First, I’ve been heavily involved with the graduate fellowship brass quintet. We are a young but able group, consisting of me, Peter (Michigan), Kristin (Concordia), Chris (Oklahoma City), and Joseph (Kansas City). Everybody brings something positive to the table, it seems. We rehearse four times per week and are coached by Professor Tom Stein. This year, we won the state division of MMTA chamber competition and will continue to the regional, then (hopefully) the national convention. With the quintet’s help, I arranged three dances from Terpsichore for the group, which has been met with positive comments from faculty, judges, and members of the quintet themselves.

I am also a part of the conservatory wind symphony, under Professor Steven Davis. Rehearsals are well-lead, and we play primarily a combination of new band literature and the more difficult end of the standard repertoire. Last night, I played a Vaughn Williams piece and the Colgrass, The Winds of Nagual, which is one of my new favorite pieces of music. Next semester, we will be attending the CBDNA National Convention in Austin, Texas.

I have been serving on the CSA board as Vice President of UMKC’s International Trumpet Guild chapter. Since I have been involved, it feels as if the group has finally shed a passive approach to solving students’ problems here, with a “convocation” on the way to becoming a reality, extending computer lab hours, helping to fund students’ competitions and masterclasses, arranging guest speakers, etc. Through the CSA, I have been also serving as the graduate student representative to the faculty curriculum committee, which puts me in an advising role to faculty who decide what it is students have to do to graduate.

As a soloist, I have been working with Kristy (two words: perfect Hindemith. FREAK.) to put together some recital and competition material. I hope to do the ITG competition– it has always been a far-off goal of mine, and the repertoire this year seems quite reasonable but also competitively hard… good choices by the academic trumpet community. We have so far completed some initial recordings of the Hindemith, of which Dr. Benjamin speaks highly, so at least an NTC submission is likely (which often gets paid for by the CSA). Listening to my various submissions last year, I feel I have improved substantially, especially musically. Several issues seem to be getting fixed, but I am also more aware of my strengths. There are lots of things to do, but I believe I am on the right track.

Speaking of music, I am playing every weekend this month. Though not always paid extremely well, I am happy to be playing and that I am getting calls. I will be performing 3rd trumpet with the Lee’s Summit Symphony on their Christmas program next Friday. The vocal department will be performing Bach’s Magnificat, of which I will be playing 2nd trumpet (whew! playing next to Ryan is always fun, per Man of La Mancha, and Jaime on 3rd). This Sunday I will be playing with Chris, Karen, and Jeff at “Mrs. Dr. Elswick”’s church. Finally, I will be playing a Christmas Eve service for more money than I ever thought gigs would pay. All in all, not a bad month. With some luck, thorough preparation, and good playing on my part, even the freebies give me a chance to make a good impression among the directors, other musicians, and innocent bystanders.

Classes went well this semester. I believe I have stamped out some problems I’ve always suffered from in terms of school work. I enjoyed my teacher, Dr. Tyrrell, for Research and Bibliography, and hope to take other classes from her in the future.

I’ve been thinking about how to approach teaching if/when I ever get a job. The first thing on my mind is that I would like very much to take only the amount of students that I can prepare for. That is, I’d like to be prepared for each of my students’ weekly lesson. If it means taking a day off and going through each student’s trumpeting agenda, then that’s what I’d like to do. That way, I am at least as familiar with the lay of the land as the person I am supposed to be teaching. It will also give me the opportunity to familiarize myself with any new repertoire a student might bring in.

The second thing I’ve thought much about pertains to the opening question of this post: how many students play the Hindemith Sonata? Probably most of them. Each one brings something new to the table in terms of challenges and abilities… my idea is to document it. How else can a teacher keep track of the challenges a student overcame and how he or she did it? Why start over each time a student walks through the door with a piece of music? It makes sense to me to address new problems with extensive documentation of old ones. Many students struggle with similar ideas; perhaps it could prove beneficial to go through case study files of previous students and find out what they had trouble with, and how they got through it. Obviously, teachers do this in their head daily, or with notebooks that their students bring with them. But why can’t a teacher augment this approach with his own notes to help understand problems he or she didn’t have to face? For instance, with the Hindemith Sonata, I don’t struggle with endurance. At least, not to the degree of many/most. It stands to reason that I would want to be able to address an endurance problem, despite the fact that it is not my problem.

In my mind, while this may come off somewhat rude (although do let me disclaim myself: this may simply turn out to be what I personally need to do in order to be a competitive teacher… there are many great ones who do not take this approach), I would say that doctors or electricians don’t show up on the job each day flying by the seat of their pants, addressing problems that come up without plans nor cares. Thus, I think it would be fair to say that trumpet teachers should approach their students with the kind of preparation they would expect to be shown to assignments, and with every bit of previous experience immediately accessible for reference. Learning the trumpet is difficult and professional careers seem to favor those from musical families, money, or ridiculous amounts of natural talent, with little chance given to the “average joe” like me. I believe that anybody who cares enough about it should be able to make it, and it would be my job as a teacher to facilitate that. In the words of a rat: Anybody can cook.

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• http://nyphil.org/attend/broadcasts/index.cfm?page=broadcastDetail&broadcastKey=175

Also, some lesson videos of Julliard teacher Mark Gould and Manhattan School of Music professor Vincent Panzarella have made it all the way to YouTube.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0tx3dxOAQo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45YsHqoTiaY&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htGlrb0Y7lk&feature=related

Lastly, Phil Collins has been added to the blogroll. He has some wonderful posts on a variety of topics. From an article intitled “Dealing with Burnout“:

When inspiration runs out, never mind concerto run-throughs. Use the day to polish needed details. For example, drill your trills. They should be clean, in rhythm, and appropriately graceful.

See the entire blog here: http://philstudents.blogspot.com/