's and this the the the sooner and the more effectively you become your own instructor, the the that's when the real sort of the the bell curve of of of uh progress happens.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't this is great.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate it.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great place to start.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um on the first one, I just want to very quickly say would you you would probably agree that people could try the way you do things, and if it works for them, awesome, but it's not necessarily some magic recipe.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_03: Because you know people are gonna listen to this and be like, oh, if I just do what Chris Martin does, everything is gonna, everything is gonna fix it.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_03: So do you have do you have any words to speak to like what's the point of or what are you looking for?
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you already did, but maybe just rounding it out so someone doesn't get lost and I'm doing what Chris Martin does, so I'll sound like Chris Martin.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I the the point the point is to find the point is to find uh the point is to find your your sound, which is your buzz, your vibration.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: The point is to find it for me without the horn first, just to find it.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so that doesn't mean that I want to play like I'm not trying to buzz the perfect pictures before I play the trumpet.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the point.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_00: The point is like trying to find a way that simple as that.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_00: But you I take a breath that's healthy and centered, and the air comes to the lips without the tongue and it but and it vibrates.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And once that's there, then I move to the trumpet.
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's really very simple, but it's for me, it's been vital.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Vital to manage the sort of the daily, the daily ups and downs that naturally come for all of us with being a brass player, especially being a trumpet player, right?
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the that's the foundation.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can don't take it from me, like read the read the first part of Stamp, read the first part of Thibaut, read uh it um read Gecker's read Gecker's essays on trumpet playing.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so I we talk I talk about this a lot.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about this a lot at school.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like we get these, we get books and we we go straight to the exercises, and we try to find like where's the exercise?
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the one?
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the one that's gonna show me how to play, right?
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if you if you can actually start early, if you can read them first, there's fantastic information in there.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like read, like reading Thibault's writing, Pierre Thibault's writing is like bananas.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_00: The first time you read it, there's like crazy detail and creativity and the way he talks about playing the trumpet.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not even the musical ideas, just like tone production ideas and ways to play a line differently.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, so that's kind of what I mean.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that, and yeah, I mean, I think yes, try my way, try my way.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And my students have some of them think, yeah, this feels great.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them say, like, I don't get it, and it doesn't work for me.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's fine.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Totally fine.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_00: But it's again, it's like it's a step on the journey.
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Almost certainly it's not the end of your journey, but it's a step on the way.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I just feel like it can trumpet players, maybe all musicians, but I can speak for trumpet players, can very much get lost in like the semantic of this is the way somebody does it versus trying to understand what is the purpose of the thing they're doing, which I think adherence would grow significantly.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then to the second point, you I I love what you're saying in terms of almost like writing your own book of some instruction manual of how would this work for me?
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's kind of a very day, like day-to-day thing.
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_03: I am so curious what the idea of structure looks like for you, where you would be pursuing a goal over the course of time.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have ways of how you think about um structuring your practice?
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_03: So it's because what sometimes happens to people is they're thinking very day to day.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_03: I have to like take this from zero to a hundred percent every single day.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that leads to a lot of frustration.
• 1:18:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then also they're trying to judge every single day.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_03: Was my practice productive?
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Did I accomplish like the full gamut of what I was trying to do?
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm curious if you have a way of potentially, especially at the level you're playing at, stretching out.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm working on this thing for, you know, even like I you've talked a lot about the Clark one-minute drill, right?
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_03: Or the Gecker one-minute drill, however you want to think of it.
• 1:19:17
  unknown: No.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_03: And like I'm assuming that is a long-term project.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_03: You're not thinking, let me do this for one day, and my and my single tongue will be better.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm in general, the idea of structure, the idea of pursuing long-term projects to gain actual skill.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very curious on your take on this.
• 1:19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:19:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have we have daily, weekly assessments.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how we did today, how we're doing this week, how did I how do I sound this Monday compared to last Monday?
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_00: But you're a that's a great point.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_00: The most, I think the most the most important thing in terms of staying motivated and staying driven is having big, large goals.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like and and by big, large goals, sometimes that means like I want to play the Brandenburg.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes that means I want I want a more beautiful, soft lyrical sound, or I want more security up high, or you know, whatever, whatever it is.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want a better low F in uh karma.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's probably a less popular goal than the high of one.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so so like you so you use the one-minute drill as an example.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that that was like a I had that was like uh well when I first started doing that, I was I I started doing it because I was I was sick of double tonguing the um the first solo in Revell piano concerto.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was it I was really I was so I was just annoyed with myself that I had to double tongue it all the time.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And because it, you know, I hear people double tongue it beautifully, but for me, like eight times out of ten, there'd be like a little burr, not something not quite right that I was never quite happy with.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that was it was and my singletongue was nowhere near, you know, one to 116 to be able to singleton that.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_00: So my goal was essentially what Clark's goal was as Gecko articulates it, like I wanted to get to 120.
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_00: If I could get to 16th notes at 120 for a minute, that should solve pretty much most of your like big extra articulation issues.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so so it but that goal took me from like my singleton was like 198, 100 to get from 100 to 120 took like almost a year.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Probably probably nine.
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think nine months, it took nine months or so.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but the but the the improvement came immediately.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_00: It just came very incrementally for me.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's one example, right?
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh over over COVID in in uh 2020, I had a I had a goal to improve my flexibility.
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided one of the one of the things I was gonna really focus on was to improve flexibility and lip slurs.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'd always wanted to play, um, I'd always wanted to be able to play Irons number nine at like an impressively fast tempo.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_00: For me, for me.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know nobody else cares about this, but I you know, I wanted to, I wanted like I wanted to be able to play at like 144 or you know, something really like fast and cool.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I use that as a goal, as sort of my number, my first, my big goal, like my my mountaintop goal as a way to just encourage myself to practice to have better flexibility and facility, generally.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so those like those kinds of goals I find really helpful, really important.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_00: To think of something concrete, something very clear.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or like, you know, if you want, if you want to work on your high-range security, then you pick pick something.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want to be able to play the end of Jolet Concertino, you know, beautifully and effortlessly the way I hear it in my head, you know, the way Winton played it on his record.
• 1:22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, or you know, I want to be able to play the high D in Alpine Symphony, the Alpine Symphony Glacier solo.
• 1:22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to play it, you know, the way I heard some this person do it, you know, and having that goal as a as a way to inform and encourage you to work towards something that's not gonna take it, it's gonna take much longer than a day or a week or a month, probably.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really really key.
• 1:23:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I've got a I've got a lightning round of questions just to give you a way of where we're going, but I've got a just a couple more questions.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_03: You can be sort of as thorough as you want to be, um, but I just want to make sure we cover them.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um I my understanding is you are a journaler in terms of like, or at least I've heard things from I think from Barbara saying, like, after concerts, you may like write in a journal things that went well, or this or that, or things like that.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you've incorporated.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just curious if that is something you do.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, how like what does it mean to you and like what are ways you use it for a to productively help you?
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 1:23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good.
• 1:23:59
  SPEAKER_00: When I was when I was younger, I I kept a journal.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I kept a practice log.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_00: It may be here, it may be downstairs.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_00: But those uh let's see if I can find it.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe, maybe over there.
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hang on.
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'll get it in a minute.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I kept a practice, I kept those, you know, those composition books.
• 1:24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I kept a practice log of the I've kept a practice log in those.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I've and I've I've said this a lot about auditions, like I kept, I kept detailed notes, um, not at not at first, but as I got older and realized, like I was I was missing a lot of things in my memory that were happening in audition rounds.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I started, and when you're in an audition, like you have your moment on stage or five to ten minutes on stage that's high intensity, and then you have a whole lot of sitting around waiting.
• 1:24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I I I I started using that time as something to do.
• 1:24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, like this is I'm old enough that this was before cell phones existed.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I I you needed something to do.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I would just take notes about, you know, I want I practiced this much at X time, many, and I and and stopped, and then blah blah blah.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm going to, and when it was time to go, I would say go play this time.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then when I'd come back, especially after I played, I would take, I would take as I would write as many things as I could remember.
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that whatever happened in that, in whatever happened in the round, what whatever the result was, I could go back and look and say, try and start to see patterns.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_00: That was the that was that was the way that I realized that I was playing way too much.
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was playing way too much uh ahead of time and not giving myself enough space, you know, to what on stage to be able to really deliver what I was capable of.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so I but these days I do less so.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_00: These days I take notes in the notes app on my phone.
• 1:25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'll I'll take notes about like uh you know, try this mouthpiece today for the E5 trumpet, didn't work, didn't work so well as tomorrow we'll try something else.
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Stuff like that.
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take I take like shorthand notes these days.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or I'll I I write sometimes like a lot of times it's about a lot of times it's about breaths, or it's about like the a mental image, like um like today.
• 1:26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we're playing in the concert today.
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have to play this uh this this small nine-person chamber piece, very like atonal 20th century, very like soft, exposed, wide trumpet writing.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've I'm finding that in that like thinking about playing to a color, like if I if I think about like taking a yesterday, I thought like, okay, let's take I'm gonna try to take a purple breath today.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And for some reason, like that would just felt right, like it was a bit more calming and put me in the right zone to be able to flow through this thing a bit better.
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, I could take notes like that.
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And purple breath worked, so maybe we'll try purple breath again today.
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see what happens.
• 1:26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I do find it helpful.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know I know I have colleagues who have done it pretty copiously, but I think also I think of recording yourself as like journaling now.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have a bit less time of on my own to to write these days, so recording myself is kind of the journaling.
• 1:26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I turn on voice memo to check in with this.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and I mean you kind of spoke to it.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_03: I would say that you know, I don't I don't journal on a regular basis, you know, but when I'm auditioning, it's fairly essential at this stage with the way that I approach it to and and you described it in a way that I like, I think about it.
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's like essentially if you kind of, oh well, try a purple breath, that seems to work.
• 1:27:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, okay, like let's keep doing that and see if it keeps working, see if you gather more data.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_03: And then eventually I look at it like you you described it as writing a book.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like I think of it as writing an instruction manual of success for this specific thing.
• 1:27:30
  SPEAKER_03: If I just do these things that I found work, then I will be able to do the thing the way I want to do it.
• 1:27:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so journaling for me has become this really important part.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think also the qu the next question, it's it's still on this list.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very again, like it's it's so cool to be able to ask you these questions because you know you're in a quote pressure position and a huge orchestra, and so obviously confidence is huge, but you're also Somebody who wants to be honest with yourself and be able to acknowledge things like mistakes so that you can continue.
• 1:28:05
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you balance this?
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_03: How do you balance?
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, I gotta dig into this thing, but I also have to work it into a picture in my head that makes it so I'm not thinking about and focusing on these mistakes or whatever.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_03: Do you get do you does that question make sense?
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_00: It makes total sense.
• 1:28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it sort of depends on on the piece for me.
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it depends on what the what the what the challenges are.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so let's let me tell I'll take the concert today.
• 1:28:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I already talked about this chamber piece, right?
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that piece has um it's by a composer named Kurtog.
• 1:28:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Brief Messages.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_00: If anybody wants to check it out, nobody, I'm sure probably nobody's heard it.
• 1:28:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it has like some pretty wide, like pretty sick, like pretty wide trumpet writing, mostly piano, pianissimo.
• 1:28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so for that piece, I knew, I knew, like I I like chamber music.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm happy playing chamber music.
• 1:28:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like a nice thing for me.
• 1:28:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew that like for me, like emotionally, I would feel good to go on stage.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is part of it for me, is like imagining yourself in this in this moment, and how are you gonna feel?
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so for a piece like that, the the situation for me is comfortable.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um the writing for me is wasn't is not comfortable.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like so the technique of it, um, I I I did a lot of repetition practice, to be honest with you, which I don't often do.
• 1:29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I find often like for the standard excerpts, I don't do a lot of repetition practice for those because I find that if I'm if I'm if I play the standard, I I I don't not play them, I I check in with them, but I tend to play like exercises or atubes that are around them that kind of expand around them to make to increase the level of difficulty in different ways so that when I go to play the excerpt, it feels like you feel more comfortable, but it also feels like a vacation from all that other stuff you were doing, you know.
• 1:29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um like if you play Alpine Symphony to a high E flat, you know, 25 times, then when you go to play it to a D, you're like, oh, this feels nice.
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it doesn't feel nice.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, sure, sure.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Point taken.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:30:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, but with this particular piece that I played today, I knew I just needed, I needed reps because it's not the kind of writing that I'm particularly comfortable playing.
• 1:30:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was a totally foreign piece of music.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it all.
• 1:30:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I did a lot of shedding and rep in repetition with that, and a lot of like a lot of real basic fundamental, like center to center, slot to slot, um, like bend this note and go up, like stamp sort of fun formata exercise.
• 1:30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Get to the top note, hold it, make sure you're centered, that you're not tense, tight, and then blow through.
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I did a lot of stuff, like real basic stuff like that.
• 1:30:45
  SPEAKER_00: The last piece on the program is the Schumann Symphony that I've played a bunch of times.
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, uh, you know, some touchy softs, you know, a typical Schumann, some touchy softs, a couple of exposed things.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_00: With that, I just want to make sure that I'm playing and like I'm playing in a really free way, but I don't want to play a lot of repetition there.
• 1:31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because it because if I if I play a lot of repetition on the standard on standards, I start to build a scorecard in my mind.
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'll think, okay, eight times I played it well, but twice I had a kind of a chip and a burr.
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I go to perform it, that scorecard pops up in my mind.
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_03: For sure.
• 1:31:19
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 1:31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't want to feel like I'm 80% on a standard excerpt.
• 1:31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So instead I play things like I play some Bosevich and I play some Bordoni and I play some Schubrook and I, you know, do some little bendy things uh that I that I like to do that just sort of again like stretch around it without really focusing on it.
• 1:31:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's like two different examples of ways to that I prepare.
• 1:31:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah.
• 1:31:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh if it's okay if I I mean this is awesome.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_03: No, please.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_03: If I dig just a little bit more.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and and and maybe it's maybe there doesn't need to be too much finer of a point.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_03: I just feel like taking control of the mental space.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_03: I actually you kind of already spoke to it.
• 1:31:56
  SPEAKER_03: Just this idea, like you spoke to it with a scorecard.
• 1:31:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you're I I would imagine you're working in your practice sessions in a way that works through the problem, but it's also not creating potential as as few negative associations with things as possible, maybe is the way.
• 1:32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, hopefully.
• 1:32:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's the hope.
• 1:32:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've done I've I've looked I've screwed it up too.
• 1:32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've done that of course where I end up or you end up on stage and you're like, oh, it's just like like I have a B minus on this lick, you know, and I got a wanna be a B minus, you know, I've had I've had that too.
• 1:32:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the again, like we're uh we're experimenting.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I remember like I remember people who studied with Hersith, people would say, like, and or or colleagues of mine in in Chicago who played with Hersith, they would ask him, like, hey bud, how did you practice that?
• 1:32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds great.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you how do you work on that?
• 1:32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And his answer was apparently always the same.
• 1:32:44
  SPEAKER_00: He would always say, Yeah, it's hard for everybody, you just gotta practice.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's all he would say.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_00: But he was a journaler, he kept, he kept copious notes too.
• 1:32:52
  SPEAKER_00: He kept lots of notes.
• 1:32:53
  SPEAKER_00: He just didn't he didn't tell anybody what they were because they were personal for him.
• 1:32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 1:32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and sure, like if like if if if her seth had ever published a practice manual, like every trumpet player would play it religiously, right?
• 1:33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not really how it works.
• 1:33:08
  SPEAKER_00: He, you know, he we all got to figure out our recipe.
• 1:33:11
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 1:33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um luckily we have a lot of good, we have a lot of good components that have been proven over the years to be, you know, you know, uh good, you know, good sort of additions to that, yeah to our own personal method.
• 1:33:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh two more, two more, and then the lightning round.
• 1:33:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just trying to make sure because I don't want to take too much of your time.
• 1:33:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:33:34
  SPEAKER_03: I was at a club, it was I don't even remember what year it was.
• 1:33:38
  SPEAKER_03: Gosh, would it have been 2006?
• 1:33:40
  SPEAKER_03: ITG conference in like Amherst, maybe.
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, the the 100-degree bowl.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you played a recital.
• 1:33:47
  SPEAKER_03: I remember you played the recital, and then I remember you played something on Piccolo, on a rotary piccolo, and you were like, I like how I like how this sounds so much.
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just gonna play this like a movement again or something like that.
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_03: You're like, wasn't this sound so good?
• 1:34:01
  SPEAKER_03: But you maybe it was that recital or it was some other presentation, but you said something along the lines of, I'm always trying to get better.
• 1:34:08
  SPEAKER_03: I hope five years from now I'm unrecognizably in terms of like the improvement you've made from the play from the point where you're principal in Chicago.
• 1:34:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'm assuming you still have those.
• 1:34:18
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe you don't have as much time or your priorities have shifted with the way your life has changed, but I assume that is still a core part of you.
• 1:34:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm very curious.
• 1:34:25
  SPEAKER_03: What does improvement look like for you right now?
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um types of things are you working on?
• 1:34:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_00: What am I working on?
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good, that's good.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a over the summer I did something that I've been like a big goal of mine forever.
• 1:34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've I've I finally recorded a solo album, Trumpet and Piano album.
• 1:34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool.
• 1:34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Which which was a which was a uh that was a that was like that was my big challenge for 25.
• 1:34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is I my was my big goal, is I I really I had this list of pieces that I that I that I felt strongly about, cared about, most most of them written for me by friends or composers I really like and respect.
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted to get it done.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've never never done anything like that before.
• 1:35:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so so that was my big project.
• 1:35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um it was good.
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_00: I feel good.
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_00: It should be out in in next either next month or in May.
• 1:35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'm happy about that.
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that was something that I that was for last year.
• 1:35:23
  SPEAKER_00: For this year, um well, it's not really for this year, it's like all the time, right?
• 1:35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're all we're always we're all trying to get better all the time, right?
• 1:35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I am trying to find a way to play in the orchestra that is um that is how do I say this?
• 1:35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even think about how to say this the right way.
• 1:35:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to find a way to play in the orchestra this year that is that is more naturally myself, that I feel more comfortable playing as myself in the orchestra, but that is also more efficient.
• 1:36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's sort of my own words for for I'm trying, I'm trying to play, I'm trying to kind of be more honestly myself in the job.
• 1:36:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we talked before about like trying to sound like somebody else versus sounding like yourself.
• 1:36:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think we all I think there are times that I that I sort of fall back on, like a like a mental a mental image, an oral image of the my favorite performance of X Piece.
• 1:36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I'm trying this year I'm trying to be a bit more listening to my own, like my own song, and try to play a bit more with my own song.
• 1:36:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's one of my things for this year, too.
• 1:36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 1:36:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's it's it's actually quite interesting.
• 1:36:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also trying to have better articulation.
• 1:36:47
  SPEAKER_00: All the time.
• 1:36:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I it's it's actually kind of inspiring.
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, to hear someone at your stage talk about there are still these things, because I feel like it'd be very easy to look at you and for people to be like, yeah, like he's got it all, like he's got it all figured out and and he sounds so good.
• 1:37:02
  SPEAKER_03: And he's and so to hear you say, like, yeah, there's these projects I'm working on, and you're it's like you're you're almost as if you you're just at a different stage of development and a stage of things you're concerned about and working on than other people, but you're like the fact that you are that type of person, I think could be argued that's like why you're one of the reasons you're in the position you're in now is just that constant looking for what could improvement look like.
• 1:37:26
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think about like I'm at the like so I turned 50 in this in July, and like I turned 50 and I sort of it sort of hit me like, okay, I have I have way less time left in my career as a pro as a performer than I've already done.
• 1:37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like way less time left.
• 1:37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't, I don't know how much.
• 1:37:48
  SPEAKER_00: But so so my my my my biggest goal, my biggest long-term goal is to preserve it as long as I can.
• 1:37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Play play like myself for as long as I can.
• 1:37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've always promised myself, I've promised my family that when I can't, when I can't do it anymore and sound like me, I'm gonna stop.
• 1:38:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll still play.
• 1:38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll always play.
• 1:38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'll always play.
• 1:38:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not gonna I'm not gonna play professionally in an orchestra if I can't, if I can't do it at the level.
• 1:38:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that so right now that's my kind of my biggest, my big, big, big time goal, biggest, sorry, long-term goal is to try to preserve that time that I can try and play in a way that that brings people joy, that inspires in some way, hopefully, uh, you know, young people to go on and sound even better than me.
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And like it's really fun to watch that happen.
• 1:38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's already happening, like watching like young players come up who um, you know, who are who are getting jobs now, playing solos, winning competitions, and they're doing things, and I'm like, I can't do that.
• 1:38:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's really great.
• 1:38:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's so fun.
• 1:38:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to it's great to be there, it's great to be here.
• 1:38:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I still contribute to to musical life, to the to the world of trumpet.
• 1:39:00
  SPEAKER_00: I and as long as I can do that, then I'll I'll keep I'll keep doing it.
• 1:39:04
  SPEAKER_00: But but um yeah, but the key to that, as you say, like the key is curiosity, right?
• 1:39:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like I I I just I respect so much our colleagues out there, like you, who are you're doing this, you're doing this, I think, incredible service for the musical world, for the trumpet world.
• 1:39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and like it's it's great.
• 1:39:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's very inspiring to to for us to sort of be able to talk and mind meld, yeah, amalgamate.
• 1:39:32
  SPEAKER_03: I I've loved this.
• 1:39:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um I if you're ready for the lightning round.
• 1:39:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah, all right.
• 1:39:37
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know how much time you have.
• 1:39:39
  SPEAKER_03: There are 15 possible questions.
• 1:39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:39:42
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have time for all 15 or do you want to cut it short?
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a lightning round, so I'll be every I feel like every podcast I listen to, when it's a lightning round, like the person goes on way too long.
• 1:39:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna try to keep it for 30 seconds.
• 1:39:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, here's the deal.
• 1:39:55
  SPEAKER_03: I already told you I had uploaded all these interviews, and so I asked it for non-trumpet questions.
• 1:40:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so this isn't like, do you like coffee or tea?
• 1:40:03
  SPEAKER_03: They are very specific to you.
• 1:40:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
• 1:40:05
  SPEAKER_03: Number one, you mentioned in an interview with Sarah Willis that you wanted to be a pilot and fly jets and maybe go to space when you were a kid.
• 1:40:15
  SPEAKER_03: Is that still something you're interested in?
• 1:40:16
  SPEAKER_03: Do you follow space-related stuff?
• 1:40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I do I do follow space-related stuff.
• 1:40:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's like there's an Apollo Lego rocket.
• 1:40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I can see that, yeah.
• 1:40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:40:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's a space shuttle up there.
• 1:40:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can see that.
• 1:40:27
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I still, I do still love space.
• 1:40:28
  SPEAKER_00: That was like my first love.
• 1:40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've was my the first thing that inspired my imagination.
• 1:40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I totally wanted to be a navy, I wanted to be a navy fighter pilot and wanted to go to space.
• 1:40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then uh turns out that um if you're blind as a bat, that's the no-go.
• 1:40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
• 1:40:49
  SPEAKER_00: So one trip to the eye doctor, I was like, yeah, that's not happening.
• 1:40:52
  SPEAKER_03: So, like what I mean, just be very it's a follow-up question, but what uh is there like a kind of a an easy thing that you could say of what about space is so sort of draws you to it, that the the idea of it?
• 1:41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I think it's uh I mean I the number I probably the number one thing is just this idea of this idea of um of inspiration and curiosity and you know searching for something that you're probably never gonna know the answer to.
• 1:41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like you know, in our lifetime, we probably won't know if we're all alone here or not.
• 1:41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 1:41:26
  SPEAKER_00: My feeling is we're probably not alone, but we may never have an answer to that, right?
• 1:41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:41:31
  SPEAKER_00: And trying to trying to comprehend something like that impossibly vast and and uh inscrutable, like it's kind of like trying to figure out how to play the trumpet.
• 1:41:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting connection.
• 1:41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh also in this interview with Sarah, uh, you said, I really love coffee.
• 1:41:48
  SPEAKER_03: I could see maybe having a coffee shop one day when I'm retired.
• 1:41:51
  SPEAKER_03: Is that still the plan?
• 1:41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I could totally see that.
• 1:41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:41:55
  SPEAKER_00: My colleague, um, my colleague Ethan in the orchestra, he's a he's even bigger coffee lover than I am.
• 1:42:01
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, there's we got a couple new members of the orchestra um who are big, big time coffee nerds.
• 1:42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like they've got their whole setup in the lounge and stuff.
• 1:42:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like kind of more of an I like I like it all.
• 1:42:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's all good, but I like like I'm a big fan of espresso, and I like that sort of like the precision of that, like the the OCD part of that, and it works really.
• 1:42:22
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of feeds that part of our brain, and we're like, since I got into coffee, I buy fewer mouthpieces, so my wife is kind of she's she's okay with that.
• 1:42:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's fair enough.
• 1:42:31
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have you thought deeply about what you would name your coffee shop when you when you open it?
• 1:42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I have thought a little bit about it.
• 1:42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um what we call it.
• 1:42:42
  SPEAKER_00: The other um what what do we talk about?
• 1:42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh coffee not so much.
• 1:42:48
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I talked about was maybe opening uh maybe opening a brewery someday.
• 1:42:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've I find like the whole process of like brewing fermentation also very cool and interesting.
• 1:42:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh my wife suggested that we we should we should you should we would call the brewery bump it on beer for the Zaratusterwick.
• 1:43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice, nice bump it on beer.
• 1:43:08
  SPEAKER_03: I just feel like you have such a good last name where it could just be Martins, you know what I mean?
• 1:43:13
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like that's like uh you could see one of those like uh Martins in New York City, you know what I mean?
• 1:43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:43:19
  SPEAKER_00: With like the with like the cool font, you know.
• 1:43:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 1:43:22
  SPEAKER_00: The white shutters and the black wrought iron.
• 1:43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I could see that.
• 1:43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well there was a there was a Martin's restaurant as when I was a kid growing up down in Georgia, and it was like it was like a drive-in, you know, like burger and fry joint.
• 1:43:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was great.
• 1:43:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was great, but it also like gave you horrible heartburn every time you ever start.
• 1:43:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's the mark of a good burger place, you know.
• 1:43:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's how you know it's a good burger.
• 1:43:46
  SPEAKER_03: So uh okay, next one.
• 1:43:47
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, I'll keep it moving.
• 1:43:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh Brass Chats interview.
• 1:43:50
  SPEAKER_03: You talked about your M3, your first year with a VA.
• 1:43:54
  SPEAKER_03: Are you still a car guy?
• 1:43:55
  SPEAKER_03: Do you do much driving around in New York City?
• 1:43:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, we lived in we lived in Manhattan for nine years, but we just moved out to the suburbs because our kids are our kids are at the age where it was getting pretty crowded in a two-bedroom apartment with three kids.
• 1:44:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I did have an M3.
• 1:44:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was a wonderful car.
• 1:44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do not have an M3 anymore.
• 1:44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have a I have a CRV, which is an excellent commuter car.
• 1:44:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:44:22
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I almost thought you were gonna say a minivan.
• 1:44:25
  SPEAKER_03: I was I I was so I thought it was so good.
• 1:44:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will never, ever own a minivan.
• 1:44:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was thought you were so close.
• 1:44:33
  SPEAKER_00: I will never own a minivan.
• 1:44:34
  SPEAKER_00: My my wife said to me, she said, we should get a minivan.
• 1:44:37
  SPEAKER_00: It just like makes sense.
• 1:44:38
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You can get a minivan, but I will never set foot in it.
• 1:44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's like that's my red line.
• 1:44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is fine.
• 1:44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love I love my CRV, it's a great car.
• 1:44:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:44:49
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like minivans are so polarizing.
• 1:44:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know, and I I think I I think I'm wrong to feel this way.
• 1:44:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm I'll I'll try I'll have the courage to admit, I think I'm wrong to feel so negatively because it would make life easier.
• 1:45:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm not backing down.
• 1:45:05
  SPEAKER_03: The next one also in the interview, uh, you talked about exercise.
• 1:45:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it's interesting.
• 1:45:10
  SPEAKER_03: The question here that uh Claude gave was just mentioning running and cycling and like, are you still doing this?
• 1:45:17
  SPEAKER_03: But it also said that you once trained with a boxer who punched you in the face, and I'm more interested in that than I am about cycling.
• 1:45:23
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 1:45:24
  SPEAKER_00: I took I uh I did I work uh when I was younger, I I was I did some personal training with a guy who was a he wasn't a professional boxer, but he was like he was like welterweight, like he was in the he did a lot of qualifying fights and he was he was good.
• 1:45:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he so I used to like practice boxing with him, which is I if you've never tried it, but like one of the hardest things I'd ever done physically.
• 1:45:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like like trying, if you go, like going going like three rounds a minute each is is completely exhausting, like full body, everything crazy.
• 1:45:54
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, one time like he would he he would like sort of like you know pop you on the head to keep your guard up, you know.
• 1:46:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then one time I guess he thought I really wasn't paying attention, so he, I mean, like square in the face, right in the nose and the chops.
• 1:46:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean he had gloves on, right?
• 1:46:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:46:07
  SPEAKER_00: But but but I have to say that that had never happened to me before, and luckily not ever since, really.
• 1:46:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then I just stopped and stood there for a second, like, and I I thought, like, I can't believe he just did that.
• 1:46:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then I thought, wait, okay, I have all my teeth, my gun fine.
• 1:46:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's keep it.
• 1:46:24
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 1:46:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, okay, new category, family and roots.
• 1:46:29
  SPEAKER_03: So this was again from that brass jets interview.
• 1:46:32
  SPEAKER_03: You talked about Claire doing a five-minute warm-up.
• 1:46:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, sometimes she can play.
• 1:46:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's like uh so basically, have your kids have they shown any interest in instruments and like what's that, what's that like?
• 1:46:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, uh, yeah.
• 1:46:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, the my boys are younger, so um middle guy has taken some piano.
• 1:46:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's kind of fascinated with the trumpet.
• 1:46:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's like interested, but it's a little too loud for him.
• 1:46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I pick it up just to play, he like he runs out of the room to the other side of the house to get away.
• 1:46:59
  SPEAKER_00: But my daughter started playing, uh, she's in the fifth grade.
• 1:47:02
  SPEAKER_00: She started playing uh in August, and she's she's playing pretty well.
• 1:47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like her um her teeth her teacher has this uh has this her band director has this great method of like pass-off advancement related to karate belts.
• 1:47:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you start with a white belt and then you move up and up.
• 1:47:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool.
• 1:47:19
  SPEAKER_00: She just she just got her black belt.
• 1:47:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's good.
• 1:47:22
  SPEAKER_00: So she's she's done, she's gotten her pass-offs to the black belt point.
• 1:47:25
  SPEAKER_00: So now she's got to work on her you know, secondary, second degree white belt now.
• 1:47:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what she's working on.
• 1:47:30
  SPEAKER_00: But she enjoys it.
• 1:47:31
  SPEAKER_00: She actually, she um that's my that's my Yamaha Chicago B flat.
• 1:47:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I have like four four or five different B flats, and she tried them all, and uh she was like, no, that's my favorite.
• 1:47:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's actually hers now.
• 1:47:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to get another one.
• 1:47:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have to I I have to I gotta order another one from Yamaha at some point because she she says I'm not allowed to play it anymore.
• 1:47:54
  SPEAKER_03: Does she uh are like kids at school aware that like she plays the trumpet and her and her dad is you know you?
• 1:48:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I asked her that.
• 1:48:05
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I said, like, do like do your do your friends know your dad's a musician?
• 1:48:09
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, No, of course not.
• 1:48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Gross.
• 1:48:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's hilarious.
• 1:48:13
  SPEAKER_03: That is hilarious.
• 1:48:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um so the next one.
• 1:48:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so your dad Freddie is uh horn player and band director.
• 1:48:22
  SPEAKER_03: Does he it says does he still give you advice?
• 1:48:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like, do you still like talk to him about this kind of stuff?
• 1:48:26
  SPEAKER_03: And does he still what are some of the wisest things that he has shared with you that have been helpful?
• 1:48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, he doesn't give me much advice about playing anymore.
• 1:48:36
  SPEAKER_00: I would I would love it if he would, but he sort of doesn't, he doesn't feel too comfortable.
• 1:48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um but he but his the way he teaches is really grounded in fundamentals.
• 1:48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like he works, you know, the the the initial warm-up thing I was talking about, that really kind of comes from him.
• 1:48:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, air, lips, uh, you know, mouthpiece, and then trumpet.
• 1:48:56
  SPEAKER_00: That really kind of comes from the way I grew up with him.
• 1:48:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he kind of gave me the best advice early on.
• 1:49:01
  SPEAKER_00: He but he he still gives me advice about teaching.
• 1:49:04
  SPEAKER_00: And some some of the best advice he's given me really relates to teaching.
• 1:49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's been teaching for God, 60 years.
• 1:49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 1:49:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and uh he he told me early on when I started teaching lessons, he said, you gotta play.
• 1:49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like too many teachers, they just talk and talk and talk.
• 1:49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like you gotta you gotta play.
• 1:49:24
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta you can tell you can talk and give them ideas, but then you gotta show them what you do, show them what works for you, show them what doesn't work for you.
• 1:49:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I've always I've always stuck to that.
• 1:49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes to a fault.
• 1:49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes I'll finish a day of six lessons and my chops are kind of wrecked.
• 1:49:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I got still working on that balance.
• 1:49:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I I've always appreciated that advice.
• 1:49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you gotta demonstrate, you gotta demonstrate in lessons, and sometimes I demonstrate in a way that like doesn't work, and that's okay too.
• 1:49:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay too.
• 1:49:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh next question you grew up, we know you talked about this already.
• 1:49:55
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a fairly well known thing of anyone who's researched you slightly that you grew up in drum.
• 1:50:00
  SPEAKER_03: Corey and so the this question is A, have you been able to make it to like any drum core finals?
• 1:50:07
  SPEAKER_03: Is your scout schedule ever allowed recently?
• 1:50:10
  SPEAKER_03: And like who are you who is what is the core you're rooting for?
• 1:50:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I rooting for?
• 1:50:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:50:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I haven't been to finals in uh in about five years.
• 1:50:20
  SPEAKER_00: I did go six years ago.
• 1:50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's been a while.
• 1:50:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's been a while since I got to go to a show because the the summer's summer schedule is a lot of traveling here.
• 1:50:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I I do I watch it, I always watch the broadcast and I always and I always keep up with the scores all summer.
• 1:50:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, um, so who do I root for?
• 1:50:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I like uh I mean I don't I don't have one favorite.
• 1:50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like Spirit of Atlanta is in my family, so I always pull for them to do well.
• 1:50:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking they're looking pretty good this year.
• 1:50:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're gonna be strong this year.
• 1:50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um they're on a good trajectory up.
• 1:50:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm always I always love like I love the way, you know.
• 1:50:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm a brass player, right?
• 1:50:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I go for like but everybody here's the thing, like everybody sounds good now.
• 1:51:03
  SPEAKER_00: The level of playing and the level of instruction is so high that every chorus sounds good.
• 1:51:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of I mean it's it's look, it's it's it's a lame answer, and I'll give you a better one.
• 1:51:12
  SPEAKER_00: But like I want I want it I root for them all.
• 1:51:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want all the brass lines to do it.
• 1:51:16
  SPEAKER_00: You want everybody to win.
• 1:51:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, no, I don't want everybody to win, but I want everybody to play well.
• 1:51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but like I mean, like who look, who doesn't look who's like who who which trump what trumpet player would could say they don't love the blue devils?
• 1:51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, of course I love the blue devils.
• 1:51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like that that's the one you always you always want to see what they're gonna what their show's gonna be, what their what their lead trumpet book is gonna sound like.
• 1:51:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how high is the solo gonna go this year?
• 1:51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, of course, right?
• 1:51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um my brother and I my brother and I have this thing, like we we uh we record like old famous like DCI solos and like send them back and forth to each other.
• 1:51:52
  SPEAKER_00: Nice good.
• 1:51:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:51:53
  SPEAKER_00: The last one he sent me was from Boo Devil's from their metamorph show.
• 1:51:57
  SPEAKER_00: So he won out to me big time, so I'm gonna have to find something really good to try to be to get him on that one.
• 1:52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 1:52:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 1:52:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably yeah, that's good.
• 1:52:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's good, man.
• 1:52:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 1:52:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh next question.
• 1:52:08
  SPEAKER_03: Margaret is an organist.
• 1:52:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not gonna read the question here.
• 1:52:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm actually just gonna ask you how much what percentage of her being an organist and being able to accompany you on various recitals and things was involved in your desire to marry her.
• 1:52:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's funny.
• 1:52:27
  SPEAKER_00: When I I met when we met, we met on a we met on a gig.
• 1:52:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was playing, playing Vivaldi Concerto, and she was playing harpsichord, and she played beautiful, like she played great.
• 1:52:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I complimented her afterward.
• 1:52:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, like that, she's pretty cute.
• 1:52:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and also she plays really well.
• 1:52:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I complimented her on her harp score, like especially like second movement, you know.
• 1:52:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I she like that turned out that was her first time ever playing harpsichord in her life, and she thought that I was just like trying to put moves on, so she's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.
• 1:52:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I really did think so.
• 1:52:58
  SPEAKER_00: She sounded great anyway.
• 1:53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I did think about how convenient it would be.
• 1:53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
• 1:53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough to be married to an organist.
• 1:53:06
  SPEAKER_03: There's lots of reasons to get married.
• 1:53:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:53:10
  SPEAKER_00: Also love.
• 1:53:11
  SPEAKER_03: Also love.
• 1:53:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's that too, of course.
• 1:53:13
  SPEAKER_03: Of course.
• 1:53:14
  unknown: Of course.
• 1:53:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you said your favorite movie is this was Brass Jazz.
• 1:53:20
  SPEAKER_03: So we gotta okay, I see what this is.
• 1:53:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, original trilogy, prequels, or the new trilogy.
• 1:53:27
  SPEAKER_03: If you have to take like a set of three, what are you going with?
• 1:53:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can only you can only take one.
• 1:53:33
  SPEAKER_03: But it's yeah, but it's like it's like you gotta take all of them and the set.
• 1:53:41
  SPEAKER_00: So warts and all, you can only take one trilogy.
• 1:53:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, I'm I mean, I'm 50, right?
• 1:53:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I should say the original, like the the middle three, like the first three movies.
• 1:53:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because that that that's like that's the those are the three that like blew everybody's brains open.
• 1:53:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:53:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 1:53:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's tough though.
• 1:54:04
  SPEAKER_03: What would you take?
• 1:54:06
  SPEAKER_03: I asked the hard questions here.
• 1:54:07
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:54:08
  SPEAKER_03: I think I think as crazy as this sounds, like I feel like I'm gonna get destroyed, but I just have so many fond memories of watching the prequels when I was a kid.
• 1:54:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 1:54:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like I watched The Phantom Menace, like I warts and all, I understand, but I watched that movie so many times, and there there's very few things to me in Star Wars that can top when the doors open and Darth Maul was standing there and duel of the fates.
• 1:54:34
  SPEAKER_03: There's very few things that can top that for me.
• 1:54:36
  SPEAKER_03: And like that, that just raises the you know like if that puts it in a positive, it's hard to cut, it's hard to count against that.
• 1:54:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I'll probably get destroyed in in your comments too.
• 1:54:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I I I my feeling is that that scene, the duel of the fates, is that's that's the greatest, that's the best fight scene of all nine movies.
• 1:54:57
  SPEAKER_03: I I actually totally agree.
• 1:54:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, totally agree.
• 1:55:00
  SPEAKER_00: Between the between like the care the characters introduction and the the the choreography, and then but especially like the music, like bringing back to trumpet for a second, like the with the music, that that that's the best action scene of all nine, no, no doubt.
• 1:55:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I I take your point.
• 1:55:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, take your point.
• 1:55:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I also gotta say, like, going back to music again, like the the last three, like the the soundtrack is phenomenal, super fun.
• 1:55:25
  SPEAKER_00: And like the trumpet playing is awesome.
• 1:55:27
  SPEAKER_00: John Lewis and those guys killed it.
• 1:55:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I don't know.
• 1:55:30
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, it's kind of fun.
• 1:55:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, like the purists would disagree, but I it's kind of fun like hearing hearing Star Wars on C Trumpet.
• 1:55:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of fun.
• 1:55:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
• 1:55:39
  SPEAKER_00: We got we got six movies on the B flats, and those and Maurice and those they all killed it, but they're kind of fun to hear it on C Trumpet, too.
• 1:55:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I I think I effectively dodged the answer there.
• 1:55:50
  SPEAKER_03: I was just about to say, is your answer to not answer?
• 1:55:54
  SPEAKER_00: My answer, my answer is I was born in 75.
• 1:55:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, yeah.
• 1:55:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I can remember, I can remember, along with Drumcore, sitting, watching the end of A New Hope when R2D2 was back to life and all shiny, because they got his head blown off by shiny back to life, and I can remember tears running down my face.
• 1:56:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:56:17
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of A New Hope.
• 1:56:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, like as a as a formative experience, like I gotta say, and with the music and everything, I'd have to go with the original.
• 1:56:25
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's I mean, not always a safe bet.
• 1:56:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think I think most people would say it's they're the best three movies as like a whole.
• 1:56:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:56:33
  SPEAKER_00: As a whole, I think that's probably true.
• 1:56:35
  SPEAKER_00: But they're not none of them are perfect.
• 1:56:37
  SPEAKER_00: None of none are perfect either, but that's okay.
• 1:56:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's what makes them great.
• 1:56:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's that was the hardest part of the interview.
• 1:56:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 1:56:44
  SPEAKER_03: Well who says Rush, you mentioned 2021-12 as one of your the greatest rock albums.
• 1:56:52
  SPEAKER_03: Neil Perrot, Getty Lee.
• 1:56:54
  SPEAKER_03: Who is the M or what is the other Alex?
• 1:56:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, what's why am I blanking?
• 1:57:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is like another life.
• 1:57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I I don't listen, I don't I don't listen to much rock anymore.
• 1:57:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it just says this question is who is the MVP of Rush?
• 1:57:09
  SPEAKER_03: Who's the best musician?
• 1:57:11
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have to answer that.
• 1:57:12
  SPEAKER_03: I think this is a dumb question, actually.
• 1:57:15
  SPEAKER_03: So let's just skip it to another question that is gonna be better.
• 1:57:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would I mean, wouldn't I think you would have to say Neil Perk.
• 1:57:22
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, he's amazing.
• 1:57:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would I think you have to say Neil Perk.
• 1:57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:57:27
  SPEAKER_00: Probably the best rock drummer, certainly to that point.
• 1:57:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, whatever he was at.
• 1:57:32
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate you.
• 1:57:33
  SPEAKER_00: Polyrhythms for the win.
• 1:57:35
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate you making that question into uh into something.
• 1:57:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um but again, maybe this has changed.
• 1:57:42
  SPEAKER_03: In this interview with the brass chats, you said Barbara Hannigan is the best musician alive.
• 1:57:46
  SPEAKER_03: Do you still agree with this?
• 1:57:47
  SPEAKER_03: And what uh what makes her to you the best musician alive?
• 1:57:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean she's yeah, she's up there for sure.
• 1:57:57
  SPEAKER_00: She's coming and she's coming to the Philharmonic, she's doing her Coulang uh uh Le Voix Humaine uh next month.
• 1:58:04
  SPEAKER_00: Next month.
• 1:58:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's if you've never seen her do that, it's on on the YouTube.
• 1:58:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 1:58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um what makes her I I think what makes so I would say two things come to mind.
• 1:58:14
  SPEAKER_00: What makes her so incredible is number one, her range.
• 1:58:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like her range of repertoire is bananas.
• 1:58:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um she owns all of it, like she owns it, she she has sung from like not ancient music, but very quite very old music all the way to you know lighty, and and she owns all of it.
• 1:58:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and I would say also like her her, I was gonna say her courage or her bravery, but I don't think it's that.
• 1:58:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like it's just who she is.
• 1:58:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like she is with what we were talking before about like knowing who you are and playing like you are.
• 1:58:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't I don't think there's a I don't think there's an atom of doubt in her being about who she is and and the musician she is and how she's gonna sound.
• 1:58:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's force of nature.
• 1:58:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's so cool.
• 1:59:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that you're like connecting that the thing that you connect to is that there's just nothing stopping her from being her.
• 1:59:07
  SPEAKER_03: No, that's cool.
• 1:59:09
  SPEAKER_03: Two more questions.
• 1:59:09
  SPEAKER_03: We won't get to all 15 because the others are whatever.
• 1:59:12
  SPEAKER_03: New York pizza or Chicago Deep Dish?
• 1:59:16
  SPEAKER_03: New York pizza.
• 1:59:17
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 1:59:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:59:19
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 1:59:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I respect Chicago Deep Dish for what it is.
• 1:59:23
  SPEAKER_00: I do like it.
• 1:59:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I do miss some of it.
• 1:59:27
  SPEAKER_00: I do miss like the spinach and mushroom from uh Pequods.
• 1:59:31
  SPEAKER_00: Pequads was amazing, like the burn, like the burned the edges on the crust.
• 1:59:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 1:59:35
  SPEAKER_00: But like it also like kind of makes you feel sick for a day or two.
• 1:59:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know.
• 1:59:43
  SPEAKER_03: My body could handle things differently than it can now back when I was at at Northwestern, you know.
• 1:59:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean I I would have said like in those days, I would have said deep dish for sure.
• 1:59:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, like heading into my sixth decade, I'm gonna say New York pizzas.
• 1:59:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it costs you a little less.
• 1:59:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, fair enough.
• 1:59:59
  SPEAKER_00: In all ways.
• 2:00:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then the last question, I wanted to end on this one.
• 2:00:05
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 2:00:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um basically in the Brass Chats interview, you said you'd tell your younger self to stop caring what other people think.
• 2:00:15
  SPEAKER_03: What's something you would do now that you never would have done at 25 because you cared too much about what people think?
• 2:00:21
  SPEAKER_03: Another way to think of this question is just what has the effect in your life been of like embracing not caring what people think?
• 2:00:29
  SPEAKER_03: And do you still care what the certain people think?
• 2:00:32
  SPEAKER_03: And just what's the relationship or surrounding this?
• 2:00:35
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think it's I I agree with it, but I think there's some nuance that I'd be interesting to hear from you.
• 2:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, definitely nuance.
• 2:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think as a as an over as a like a big picture goal, if you're if you're in your own head a lot, um, as I can be, uh that getting to the place where you can just just be yourself is really important.
• 2:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, of course I care what people think.
• 2:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like of course there are, and there are people, there are people in my life close to me who I value their opinion of me as much as I value my own, because they're they're a barometer, right?
• 2:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're uh they're a sounding board and to keep to make sure you're staying centered and in the right place and all those things.
• 2:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: So of course I care what people think.
• 2:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: The context of that answer is more more um back to our original idea, like as relates to music, like are you playing music for other people first, or are you playing music for yourself first?
• 2:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, for me, for a good chunk of my for a good chunk of my career, I was playing for other people.
• 2:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was playing for, I was playing for, I was playing, trying to play in a way that I thought other people thought I should be playing.
• 2:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, well, if you're in that job, then you should sound like this.
• 2:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't sound like this, then maybe you're not good enough for that job.
• 2:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a lot of those kinds of thoughts in my head.
• 2:01:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so kind of related to like my 2026 goal to try to play more naturally as I hear things.
• 2:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I try, I try to I try to silence those thoughts.
• 2:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like the and it's again, like I don't like look, there are people out there who who hear me play and they they'll write things on the internet who they don't like it.
• 2:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's like that's true for everybody, right?
• 2:02:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you like, if you live your life for that, not a big like I'm a big soccer fan, and my the soccer team I love is like sort of a classic like lightning rod team, because they they can be kind of a dumpster fire for a large part of their like modern history.
• 2:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um but now they're really good.
• 2:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and but like the whole you like you listen to conversations about it and you like hear people's like it's like a Rorschach test of all of their like their um their uh insecurities and of all the years built up, you know, and like people get really upset about what other people think about them.
• 2:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is so true.
• 2:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is such a thing now, like when with social media and and and and you know online comments and and all that stuff.
• 2:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really I for me it's like I I I I try really hard to like sign to not pay attention to those things and know that they're there and be and be at peace with them being there.
• 2:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not so much about ignoring them as it is like I know they're there, but I I I try not to let them in on a daily basis.
• 2:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if I can do that, can kind of keep that diet clean on a daily basis, that really helps me to follow follow this idea, which is just to say, sorry, which is just to say, like, we're all here, we're all here trying to trying to, we're all here trying to find our voice, right?
• 2:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and once you've kind of found it, like I like I mostly have, I don't think I'm all the way there yet, like you mostly have.
• 2:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing we can do is is just share it and be open to sharing it, whatever that means.
• 2:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: Whether people love it, whether people don't care for it.
• 2:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like you got something to say and you're doing it, you know, 200 times.
• 2:04:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the 200 more.
• 2:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 2:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'll keep trying to do it, you know, for the for the hope, for the right reasons as best I can for as for as long as we can still keep going, trying to make things better.
• 2:04:18
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I feel like that's a very good place to to wrap things up.
• 2:04:23
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate I just appreciate your time and your willingness to be open and helping me understand your perspective on things.
• 2:04:30
  SPEAKER_03: And um, I I'll ask this question and you can decide how you want to answer it.
• 2:04:37
  SPEAKER_03: But okay, if somebody wanted to say, reach out and say, Chris, I really appreciated your words on this podcast, it really meant a lot to me.
• 2:04:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, is there a way that somebody could reach out and say those words to you that you would want to share here?
• 2:04:51
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 2:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, of course.
• 2:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I mean, you can email me.
• 2:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do people still email Ryan?
• 2:04:58
  SPEAKER_03: I emailed you.
• 2:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 2:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can email me.
• 2:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh you can my email is Chris at Chris Martin Trumpet.com.
• 2:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you can email me there if you like.
• 2:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, my website's there.
• 2:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little dated.
• 2:05:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 2:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: It it still works like on mobile, but it's a little dated.
• 2:05:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you can email me there, Chris at Chris MartinTrumpet.com, and I'd be happy to talk.
• 2:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: I can sometimes be a little slow to reply.
• 2:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ryan can attest to this, but but I will get back to you, I promise.
• 2:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just put Ryan's name in the subject and I will I I will make it a priority.
• 2:05:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:05:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well again, I I really appreciate uh your time.
• 2:05:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's been a really I've really enjoyed this conversation.
• 2:05:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you uh Me too.
• 2:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I I really appreciate listen, I I I appreciate the openness and the honesty that you bring to this.
• 2:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I love that you you put yourself out there in this way uh in an effort to I think you in an effort to figure things out for yourself, but in the in your curiosity and in your your pursuit, I think you're you're helping so many people find uh find their path.
• 2:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful.
• 2:06:09
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate it.
• 2:06:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's a huge that's a huge part.
• 2:06:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's a huge goal of mine.
• 2:06:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um so yeah, thank you for checking this out, or for not for checking us out, thank you for doing this with me.
• 2:06:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then I was gonna say uh I want to thank Brandon Yochim for his work on mastering this episode of the podcast.
• 2:06:25
  SPEAKER_03: You can check Brandon out at EpiphanyRecordingstudio.com.
• 2:06:30
  SPEAKER_03: And most of all, I would like to thank you for listening to this episode.
• 2:06:34
  SPEAKER_03: I hope you enjoyed it, and we will see you in the next one.