Joe Alessi Master Class Quotes (Part 2 of 3)

Here is the second installment of quotes from Joe Alessi's wonderful master class at Towson University last week.  If you missed it, you can read the first part here.

• "A lot of young players see a crescendo and just play loud.  Let's hold back and be very gradual."
   

• "I want you to play every note with more tone."
   

• "A new term I use is "constipation of air".  We can take the air in but we can't get it out."
   

• "There's a thing called being relentless about practicing."
   

• "I like to stay on the top 50% of my air supply."
   

• "It takes a really intelligent person to practice really slowly and say 'this is what's good for me.'"
   

• "If you have to take a breath in an awkward place like that you should always relax the note before it."
   

• "The further away your hand gets from your brain, the more difficult (the trombone) gets."
   

• "That's a really rich sound.  Now you have to figure out what to do with it."
   

• "With the trombone, you have to make more variations with your style and attacks.  You're not being creative with different ways to say things."
   

• "You have to be careful with a trombone because it can resemble a car horn.  You have to give your sound some flexibility.  Rather than laying on the horn you have to give it some beauty.  It's all might right now."
   

• "Your articulation is almost too good.  You're really tonguing the pants off of it.  You have to have a little more sensitivity in your style."
   

• "You have to have more fun with it.....do something unusual."
   

• "With my teacher growing up, if you didn't have a good release, you'd have to sit there and think about it for a while."
   

• "When you play fast try to lighten up.  Playing heavy while playing fast is like driving a Cadillac fast on a windy road.  You want to drive something smaller."
   

• "Do it again.  You're being too careful.  Just have fun."
   

• "Spend a lot of time getting into a passage so you know every square inch of it."
   

• "On a word in the music: Always go with the adjectives that you are supposed to do.  It's like a clue."
   

• "Anything that involves 5th position is hard.  The problem with 5th position is that people don't trust that it has to go out that far."
   

• "There are two types of playing: detached and non-detached."

Joe Alessi Master Class Quotes (Part 1 of 3)

Last week the principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic, Joe Alessi, gave a fantastic master class at Towson University.  He is easily one of the best musicians I have ever had the privilege of working with and I learn something every time I hear him either perform or speak about music.

Check out this Joe Alessi interview I did with Lance LaDuke for The Brass Junkies.

I knew that I was going to get a lot of great material from a two and a half hour master class but the amount of information that I left with exceeded my very high expectations.  Joe is a rare person who is so highly accomplished on both the playing and teaching sides of our industry.

A special thank you to Craig Mulcahy for giving me the heads up about the class the day of and to the two students at George Mason who rescheduled their lessons so that I could make the trip up to Maryland.  I am very happy that I made it!

I was able to get so many great quotes from this class that I will post them in three parts over the course of the week.  I attempted to write them down verbatim but did not record the class so there unintentionally might be some slight variations to his wordings.  If there are any discrepancies it is his own fault because he kept making great points! I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.

Be sure to also check out Part 2 and Part 3.

• "I'm always trying to find new ways to do something."
   

• "Sometimes you revisit old concepts and change them slightly."
   

• "To play a brass instrument well is a very simple process.  To play one badly is very complicated."
   

• "Try to find a good model breath that has nothing to do with playing and instrument, like a sigh."
   

• "Take a breathing event that relaxes you and model your playing after that."
   

• "People often ask me for a quick fix on how to get better.  Here's one: anytime you pick up your instrument during the day, which should hopefully be 7 or 8 times a day, play one note that's the most beautiful note you can.  And not just a quarter note but three or four beats.  Then just clone it over and over."
   

• "The first 10 minutes you play in a day is how you play the rest of the day."
   

• "The more I play the more quickly I have discoveries about my playing."
   

• "A lot of practicing can be done away from the instrument."
   

• "You gotta be able to sing it and conduct it.  When you know how something is supposed to go, when you pick up your instrument, you can make that happen."
   

• "In high school I was a practice nut about fundamentals."
   

• "If something is simple and slow, I try to find something interesting about it."
   

• "When listening to entrance exams at Juilliard and the New York Phil I look for even playing and consist tone.  Consistent pitch and consistent rhythm."
   

• "Consistency is what you practice when you are in the practice room."
   

• "When playing orchestrally there is a certain way you have to play and that's to have an immediate attack."
   

• "An accent looks like a small diminuendo.  What you're playing is a reverse diminuendo."
   

• "You need to record everything you do."
   

• "You need to document everything you do and you need to listen to it.  I don't care if it's three notes.  Record it.  No, I'm serious."
   

• "If you play a jury, record it.  If you take an audition, ask the people if you can record it."

A Great Example of a Professional Setting Goals

Setting goals is an absolutely essential part of becoming a great musician.  I discussed this subject in a previous post over the summer.  Every professional musician I know sets goals for themselves.  It is simply an imperative part of the job. I have found through the years that it is easy to get students to understand the importance of setting goals.  The challenge is getting them to understand how to go about it.  Lance LaDuke, the trombone/euphonium for Boston Brass, wrote a great post on the S.M.A.R.T. system of setting goals.  He does a great job in that post of describing in detail exactly what you need to do to set goals effectively.  As his colleague, I have seen him put this system to good use to improve both his playing and his other business ventures.

A fantastic blog post by Lauren Veronie really caught my attention this week and got me thinking about setting goals again.  Lauren plays the euphonium in the US Army Field Band and is a wonderful player.  She has a number of solo performances coming up in the near future for which she is currently preparing.  In her recent blog post she discusses in detail the passages that she is practicing and exactly what she is trying to improve.

I am impressed with the specificity of her goals.  She has identified the problem, stated a specific finish line and decided how she is going to get there.  I think this is a great example for all students of how to set goals.

But be sure to keep something in mind: she's already got a gig! If you are in music school or taking auditions right now you must understand that it takes planning and goal setting like this to win a job.

If you aren't preparing with this kind of intensity someone is somewhere.

Marty Hackleman Quotes from 2011 Master Class at George Mason University

Last night, Professor Marty Hackleman gave an amazing master class at George Mason University.  Marty is the principal horn of the National Symphony and a former member of both the Empire Brass and the Canadian Brass.  In my opinion, he is one of the premier teachers and performers that the brass world has ever known. I have put a few of the quotes that really spoke loudly to me in bold.  What quotes jump out at you? Please comment with your favorite quote and how it relates to your playing.

Here are the highlights from the class:

• "It's not that you work, it's how you work."
   

• "How simple can you make the problem?  How simple can you make the solution?"
   

• "We don't see the causes.  We see the symptoms."
   

• "All that you want to do is make it slightly better than yesterday but not as good as tomorrow.  And you enjoy the chase."
   

• "When you do a daily routine, don't sit in front of the TV wasting your time."
   

• "Think of your routine as a physical brass mediation.  Enjoy the time alone."
   

• "The routine is a question of how you play and not what you play."
   

• "A lot of times when you have a problem with your playing and you think you know the solution try the exact opposite.  85% of the time it will work.  And that comes from personal experience."
   

• "I only breathe as much as I need when I'm warming up and I focus on quality over quantity.  But if you're playing a different instrument, like the tuba, it may be different."
   

• "It is more important to practice efficiently than a lot of inefficient practicing.  If you don't feel like it, stop.  Get a cup of coffee and then come back.  Then suck it up and make yourself feel like it for even 15 minutes."
   

• "Even if you can play your ass off, try to make it easier."
   

• "Make it as simple, natural and easy as you can."
   

• "Don't save the high notes until the end of your routine.  They shouldn't be that precious.  They should be a natural extension of everything else."
   

• "I failed first.  Everybody failed first.  But do you stop at failure?"
   

• "You'll be surprised that if you ask yourself to do something regularly, you'll find a solution."
   

• "If tension is creeping into your playing, your routine is where you find that out, not in rehearsal or in performance."
   

• "Support isn't caused by air.  They are separate things."
   

• "You want to use your routine to make yourself better, not just make yourself functional."
   

• "I know (my routine) works because at almost 60 years old I believe I can play better than I've ever played in my life.  And it's not luck.  I promise you."
   

• "First thing is you have to make sure that your horn sounds like what's in your head."
   

• "You have to be more responsible about being a musician and not just a horn player."
   

• "We make crescendos and we don't come all the way back.  If you come all the way back you have somewhere to go again."

Thank you Marty for such an insightful class! Everyone is welcome to attend his next class, free of charge, on Monday April 4th at 7:30pm at George Mason University.