It is my sincere wish to reach out into the usually competitive "world of trumpeters" with a new and open approach and a sincerely friendly and truly collegial attitude. In an attempt to communicate in a truly cooperative way, we sincerely wish to offer usefull professional advise to help you with your specific personal and individual trumpet- playing needs. This is not a kind of "Trumpet Forum" form, entertaining negative opinions nor unqualified criticisms but much more an attempt to offer "online- consulting" on a "one on one" basis for serious trumpeters and this for both ernest amateurs and full-professionals alike.
I have had the very special personal opportunity and enjoyable experience of helping hundreds of sincerely interested trumpeting musicians "world-wide" through this new web-site, freely giving answers to their questions and offering realistic suggestions regarding day to day playing problems. If you have a problem or questions please feel free go to "Contact" to leave/ask your question.
My goal or "vision" with La Tromba is to give serious help not only regarding mouthpiece choice or trumpet purchase as one might expect from any business web-site of this sort, but much more importantly serious suggestions regarding long term improvements in your playing!! And to impart information as to how to approach the trumpet more naturally and ideally more "musicaly".
Offering reasonable and most importantly logically workable solutions as how to solve problems: from breathing to emboucher, range to endurance, articuation to tonal quality and even general advise regarding the importance of basic playing-posture or "how to practise more efficiently and effectively" is my sincere intention with this web-site.
All of my suggestions and answers intended for your improvement are (of course) based on my personal experince,... that which I have gathered over my over forty years of both Professional Concert performing career as well as both a Private and College Level teacher and this in an International context. Simple ideas like making the choice of the right size and kind of mouthpiece to do a specific playing job (...i.e. often quite comparable to chosing the right size and kind of sport shoe to play a specific sport) are often necessary and seemingly very obvious. Never the less they often harbor many pitfalls borne from misconceptions. Can you imagine trying to play Basket Ball or Tennis with Soccer shoes(!?) and these perhaps in a too small a size say: a 41 when you need a size 45 (or Visa- Vi) !!! Well this kind of thing happens often enough, believe you me! An interesting perspective from a famous colleague:
The past master Big- Band and Combo "Jazz"er Bobby Shew put it another and interesting way during an EBA (European Brass Academy) Masterclass here at the La Tromba Studio in Germany a few years ago: He said when answering a students question put to him about the "need" (or better put preferrence) to change mouthpieces to a "HJ"/ High Jazz- Cup-depth to play in the extreme high range for "Lead"-playing in Big-Bands and then back to a regular cup to play more tonally expressive improvised Solos., Bobby said "...Mouthpieces are simple tools of the trade, man. You don't use a screw- driver when you need to use a hammer, do you?"... Well put Mr. Shew and very easy for anyone to understand!
But talk about "equiment" may be important for some but it all to often takes one away from more imnportant topics, like musical phrasing in a style, articulation and inflections and tone variablities and most generally ways of sinply making a phrase really "sing"!
Since besides answering questions as to the technical aspects of Trumpet playing, (even quoting well put perspectives and insights from other musicians), I am more than willing and infact most interested in helping you with your specific questions regarding musical interpertation, presentation, offering basic tried and true solutions to other more subtile problems that many have and are unaware of.
Helping with solutions as to performing without a stage fright or a "fear of failure", that is: entertaining ideas and methods to both allow a more personally satisfying and professionally successfull performances (in both the recording studio and in front of a large and even small "live"- Concert audiences is something that one finds little help nor infop about . In fact it is my experienece that most trumpeters find it more difficult to perform before a smaller more personal audience than a larger one!
The very successful Trumpet Professor Mr. Dutot (teacher of amoung other excellent students, the young and exceptionaly talented Trumpeter and Hornist David Gerrier of of the National Orchestra of France) said in a discussion at the Eurpean Trumpet Conference in Bad Säckingen in 2001 " for me there are there are no problems,... only solutions!"
So please feel free to ask and I'll give you my read on a solution to the problem at hand AND if I don't have a solution suggest someone I know who perhaps does! (Maybe Bobby maybe Pierre, many be someone else all together because it's as I told my son Sean, when he was just five years old, "no one knows everything Seany, but if you me a little time I'll eiether find out who knows the answer to your question and let you know, or better still help you find your own answer yourself!")
Through this site I/we wish of course to also to show you our exclusive line of Hand-MadeLa TrombaProfessional-Modeltrumpets, cornets and flugelhorns and as well as be introduce our completely new (2008) series of afforably priced, and yet very high quality La Tromba Student- Modeltrumpets, cornets and fluegelhorns, all under the heading: Trumpets.
We will also be presenting our ever expanding La Tromba Mouthpiece Line, (turned on state of the artCNC computer controled lathes) with models ranging from Baroque- Trumpet mouthpieces over our Classical , Romantic and ModernPiston- Valve Trumpet, Cornet and Fluegelhorn mouthpieces to Romantic and ModernRotary-Valve (German Trumpet) models through to our various Piccolo-trumpet and Big-Band and HJ / "High-Jazz" Lead- Trumpet models. These you may find under all under the heading: Mouthpieces. Added to this we will be offering an ever increasing selection of both re-mastered and all new La Tromba produced Printed Music andSolo-TrumpetCDsas well as various Ensemble CD recordings ranging from the Baroque over the Classic and the Romantic to the Modern and even contemporary Contempoary and Experimental Jazz as well as other developing "Modern" musical idioms.
In the sections Methodology and European Brass Academy we will once again inform you about current perfomance and developing teaching methods as well as give you information about our own EBA Masterclass organisation including information regarding our Guest-Professors: internationally acclaimed perfomers and teachers of not only the trumpet but of all of the instruments of the brass family and this not only in the Classical music idiom but all the various kinds of brass music from Baroque to Brass Band and Blues to Big- Band and as well as the many other other musical idioms possible to perform (and study!) on brass instruments today.
We thank you for visiting our website hope that you will visit us again in the very near future!
Richard Carson Steuart
for La Tromba Music Productions, Germany