Warren Deck Master Class Quotes (Part 1 of 2)

Back in April of 2015 I was honored to do a music business presentation at the Northeast Regional Tuba Euphonium Conference at Ithaca College hosted by Aaron Tindall. The lineup was better than some of the national conferences I've attended and it was an honor to be a part of it.

One of the real treats of that week was getting to attend a master class by former New York Philharmonic tuba player Warren Deck. I had a lesson with him in his New Jersey basement back in 1992 but hadn't been exposed to his teaching since then.

Warren is one of the all-time great tuba players and teachers. He is that rare combination of superb player and phenomenal teacher. I love these quotes and glad that I remembered that I was sitting on them!

You can find part two here.

• A great writer has a really huge vocabulary and by using that they can evoke a wide range of emotions by their choice of words.
• Musicians manipulate audiences emotions. They willingly pay to be taken on a journey.
• I advocate that people commune with the page. Ask 'what is this composer trying to tell me through this archaic notation system?'
• How many different ways can you say the word hi?
• How can we change little things to find just the right inflection when we play?
• Think of different interpretations as saying the same things with different accents.
• The same person might play things completely differently depending on the acoustical settings.
• An actor acting to the back of a hall would look ridiculous doing the same thing for a camera right in their face.
• I was always chasing the tuba in my head.
• Can I articulate a note any way I want at any dynamic?
• I found that the louder I played the harder I tended to tongue. I needed dynamics and articulations to function separately.
• The difference between ta and da is compression.
• I took (the relationship between dynamics and articulation) and was able to practice an Arban's exercise much more mindfully.
• I want to be able to change octaves where my air thinks it's one note.
• The older I get the more I admire Gil Johnson for his ability to phrase and soar.
• I just heard a person who has had a good deal of success with auditions say that they learned how to play their instrument before they learned excerpts.

Stefan Dohr: Monday YouTube Fix

Stefan Dohr is the Principal Horn for the Berlin Philharmonic and is considered one of the great players in the world for good reason.

Here is a short clip of him playing the famous horn solo from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 with the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Claudio Abbado.

Stunningly beautiful.

Enjoy!

Piotr Czajkowski: 5 symfonia, cz.II - Stefan Dohr. Berliner Philharmoniker, dyr. Claudio Abbado

The Brass Junkies: Dan Gosling

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Lance and I recently sat down with trumpet player and entrepreneur Dan Gosling for a really fascinating interview for The Brass Junkies. Dan invented a lip balm called ChopSaver in his kitchen when he decided he could make a better product than what was on the market.

It is now sold in over 7,000 CVS stores. Say what?

Dan explains the whole journey from trumpet player who couldn't quite land the right gig to being a mad scientist in his kitchen to having his product distributed throughout the entire country. Pretty fascinating stuff!

Website:

ChopSaver

Links:

Facebook
Paige's Music
@chopsaver
@chopsaverguy
YouTube

#savemychops

You can help offset the costs of producing the show by making a small donation athttps://www.patreon.com/thebrassjunkies. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Produced by Austin Boyer and Buddy Deshler of FredBrass.

Anne Sophie-Mutter: Monday YouTube Fix

I heard Anne Sophie-Mutter perform a number of times at Tanglewood when I was a student there. Her musicianship and command over the violin are both great.

This is a wonderful performance and interpretation of the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 featuring Anne Sophie-Mutter accompanied by Camerata Salzburg.

Enjoy!

Watch Anne Sophie-Mutter perform Mozart's Violin Concerto # 3 at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX4cYb3fw1Y Mozart's last violin concerto in A major, K.219 exquisitely performed by the renowned Anne Sophie-Mutter. She is once again backed up by the Camerata Salzburg Orchestra. 1.Allegro Aperto - Adagio - Allegro Aperto 2.Adagio 3.Rondeau - Tempo di Minuetto

The Best Practicing Advice I've Ever Heard

Five words:

Put your damn phone away.

Marty Hackleman: Monday YouTube Fix

When I was a kid I had this poster of Marty Hackleman with the Empire Brass up in my room:

One of the great brass quintet albums of all time.

So needless to say, the first time I got to perform with Marty (in a brass quintet that also featured Jens Lindemann, Kevin Gebo and Joe Alessi!) I was over the moon excited.

This recording of Marty performing Richard Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 2 live in 1992 makes me actually laugh out loud in a few places. He is just a stunning musician.

If you haven't heard it already you can find our interview with Marty for The Brass Junkies podcast below the YouTube clip.

You can also find some incredible quotes from two different master classes that Marty did at George Mason here:

• 2010 George Mason University
• 2011 George Mason University

Enjoy this phenomenal performance of the Strauss Horn Concerto No. 2!

This video is about Martin Hackleman live Strauss 2 1992

The Brass Junkies: David Zerkel

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David Zerkel is someone I look up to in the tuba world for a number of reasons. First of all, he does things as a soloist on the tuba that simultaneously inspire and depress me! He is a true master technician but that fact completely takes a back seat to his artistry. He is a world class player in every sense of the term.

But I also look up to David as a teacher. He is incredibly well spoken and has the ability to always be teaching whoever is in front of him.

You'll hear in this interview what I mean in this interview of The Brass Junkies.

Note: You can find an incredible collection of David Zerkel quotes from a master class he gave at George Mason here:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Website:

David Zerkel UGA

Links:

Tuba/Euph at UGA
Brass Band of Battle Creek

You can help offset the costs of producing the show by making a small donation at https://www.patreon.com/thebrassjunkies. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Produced by Austin Boyer and Buddy Deshler of FredBrass.

Lance LaDuke Discusses How He Prepared for his Successful US Air Force Band Audition

A few years ago Boston Brass came to where I teach, George Mason, to rehearse for a few days before our season started. After a performance for the school. my former Boston Brass colleague Lance LaDuke took the time to come to the lesson of one of my graduate euphonium players.

My student began questioning Lance about how he went about winning a job with the United States Air Force Band in Washington DC. Within a few minutes I realized that the content was gold and started recording.

Lance goes into great detail about his successful audition preparations. Talk about a guy with a plan that he executed over and over again over time.

This is a master class on sight reading, goal setting, time management, practice technique, and many, many more things.

This is a must listen for anyone preparing for any professional audition on any instrument.  After listening to his preparation process, it is easy to see why he won.

Below are the quotes that stood out to me for one reason or another, although there are far too many to include all of the good ones.

• "I personally don't like playing out of the Barbara Payne book because I like to see the band parts. I assume that when I show up they're going to make me play off of a regular part."
• "There were going to be things that were out of my control. Everything that was in my control I was going to prepare for."
• "Every day, 7 days a week, my job from 9 pm to 3 am was getting ready."
• "I was intense from 9 until 3 but it wasn't all horn on the face time. So whenever my face would get tired I would do score study."
• "If you're not in tune and in time, you're not going to win."
• "It's way harder to get a gig than to keep a gig."
• "You've got to be fearless."
• "On one hand, you have to play like your life depends on getting the gig. And on the other hand, you have to play like you don't care if you get the gig."
• "You have a bigger advantage because you're (in DC.) You can drive over and listen to these bands."
• "I always pushed sight reading to last. When I was completely shot and tired and wanted to go to bed, that's when I did sight reading."
• "The rules for me for sight reading were I wasn't allowed to stop and when in doubt play the rhythms."
• "If I knew the key and knew the roadmap, all I'd focus on were the rhythms and following the shape of the line."
• "If you are sight reading and do the stutter thing, I'm faced with a question: Is this guy doing this because he's uncomfortable with the piece or because his time sucks?"
• "I was strong as an ox. I could play all day."
• "Make sure you can play swing style. Make sure you can play funk and make sure you can play rock."
• "If you can't play popular styles it's nice that you can play marches, but it isn't just about the marches. You have to be able to sound credible on all that stuff."
• "Basically I just learned how my body reacts under pressure, how my mind reacts under pressure, and how do I prepare for that."
• "I had 18 different ways to chill myself out if I got stressed."
• "I did 50 successful auditions (in my mind) before the actual audition."
• "My favorite book at the time on performance anxiety was 'Notes from the Green Room'."
• "What are your triggers and how does your body react?"
• "Who in the industry do I know that I can go talk to?"
• "Make sure you're at every minute of the Army Band Tuba Conference because it's free."
• "Tell them 'I'm a broke college student. Are you giving any master classes in the area?'"
• "The warm-up to me is part mental and part physical."
• "Maybe they won't notice? They're gonna notice. If you noticed it's got to be fixed."
• "Even if it sounds better but I use force, that's not a solution."
• "How loudly can I play with control? How softly can I play with control? And you don't know at which point a note spreads until you spread the note."
• "My teacher at Akron had a picture of a hand grenade up on his door and a sign that said 'Just because it's loud doesn't mean anybody wants to hear it.'"
• "They are going to put sight reading in front of you until you fail."
• "How I play in Boston Brass is different than how I play in a brass band which is different than how I play in a large concert band."
• "If I was playing with the clarinets I would try to play with the clarinets."
• "I played like I like to play and if they liked that that's good for me. And if they didn't like that that's good information for me."
• "There was nothing that surprised me (on audition day.) There was not a single thing I wasn't prepared to deal with."

These are all great quotes but the real reason Lance won was his quote at 43:13 which you just have to listen to for yourself.  It sums the whole thing up.

Thank you, Lance!

Alexandra Grot: Monday YouTube Fix

Here is Alexandra Grot performing some Bach live in Munich in 2008.

The flute takes the second most air of any wind instrument and she does a great job of breathing in places that doesn't interrupt the music. This is particularly hard in unaccompanied pieces and she does a great job of modeling it.

Enjoy!

Alexandra Grot /flute/ performs Bach Partita. Recorded in Munich, 18.02.2008

Being a Team Player

"It's better to sound right than to be right."

—Rex Martin

This is one of the best soundbites that Rex Martin threw my way during my studies with him. It gets right to the point.

In a performance, there is no such thing as one person being in tune and the other being out of tune.

Rather, they are out of tune.

If someone isn't balancing a chord right and you can do something about it by playing louder or softer (regardless of what dynamic is on the page), you are the obligated to adjust. Same goes for pitch and everything else.

This doesn't mean everyone should go around constantly adjusting to everything. That would quickly resemble one giant dog chasing its tail and never quite catching it.

But the definition of being a team player in a music is always being ready to do what sounds right rather than what is right.

It doesn't matter how many degrees you have, what gig you've got, or how many countries you've performed in. This goes for everybody.

Thanks, Mr. Martin, for making that crystal clear to me so many years ago.