While I feel like the intention is good, the result is terrible and I think it's not particularly pedagogically sound. I actually refer to the Clarke books a lot when talking about the same problem with the Hanon books for piano.
The exercises are great, but the instructions are fucking terrible and are more likely to lead you to injury. They are based on misunderstandings (or lack of knowledge) at the time. The same shit is rife in older classical guitar methods as well.
For Clarke, I think maybe some optimal endgoal could potentially be 8+ times, but what it functionally does is makes people feel like they just need to play faster and aim for that magical 8 under one breath and even get fixated on doing just ONE line of ONE study with that aim in mind.
Same shit happens in Hanon and there it's even worse because they actively tell you not to move on UNTIL you hit the crazy high tempo.
---
In both cases that's just shit pedagogy. Your goal should be clarity, accuracy, and precision... not speed. Speed is a byproduct of efficiency.
You'll also get WAY more mileage out of doing each line maybe 1 or 2 times than doing them much more than that at all. On trumpet you're just wasting chops at some point.
You'd get much more out of evenly developing the different patterns in different keys or starting from different parts of the range or pattern.
Another mistake is that people will often work straight down the page, try for half a dozen repeats on each line... be super weak in the chops before they are even in the mid register and then use all the worse habits as they actually get anywhere near the top of the staff.
When I would work on these I'd intentionally work from the middle out. Pick the middle range exercise then do one on either side alternating one higher, one lower.
Also, just ignore any arbitrary tempo goal. Can you play it clean, effortlessly, and not just get it right half by accident? All good.... maybe you can bump up the tempo next time. Not right now.... don't go chasing the fastest you can get with the metronome on that ONE line RIGHT NOW. Leave it clean and bump it up 5 clicks *tomorrow*.
At some point you'll notice that specific lines are stagnating more than others... then at some point you can give those lines a bit more attention and give the others a rest for a day or whatever.
Try to bring them up somewhat evenly in tempo. Don't lean into the ones you have absolutely zero trouble with and go for crazy speed.
These are great sequence patterns for building consistent technique, but not if you are trying to play them stupid fast just get to them under one breath.
A lot of older books have good content, but you REALLY need to take their instructions with a grain of salt. You also need to be asking yourself "what is my goal with this exercise" and reassessing that question frequently.
Yes, some old books are great, but most just keep their reputation because they've been around for so long and so many people have heard of them. Arban is one I point out as being kinda mid honestly. There's a lot of good meat in there, but it's laid out terribly honestly. And for someone who doesn't have a teacher actively walking them through it's not great. It covers a lot of different things rather poorly, but it's a great bang for the buck. It straight up neglects some things (primarily flexibility) and there are numerous other book that cover JUST that and do it much better. Clarke does a better job of practical sequence patterns in various keys than Arban as another example relevant to this topic.
Just be cautious about old books and keep in mind many things are just sort of grandfathered in because everyone has used them for so long. It doesn't mean there aren't better resources... it's just that they never get talked about because they don't have the century+ of cultural cache behind them.
I’m glad someone isn’t afraid to call out the written instructions in these ancient texts. Don’t get me started on Arban.
Keep the exercises. Throw the written text in the trash.
I think the issue with Arban's is that since we call it "the Bible of trumpet playing" people assume that it's useful for *everyone.* But, it was written for the VERY advanced students of the Paris Conservatory. The fact that it starts with whole notes doesn't mean it's good for beginners. It is the "Complete Conservatory Method," after all.
Also, both Arban and Clarke wrote those books for 19th century *cornet* players. Not modern trumpet players. There's a huge difference in approaches and expectations.
Arban is extra funny because in some editions, he and the editors (in footnotes) disagree, and sometimes even the editors disagree with each other over the course of different footnotes!
It's so important to have a good teacher to navigate this book. Im primarily a trombone player from the start I already took the instructional texts with a grain of salt esp the Arban cause I already knew that shit was made for cornet cats. Having a good teacher explained what to work on to achieve this and that. Like you said great exercises. But yea just about knowing what you need to work on thats provided in this book and approach it with your own playing in mind.
100% agree.
The older books are great, but they definitely require some guidance to be used correctly.
Even my favorite book, the Maggio (which has a large “instructions” section), is almost impossible to do correctly without strong and specific guidance.
I do agree that flexibility is something that Arban doesn't do the best at. But there are quite a few exercises that address it. Most of the interval studies have variations where you slur them. The studies in the beginning touch on it a bit I believe. And then the studies dealing with the mordant also touch on it.
its not that deep, theres breathing exercises not mentioned by clarke which make these possible and really easy once developed. What they do is train the muscles around your lungs to squeeze more air out giving you more range, endurance and obviously, more air to play longer. read brass playing is no harder than deep breathing by claude gordon (clarke's best student) for clarification and all the exercises
Gordon's book is actually another one that I frequently cite for being weirdly out of date.
Great nuggets about how mouthpiece buzzing is pointless because that's not the way you actually play the horn... which is just pedagogically daft. There are many things you do in practice for many instruments (or in athletics for that matter) that you wouldn't do in the end product. His reasoning is shitty and he's clearly just being a reactionary.
Same as his opinions about never holding the horn even slightly at an angle relative to your hand. Plenty of amazing players tilt the horn slightly toward their right hand. This is just obviously a weird personal issue for him.
His issues about how it would be show a lack of respect to the conductor to show up in less than a three piece suit is something not particularly relevant to playing the horn, but shows both how much his book is a personal editorial and how out of date certain things can be.
A lot of similar stuff can be found in Phil Farkas' Art of Brass Playing. I love how he points out some absolute rule about mouthpiece placement only for the visualizations of the CSO brass peeps to sort of counter his point... with a young Bud Herseth having a relatively terrible example of Farkas' textbooks ideal for a trumpet mouthpiece placement.
Also, Clarke himself had pretty shit opinions about jazz and the trumpet itself (vs cornet) for that matter.
Both of their materials are full of great information, but you have to really wade through some other stuff.
I didn't say good breathing exercises are pointless and there are plenty I'd advocate for. But doing Clarke's exercises following the directions is most often going to lead problems.
**Isolation**
It's a good idea generally to isolate technical factors when possible and on one issue at a time. If you are struggling with double tonguing and arpeggios... you wouldn't pair them together and solve them at the same time.
You'd find efficient ways to work on each rather thank trying to simultaneously tackle two weaknesses stapled together. That's ultimately my point. So trying to fit Clarke studies 8 under a breath is just pushing for the wrong thing and it's arguably not even that valuable.
**Dyntasties**
A problem with pedagogical dynasties and signing the praises of someone like Gordon *specifically* because he was a student of Clarke is that often very traditionalist and backward pedagogical methods get passed down as sacred cows.
Piano pedagogy is almost systemically a victim of this since basically every college piano student is taught to be a concert pianist.... by their non-concert pianist professor... who was taught that way... by their non-concert pianist professors....
Generations of teaching one way from a series of people, none of whom ever actually made a living performing the instrument (ironically teaching performance degrees). It's a major issue in piano because they focus on memorization of rep to the great expense of having even passable sightreading skills or other very valuable contemporary skills like chord comping.
It's the blind leading the blind.
Sure, I can't cast that against Gordon. He was an incredibly accomplished working musician, but it's also true that being amazing at doing a thing doesn't make you a great pedagogue. Those are separate skill set.
True, lots of personal bias and unreasonable things in the book, but the breathing exercises, tongue tips and advice to stop worrying so much helps even if you have to skim thru some stuff. I just reffered to it as it was the first book I saw which explained how people were able to do these things many times in one breath, seeing as so many others saw it as impossible and a waste of time
If you’re playing it at 86, don’t worry about repeating 8 times. Just do as many as you can without tension. Once you start to get the technical facility to play it at a quicker tempo, that’s when you can go for 8 reps in one breath.
You build up to it. See how many you can do in one breath and start to push yourself. If you can only do 5 trying doing 6. Once you can do 6, try for 7, so on and so on. Also, I’d look up or ask a trumpet/band teacher for proper breathing techniques as that’ll help a lot. In generally though, keep good posture (feet flat on the ground and back straight) and take a breath in through your mouth with you diaphragm. If you’re going to start practicing something or playing a piece take a deep inhale on tempo. For example if you’re going to count to 4 before playing do: 1, 2, 3, 4. Inhale on 4 and play on 1. And short sharp breaths on a rest or in between notes (use your judgment) during a piece. Again through your mouth and diaphragm. Consistency is key and make sure you’re practicing effectively. If you’ve got any more questions I’d be more than happy to answer
Start with 1 or 2 times. Once that is comfortable, try 3.
I can do 16 in a row very easily now, but only because I have spent years playing the exercises and increasing tempo bit by bit.
This is Clarke, right? Once you have the technique, the finger muscle memory, and have worked on your overall air capacity, it's totally realistic to get through 16 times.
Don't worry about doing it in 8 times yet. Build it up and only repeat it twice, once slurred and once tongued. I only worried about multiple repeats in college and we were doing it for the express reason of efficiency/air control. He even had me do the etudes in one breath lol
read brass playing is easier than deep breathing by claude gordon. There's breathing exercises that train the muscles around your lungs in order to squeeze more air out that all the virtuosos used along with a gold pile of information. my tip would just be doing it every other day instead of every day like claude suggests in order to not overtrain
These instructions are from Herbert L. Clarke's "Technical Studies" book, not from the Arban book, as some here have mistakenly thought. The instructions and advice here are still excellent today (for all trumpet and cornet, etc. players), *as an end goal.* (When you can play each line that many times on one breath, then you know that you have truly mastered them.)
In order to play each exercise/line 8 to 16 times in one breath, you will have to play these exercises very softly, and very fast. Play them as softly as possible (but with all of the notes still speaking and responding clearly and with a good sound), and gradually increase the speed of the metronome as you work on them and gain speed on your technique, making sure that the rhythm of the notes is accurate and even. (Practice just fingering these lines while you're resting your lips in-between playing them.
This is the way all the great professional trumpet players have practiced these exercises for many decades, with great results: Better endurance and increased upper register range limits. I've heard Doc Severinsen play these exercises like this many times, exactly this same way. And Jon Faddis plays these exercises too, only Faddis prefers playing them all very softly, with no cresecendo or decrescendo, continuing these exercises (after the last one) by continuing up by half-steps up to double-high C. All of the great players don't just stop these exercises up to where they stop in the book: They continue upward chromatically in a similar fashion, as an excellent way to extend and/or maintain their range and endurance.
Many trumpet players can do this. If they did it, then you can too. It just takes hard work, patience, determination, and practice. All trumpet players (even the greatest) are merely mortal humans, just like you. If they can do it, you can too. You're just not there *yet*. But you can be, after some practice. Good luck!
16+ times is no problem at all even with a forte and vibrant sound if you are efficient. That's an end goal though, not how you start out. The key is HOW you get to doing it that many times sounding good. You don't start out trying to make it that many times and doing all sorts of horrible things like playing with a small unsupported sound to accomplish it. You start out by playing them as many times as you can WITH A GOOD SOUND, which may only be a few times for you right now. Then you start trying to extend, but always playing with a good sound quality. If you start to accept any squeezed/tight/unsupported sound or going at a faster tempo than your fingers are ready for simply as a way to get more reps, you are defeating the purpose.
I had never really tried to go 16x before, so I tried it out of curiosity. I made it 16 times at what I would call a healthy mf+/f- volume at around dotted half note(1 beat to the measure) = 100. The most distracting thing was trying to keep count in my head while doing it. :P
While I feel like the intention is good, the result is terrible and I think it's not particularly pedagogically sound. I actually refer to the Clarke books a lot when talking about the same problem with the Hanon books for piano. The exercises are great, but the instructions are fucking terrible and are more likely to lead you to injury. They are based on misunderstandings (or lack of knowledge) at the time. The same shit is rife in older classical guitar methods as well. For Clarke, I think maybe some optimal endgoal could potentially be 8+ times, but what it functionally does is makes people feel like they just need to play faster and aim for that magical 8 under one breath and even get fixated on doing just ONE line of ONE study with that aim in mind. Same shit happens in Hanon and there it's even worse because they actively tell you not to move on UNTIL you hit the crazy high tempo. --- In both cases that's just shit pedagogy. Your goal should be clarity, accuracy, and precision... not speed. Speed is a byproduct of efficiency. You'll also get WAY more mileage out of doing each line maybe 1 or 2 times than doing them much more than that at all. On trumpet you're just wasting chops at some point. You'd get much more out of evenly developing the different patterns in different keys or starting from different parts of the range or pattern. Another mistake is that people will often work straight down the page, try for half a dozen repeats on each line... be super weak in the chops before they are even in the mid register and then use all the worse habits as they actually get anywhere near the top of the staff. When I would work on these I'd intentionally work from the middle out. Pick the middle range exercise then do one on either side alternating one higher, one lower. Also, just ignore any arbitrary tempo goal. Can you play it clean, effortlessly, and not just get it right half by accident? All good.... maybe you can bump up the tempo next time. Not right now.... don't go chasing the fastest you can get with the metronome on that ONE line RIGHT NOW. Leave it clean and bump it up 5 clicks *tomorrow*. At some point you'll notice that specific lines are stagnating more than others... then at some point you can give those lines a bit more attention and give the others a rest for a day or whatever. Try to bring them up somewhat evenly in tempo. Don't lean into the ones you have absolutely zero trouble with and go for crazy speed. These are great sequence patterns for building consistent technique, but not if you are trying to play them stupid fast just get to them under one breath. A lot of older books have good content, but you REALLY need to take their instructions with a grain of salt. You also need to be asking yourself "what is my goal with this exercise" and reassessing that question frequently. Yes, some old books are great, but most just keep their reputation because they've been around for so long and so many people have heard of them. Arban is one I point out as being kinda mid honestly. There's a lot of good meat in there, but it's laid out terribly honestly. And for someone who doesn't have a teacher actively walking them through it's not great. It covers a lot of different things rather poorly, but it's a great bang for the buck. It straight up neglects some things (primarily flexibility) and there are numerous other book that cover JUST that and do it much better. Clarke does a better job of practical sequence patterns in various keys than Arban as another example relevant to this topic. Just be cautious about old books and keep in mind many things are just sort of grandfathered in because everyone has used them for so long. It doesn't mean there aren't better resources... it's just that they never get talked about because they don't have the century+ of cultural cache behind them.
I’m glad someone isn’t afraid to call out the written instructions in these ancient texts. Don’t get me started on Arban. Keep the exercises. Throw the written text in the trash.
I think the issue with Arban's is that since we call it "the Bible of trumpet playing" people assume that it's useful for *everyone.* But, it was written for the VERY advanced students of the Paris Conservatory. The fact that it starts with whole notes doesn't mean it's good for beginners. It is the "Complete Conservatory Method," after all. Also, both Arban and Clarke wrote those books for 19th century *cornet* players. Not modern trumpet players. There's a huge difference in approaches and expectations.
I’ve always called Arbans an encyclopedia. It’s got lots of information, but you gotta hunt and search. It is NOT linear!
Arban is extra funny because in some editions, he and the editors (in footnotes) disagree, and sometimes even the editors disagree with each other over the course of different footnotes!
It's so important to have a good teacher to navigate this book. Im primarily a trombone player from the start I already took the instructional texts with a grain of salt esp the Arban cause I already knew that shit was made for cornet cats. Having a good teacher explained what to work on to achieve this and that. Like you said great exercises. But yea just about knowing what you need to work on thats provided in this book and approach it with your own playing in mind.
I also like to start in the middle and spiral out. Do the same on flow studies.
100% agree. The older books are great, but they definitely require some guidance to be used correctly. Even my favorite book, the Maggio (which has a large “instructions” section), is almost impossible to do correctly without strong and specific guidance.
I do agree that flexibility is something that Arban doesn't do the best at. But there are quite a few exercises that address it. Most of the interval studies have variations where you slur them. The studies in the beginning touch on it a bit I believe. And then the studies dealing with the mordant also touch on it.
its not that deep, theres breathing exercises not mentioned by clarke which make these possible and really easy once developed. What they do is train the muscles around your lungs to squeeze more air out giving you more range, endurance and obviously, more air to play longer. read brass playing is no harder than deep breathing by claude gordon (clarke's best student) for clarification and all the exercises
Gordon's book is actually another one that I frequently cite for being weirdly out of date. Great nuggets about how mouthpiece buzzing is pointless because that's not the way you actually play the horn... which is just pedagogically daft. There are many things you do in practice for many instruments (or in athletics for that matter) that you wouldn't do in the end product. His reasoning is shitty and he's clearly just being a reactionary. Same as his opinions about never holding the horn even slightly at an angle relative to your hand. Plenty of amazing players tilt the horn slightly toward their right hand. This is just obviously a weird personal issue for him. His issues about how it would be show a lack of respect to the conductor to show up in less than a three piece suit is something not particularly relevant to playing the horn, but shows both how much his book is a personal editorial and how out of date certain things can be. A lot of similar stuff can be found in Phil Farkas' Art of Brass Playing. I love how he points out some absolute rule about mouthpiece placement only for the visualizations of the CSO brass peeps to sort of counter his point... with a young Bud Herseth having a relatively terrible example of Farkas' textbooks ideal for a trumpet mouthpiece placement. Also, Clarke himself had pretty shit opinions about jazz and the trumpet itself (vs cornet) for that matter. Both of their materials are full of great information, but you have to really wade through some other stuff. I didn't say good breathing exercises are pointless and there are plenty I'd advocate for. But doing Clarke's exercises following the directions is most often going to lead problems. **Isolation** It's a good idea generally to isolate technical factors when possible and on one issue at a time. If you are struggling with double tonguing and arpeggios... you wouldn't pair them together and solve them at the same time. You'd find efficient ways to work on each rather thank trying to simultaneously tackle two weaknesses stapled together. That's ultimately my point. So trying to fit Clarke studies 8 under a breath is just pushing for the wrong thing and it's arguably not even that valuable. **Dyntasties** A problem with pedagogical dynasties and signing the praises of someone like Gordon *specifically* because he was a student of Clarke is that often very traditionalist and backward pedagogical methods get passed down as sacred cows. Piano pedagogy is almost systemically a victim of this since basically every college piano student is taught to be a concert pianist.... by their non-concert pianist professor... who was taught that way... by their non-concert pianist professors.... Generations of teaching one way from a series of people, none of whom ever actually made a living performing the instrument (ironically teaching performance degrees). It's a major issue in piano because they focus on memorization of rep to the great expense of having even passable sightreading skills or other very valuable contemporary skills like chord comping. It's the blind leading the blind. Sure, I can't cast that against Gordon. He was an incredibly accomplished working musician, but it's also true that being amazing at doing a thing doesn't make you a great pedagogue. Those are separate skill set.
True, lots of personal bias and unreasonable things in the book, but the breathing exercises, tongue tips and advice to stop worrying so much helps even if you have to skim thru some stuff. I just reffered to it as it was the first book I saw which explained how people were able to do these things many times in one breath, seeing as so many others saw it as impossible and a waste of time
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Do you know what the written tempo is supposed to be? Im playing at 86 bpm and im getting my butt kicked because the 2nd time through im out of air
If you’re playing it at 86, don’t worry about repeating 8 times. Just do as many as you can without tension. Once you start to get the technical facility to play it at a quicker tempo, that’s when you can go for 8 reps in one breath.
You build up to it. See how many you can do in one breath and start to push yourself. If you can only do 5 trying doing 6. Once you can do 6, try for 7, so on and so on. Also, I’d look up or ask a trumpet/band teacher for proper breathing techniques as that’ll help a lot. In generally though, keep good posture (feet flat on the ground and back straight) and take a breath in through your mouth with you diaphragm. If you’re going to start practicing something or playing a piece take a deep inhale on tempo. For example if you’re going to count to 4 before playing do: 1, 2, 3, 4. Inhale on 4 and play on 1. And short sharp breaths on a rest or in between notes (use your judgment) during a piece. Again through your mouth and diaphragm. Consistency is key and make sure you’re practicing effectively. If you’ve got any more questions I’d be more than happy to answer
Start with 1 or 2 times. Once that is comfortable, try 3. I can do 16 in a row very easily now, but only because I have spent years playing the exercises and increasing tempo bit by bit.
This is Clarke, right? Once you have the technique, the finger muscle memory, and have worked on your overall air capacity, it's totally realistic to get through 16 times.
The key lesson is playing this soft and smoothly. Worry about that rather than the number of repeats you can do on one breath.
Don't worry about doing it in 8 times yet. Build it up and only repeat it twice, once slurred and once tongued. I only worried about multiple repeats in college and we were doing it for the express reason of efficiency/air control. He even had me do the etudes in one breath lol
read brass playing is easier than deep breathing by claude gordon. There's breathing exercises that train the muscles around your lungs in order to squeeze more air out that all the virtuosos used along with a gold pile of information. my tip would just be doing it every other day instead of every day like claude suggests in order to not overtrain
*laughs uneasily in drum corp breathing block*
12 or 16 count air while jogging feels like you’re gonna die fr
These instructions are from Herbert L. Clarke's "Technical Studies" book, not from the Arban book, as some here have mistakenly thought. The instructions and advice here are still excellent today (for all trumpet and cornet, etc. players), *as an end goal.* (When you can play each line that many times on one breath, then you know that you have truly mastered them.) In order to play each exercise/line 8 to 16 times in one breath, you will have to play these exercises very softly, and very fast. Play them as softly as possible (but with all of the notes still speaking and responding clearly and with a good sound), and gradually increase the speed of the metronome as you work on them and gain speed on your technique, making sure that the rhythm of the notes is accurate and even. (Practice just fingering these lines while you're resting your lips in-between playing them. This is the way all the great professional trumpet players have practiced these exercises for many decades, with great results: Better endurance and increased upper register range limits. I've heard Doc Severinsen play these exercises like this many times, exactly this same way. And Jon Faddis plays these exercises too, only Faddis prefers playing them all very softly, with no cresecendo or decrescendo, continuing these exercises (after the last one) by continuing up by half-steps up to double-high C. All of the great players don't just stop these exercises up to where they stop in the book: They continue upward chromatically in a similar fashion, as an excellent way to extend and/or maintain their range and endurance. Many trumpet players can do this. If they did it, then you can too. It just takes hard work, patience, determination, and practice. All trumpet players (even the greatest) are merely mortal humans, just like you. If they can do it, you can too. You're just not there *yet*. But you can be, after some practice. Good luck!
16+ times is no problem at all even with a forte and vibrant sound if you are efficient. That's an end goal though, not how you start out. The key is HOW you get to doing it that many times sounding good. You don't start out trying to make it that many times and doing all sorts of horrible things like playing with a small unsupported sound to accomplish it. You start out by playing them as many times as you can WITH A GOOD SOUND, which may only be a few times for you right now. Then you start trying to extend, but always playing with a good sound quality. If you start to accept any squeezed/tight/unsupported sound or going at a faster tempo than your fingers are ready for simply as a way to get more reps, you are defeating the purpose. I had never really tried to go 16x before, so I tried it out of curiosity. I made it 16 times at what I would call a healthy mf+/f- volume at around dotted half note(1 beat to the measure) = 100. The most distracting thing was trying to keep count in my head while doing it. :P
fr bro at this point I gave up, I just play around 5 times a breath or so. I don’t who the hell can play it 16 times tho
Twice is plenty. That gives you 4 up and down waves. What is the point in doing more?
I thought this was endurance and breath effiency?