Transcript Summary
I'm going to combine a few things.
My lectures aren't really lectures in as much as it's not a one-way flow.
If you guys have something to say, if a question comes up or I hit on something
that I'm not explaining well or you need more information,
raise your hand and ask me the question, okay?
We're going to go along with like generally playing with others, playing in a section.
We'll do some demo stuff here.
I'm also going to go through major symbols that you're going to see in playing music.
And not all of them, just major names.
Let's see.
Okay, so this would apply to either being a principal trumpet player
in a symphony or a lead trumpet player.
And it's not to say that all of you are aspiring to be first or lead
or whatever the heck you're doing, but you all need this knowledge.
First of all, I'd like to know how many have been playing their horn three years on down,
three years or less.
Okay, no beginners here, right?
How many years?
Four? Okay, that's really not a beginner.
Okay, anybody that's been playing for five years, started five years ago, okay?
Six, seven, ten, twenty.
Okay, so do the Japanese understand that?
Okay, I just want to kind of know where everybody's standing.
So basically we've got everybody's been playing for three years or more
and not specifically taking this method or anything like that,
but I mean three years of experience playing in your bands and things like that.
Okay, so an important thing to know, lead player or first player,
principal player, whatever it is, I've got like three points
that are like really, really super important.
There may be others that would be in the subdivision of these,
but these are the main ones that I pick out.
Every note is important.
When you're playing a piece, every note is important.
You get these things where you actually become a percussive instrument
when you're doing pops every so and so while on an eight-bar phrase.
It's still important.
It's still important notes.
All the ones I observe that are making lots of money, being very successful,
always in demand are ones that play every note.
So have you ever had something where you've ever played a piece?
A piece is passed out to you and you usually look at the last note, right?
That's usually the highest note of the piece.
Have you ever guys seen one of that?
And usually what happens is like you open this
and you look through it real fast and you're like, oh, jeez.
You're seeing that last note.
Usually the last note is like an F or a G or an E or something like that,
but it's like a real taxing note, right?
Now what usually happens, or this is what usually happens with me,
and I see it happen with most people, is I go through the whole damn chart
and my attention was on that last damn note.
Oh, my God, man, it's, oh, jeez, it's still there.
It was like one of those times.
My attention was so stuck on that thing, or stuck on a phrase
that seemed really hard coming up,
that I would like totally negate the rest of the piece.
And it's more important to just play every note as it comes.
The last note, if you totally step on it, it's just one note.
And here I was sacrificing three pages of chart, worrying about that last note,
and I was so psychotic by the time I got there, I usually missed it anyway.
You know, I'd already talked myself out of the damn thing.
Geez, man, it's, maybe I read the lines wrong, let's ignore that.
I don't have to.
Anyway, so every note is important and just play it as it comes.
That'd be the best advice I can give you.
Number one on everything.
Now, we get into, like, interpretation.
Consistent style is real super important.
I would say second in my demand of things.
A lot of this has to do with experience.
And experience you guys all are going to get as you go older,
you play with more groups, you get into more situations,
and more possibilities of playing different kinds of music.
That experience will come and you'll finally develop
like, there's certain styles that I like.
This could go for classical players too.
Adolf Hurseth is my famous, of all the classical players, is my favorite.
As far as soloists, I actually like Timothy Dachshuser.
And then next would be Wynton Marcellus.
I actually like Wynton Marcellus, classical, better than I do his jazz.
That's just my interpretation.
But anyway, the style, you guys, will evolve.
Like, I would pick out certain things I like out of individuals.
Like, I like certain stylistic things from me.
And I like certain stylistic things from Conrad Gaussow
and other players down the line.
And there's some players that were just living in my same area
that I just like their style.
And I would incorporate those things.
And then you become a melting pot for your style.
Okay? But whatever that style is that evolves, make sure it's consistent.
It's terrible to have some guy play through an eight-bar phrase
and then repeat it and play the damn thing totally different the next time.
Notice that he played long or he played short or choppy or swing something,
whereas before he played it straight eight.
Okay? Consistent style.
Now, the proper dynamics would also go under this.
Okay? Bows soft.
Now, the last one, if possible, you always establish your pitch from your base.
There are very few bass players that actually know what their job is.
It's the highest responsibility of all jobs in a band.
They actually initiate pulse and establish pitch.
Now, because they're thumping around and stuff like that
and they don't really have the clarity of sound,
it's up to the lead trumpet player to take the pitch from the bass player
and give it to the rest of the band.
Okay. This is a side-by-side.
I'll show you guys what actually creates a groove in music.
How many classical players we got here?
People interested in being classical?
Raise your hands again.
Okay. The rest of you are boppers, huh?
Okay. Here.
Okay. Here. Let's just say this is one beat.
That's one whole beat.
The beat, actually, in order to get a groove, is in three parts.
At the very front of the beat, we have the bass.
The bass.
The one that keeps the tempo is purely a metronome, is the drums.
And here's the band.
And that's what creates a groove.
Now, either in rock, jazz fusion, things like that,
when you get to a certain point where, like,
damn, you know, it's like your body's starting to move, you know,
just to say, it feels good, that's a groove.
Everything here is working correctly.
Because that's what happens when this does.
Now, so the responsibilities of a bass player is really incredible.
And if you get a good one, well, I'm telling you, be his best friend.
That works their way to gold.
So I pick all my pitch from the bass, if that's possible.
Sometimes you'll be playing with a bass player that's totally out to lunch,
and he doesn't know his responsibility creating a groove,
whereupon that, you actually, the trumpet player,
actually starts establishing time and pitch and things like that.
But hopefully we're talking in the best terms possible.
Now, let's see.
Now, as far as, like, establishing these styles,
these first three things here,
this is every note being important, consistent style,
this applies specifically to new jobs, casuals, things like that.
Classical players already have kind of an established style
that would be for a particular piece that you're interpreting.
It's already been established down the line as a, quote-unquote,
proper way to play it.
Okay?
Okay?
And so, and as far as lead trumpet players,
or playing with a section, playing with others,
it's, if it's a new job,
those are the basic rules of just establishing consistent pitch.
If you ever go into a job where the music has been played
for a long period of time, like shows,
Broadway shows that run long duration,
a play that's running a long duration, anything,
any time you come into a situation like that,
you better play exactly like the guy that's playing
with the chair that you're taking,
because the rest of the group has gotten used to his thing.
You can't just, like, shift gears, you know?
They've kind of been at home anyway.
They're waiting for the paycheck, and they're just kind of going through the gig,
because they've gotten used to the style.
It's almost like broke, you know?
They already know it.
And any time you get into a situation of long duration,
and you start changing styles, you're going to step all over it,
you're going to stick out like a sore thumb,
and chances are you won't be hired back.
That's a real big deal in Las Vegas with the shows.
If you don't play those shows, and I mean, it's real stupid.
It's stupid to the point where, like,
you shouldn't get that locked into something
that you aren't paying attention to every little note every night.
But that happens.
This show that I was on played for eight years.
Now, the notes never changed in eight years.
Yeah, they did. I mean, just a few of them.
But I mean, basically, they never changed.
So when everybody came in,
there were some things that we'd interpreted
that had evolved over eight years
that if you looked at the page and played it correctly,
the way the page said it didn't fit with anybody else.
Okay? So that would be the one thing.
If you're going into a job of long duration,
make sure you listen to the part and emulate it exactly like that.
Just fit right in.
Okay?
Now, in setting up a section,
I wrote this thing out, and the person that copied it,
well, they didn't do too bad.
Okay, so at the very first, we've got a five-man section.
How you would set it up,
and it's in relationship to the rhythm section.
You see the rhythm section I put over there?
As you would always go in that order,
one, two, three, four would be alternating back and forth
around the lead player.
Now, if you only have four people in a section,
you always want to be in the middle but closest to the rhythm section.
You want to be set up like that second line.
You see that?
Everybody following this thing on the paper?
Isn't it too complicated?
We'll be a test later.
Now, in a three-man section, very obvious.
Usually the second man,
the reason I put him closer to the rhythm section
is usually he's the one that's going to play solos,
and you're just getting closer to the rhythm section.
And obviously, if you're playing with two players,
you always want to be closest to the rhythm section.
That's basically how you set it up.
Now, there's a chain of command in our orchestra.
This is how you get groups to play together.
I mean, what establishes everybody just doing their own thing
and hoping it comes out okay?
The reason that it comes out okay is there is a chain of command.
Okay, so you've got the drums over there on that side.
They establish time, purely.
They're a metronome.
And it's also been rumored that drummers aren't musicians, too.
Now, actually, I like the phrase,
drummers should be felt, not heard.
Yeah?
Why would you, if you have a two-man section,
would you have the leading man to the rhythm section
if the second was the next person
or soloist in the three-man section?
I'll leave the players more important.
You know, when you get down that far,
it doesn't matter a whole heck of a lot
because there isn't much separating you.
But that's the way, on that particular thing,
that's like a call, you know, that I'm doing, okay?
It's not going to make you wrong if you set it up another way.
Okay, so back to this thing we're establishing.
So the bass establishes pitch.
That's his gig.
Then draw, like, you kind of want to circle around that thing,
and then you draw it to the lead trumpet player.
Now, the lead trumpet player establishes pitch, style, dynamic level.
Does everybody understand what pitch means in style?
Yeah?
I don't understand what it means by getting the pitch from the bass.
Okay, let's, like, that's his note.
You don't want to play sharp or flat from that note.
Okay, so it's like on the intonation kind of thing.
Correct.
Does that handle that?
Yeah.
Okay, good.
Now, okay, so dynamic level would be loud, soft.
Style would be that kind of nebulous thing that you evolve from experience
on playing notes, short, long, phrases, a certain length,
breathing in certain spots, emphasizing certain notes, things like that.
Okay, now it goes down the band.
The chain of command goes down the band.
The next person that has the responsibility level will be the lead trumpet player.
Now, the reason is if the trumpet, lead trumpet player is not playing at this point in time
and it's just the bone section and the sax section,
the bones have the responsibility, the lead bone has the responsibility of establishing the style.
And then it goes down from that.
If the bones aren't playing, the trumpets aren't playing,
it's obviously the lead alto is establishing the style.
But unless he's a total idiot, he'll be establishing the style
that was already established earlier in the piece by the trumpet.
Okay?
Now, the reason that it's set up like that is so the responsibilities are clear.
You don't have the second or third trumpet player established in the style for the band.
Or other players.
Okay, so we all got that so far?
Everything okay?
Good.
Now, playing in a section, I just listed some major points that I think are failures for young players.
And then on major points for success, this would be my consideration for success.
It seems like the things that seem to be the most workable.
Now, the major one out point is no experience.
Now, it's not to say that the chances, man, back when I was a kid,
we had five road bands that were going around the United States.
That's where the young players would go and get their craft together.
And they would grow, and then they would become professionals.
That's a totally different thing when every night you play whether you like it or not.
And whether you feel like it or not, or whether you want to play for those people or not.
So there's, and I don't want you to get down on this thing.
There's actually lots of opportunities.
It's just younger players are going to have to be a little bit more resourceful for looking at those things.
We were talking this morning about, like, Robert's in the service.
And he gets to play all different types of music now.
And that's what I was able to do when I was young.
And you actually expand a lot faster.
My high school teacher had a kinder band book.
I think a lot of you younger players know a tenor band book.
Back in the 20s and 30s they had bands which were called tenor bands.
The lead in the band was a tenor.
They had, like, one trumpet, maybe a trombone, and, like, three tenors.
These guys were the home of all night long.
They were called tenor bands.
And they played very ricky-ticky music, very dated.
But it was an experience.
You get to see how music evolved.
And then also in my high school we played actual Broadway musicals.
We had a very advanced high school.
And we put on West Side Story.
And we played the original music.
We actually got the music sent to us.
We played Maine.
We played Micra, Lake, all of them.
You can get into theater groups playing theater groups in your own community.
Those are usually freebies or you get a token something for playing them.
But there's a lot of experience in playing Broadway musicals.
And a lot of experience in having to play every dang night when you feel like it or not.
So there are ways to do it.
It's just it's a little bit tougher nowadays.
So that experience thing that I'm talking about up there isn't your fault.
You can have to be more resourceful for getting in the experience you need.
One of the things that I observe nowadays is in most of the contractors that have been around a long time,
they always go with the older players.
Regardless of whether that player can play better than you or not,
they'll usually be picked on first by an older contractor because the guy feels safer with older players.
He feels like the experience angle is an edge.
Don't ever take a failure because you weren't picked because some snowbird was picked.
And snowbird is an expression for people with gray hair, usually in tourist spots.
No offense, no offense.
I got it, I got it right here.
Okay, the next thing is sound.
The general sound of a lot of young players I see today is just because they aren't practicing properly,
they haven't got the right equipment, everybody is trying to be mannered for this.
And it's no different than when I went to school, but I see it as actually an out point.
It's also the sound includes the pitch.
I'll tell you one thing, if a guy plays next to me and he's off pitch,
within five minutes I can barely play the rest of the night.
What happens is you get some guy that's like so close, but he isn't quite there,
and it actually makes you, you know, you're playing and your ears are telling you what's going on.
And all this compensating that's going on wipes you out.
I can't play, honest.
I could have a great double C starting off the gate,
and within five minutes some idiot that's playing out of tune,
it might not be his fault, but lack of experience or lack of training or God knows what,
he could have me level.
He could have me to a point where I can barely play out of the staff.
If you ever experience that playing with other people,
man, I mean, for years I used to go through playing with these guys in rehearsal bands,
and I'd go home and I'd say, man, I'm just not getting any better.
You know, I'm embarrassed to give this thing up.
I mean, you're on practicing, I'm feeling good, and I'm going to the show,
and I'm going to the rehearsal band, and I'm ready.
I want to do my thing.
And, you know, within five minutes I feel like I got toilet paper for facial structure, you know.
And nothing.
So they're lethal.
It's lethal, and it's a very incredibly bad out point.
If you want to establish sound, listen to people.
You know, listen to guys that play.
I think the basic thing on this is no overall training.
Most guys are trying to play high.
They play exercises that go high.
You know, they don't play the entire keyboard.
Anybody I've heard that actually plays around the entire keyboard usually has a real neat sound.
They can blend with you.
You know, all it takes, if you want to create more edge on the sound,
if you've got some guy with like a 1384A,
all you have to do is just raise your tongue and blow a little stronger, and it creates edge.
Except the fact you're going to wipe him out because your equipment can handle it and his can't.
But those type of things are real out points at this point.
So you're all here.
I'm not invalidating you guys.
You guys are here to become all-around trumpet players so you can do whatever the heck you want to do.
That's the major out point I see with younger players going into the professional scene.
Now, the last one is endurance.
Man, that's real simple. That's just the same thing.
Just not practicing the overall approach to the horn.
I had a, I was a great guy in the Bay Area, and had a frightening range.
Absolutely frightening range.
But every time he got on the job, because it was the all in life, it was that high R.
He was going for that high whatever it was.
And, well, he was doing it great.
Man, I would love to listen to the guy, but he couldn't play with anybody else.
Have you ever seen those guys that, man, they can blast out incredible high notes or a phrase for like two bars?
I tell you, if they go three bars, they're in big trouble.
There's some guys that play short spans of time, like, you know, they get up there and they just scare the hell out of you.
And that's, then in a couple of bars, they're gone.
That happened all the time in Vegas.
There's a real famous trumpet player, I won't mention him, he used to be on the Maynard Band,
and Maynard used to feature him as the 19-year-old wonder.
And he would come on the show band, and you would have to play for an hour and a half to two hours, blowing your brains out.
And boy, the first couple of nights, man, I mean, he was like, he'd put the farm down,
and he was like, this guy is the scariest guy on the planet.
And by the third night, he couldn't get out of the stack.
And then it was like, oh, he'd be filled with his tuning slide and, you know, I hurt myself today.
The audience was all sorts of excuses, but he just couldn't make it.
It was because of that all-around approach, he was laughing.
He was totally into extremely.
Okay, so that's enough of that.
Now, the major points, this is my consideration, the major points for success.
I think pitch and sound, if a guy comes into my trumpet section, pitch and sound is the most critical to me.
I don't care if he reads real well.
He's usually going to learn a part pretty fast.
I mean, unless he's totally devastated, but I mean, if he's missing a few clams here and there, that's okay with me.
The guy that's the most important that I'll stick with is the one that establishes the pitch and the sound.
That's okay.
He's capable of blending with me.
See, the thing is, as a lead trumpet player, his responsibility is to lead the orchestra.
He establishes that style, he establishes all this other stuff.
If my attention goes off of my job and onto this guy over here, you know, he's like, things are going wrong over here,
and all of a sudden, like, I'm doing my job here, and my attention keeps getting distracted over there, I'm taken away from my job.
And if it distracts me, I don't want him around me.
And I'll usually say something to the leader.
We had, there's actually a case in point, a real famous trumpet player in the Bay Area,
he's been my lead trumpet player for 25 years, his name is Billy Wagner, excellent player, excellent player.
But this is how, this is what power this guy had.
We were playing his show, and a new guy was in town.
I mean, this new guy was calling everybody five times a day.
His promotion was totally in.
I mean, he was great.
Well, he finally got a job.
The guy was the top contractor in town.
So it's Billy Wagner and myself and this guy playing here.
And he's overblown the entire night because he wants to be heard.
He wants to let people know he's there, he can do that job.
He's incredible.
He was, he was great.
There was a millionth of a second for a solo.
And because the sax player didn't jump up in that millionth of a second to start the solo,
he was up and he'd already played a bar.
It was like, gone.
I mean, he was so right on, he was right there.
The thing was, he wasn't playing with Billy.
And all that Billy did was we were down there during one of the rehearsal breaks.
And here's the top contractor in town.
Here's the second top contractor at the circle start at that time.
And they're talking, they're all buddies, you know.
This guy says, hey, Billy, how's this new kid doing?
All Billy said was like, well, that's all he said.
The guy was never hired again.
He never went on to say anything else about the guy.
He was never hired again and had to find a new account.
That's kind of brutal, but it shows you what can happen.
You know, if you're inexperienced and those things aren't in pitch and sound,
well, it'll drive you to a bonkers.
OK.
Now, let's see.
A handle, so that I don't give you just problems here.
A handle, I feel, for pitch and sound is if you suspect you have a problem with pitch.
First of all, by the fact I got almost perfect pitch or what they would call relative pitch
just from practicing systematic approach.
All the scales and arpeggios, after a while you're hearing the intervals between notes so well
that my pitch got really good and is maintained to this day.
So the value of just doing those exercises are going to be there.
If you still suspect a problem where there's some outness with it,
you can't match a lead player or there's just something that never jives,
I would work on duplicating pitches with a piano.
Sit down, hit a note, and just duplicate it.
Don't worry about whether it's flat or sharp on the piano.
Just start learning to duplicate.
All it's doing is causing you to listen.
And that's generally what pitch and sound things are.
You're going to get the sound no matter what equipment you play.
You're going to get the sound you eventually want to get because of your ear.
Now if you buy bad equipment and tighten off pieces and things like that,
it'll take you a heck of a lot longer because equipment either allows you to play or hinders you to play.
But that's really all it is.
So establish and get your ear.
That would be a handle that I would assume.
After establishing some of the pitches on the piano,
I would go into the arpeggios, the systematic approach.
If you're practicing systematic approach, you've already got that area handled.
But listen to how the notes are spaced.
And then you go in a half step up.
Make it the same, just half step up.
Yeah?
Have you ever had a section of 7th and 10th clarinets come to you as lead clarinet
and talk to you about these pitches and securities with it?
Carl and that sort of thing.
Yeah, I really appreciate those guys.
You do?
Oh, God, I love them.
The means are conscientious.
The ones that are arrogant think their stuff doesn't stink.
You know, and kind of walk away like, hey, man, I'm God's greatest gift to pitch.
What's the matter with you guys?
You know, like that type of thing.
I can't stand them.
Does that answer that?
I love guys because he's trying to work with me.
I'll do that.
If I'm called to sub and I'm not playing lead, why?
I mean, and I feel something's out.
I'll bug that lead clarinet all night long.
Okay, man, is this feeling okay to you?
Like at the plaza, the main problem there is the tape is in a higher pitch than the band is.
And nobody yet has found out where the woodwind clarinet is.
I mean, he's like in the ozone.
We can't find out where his pitch is.
And because it's only got five horns.
Four.
No, four horns with rhythm.
Real tough.
Those lead players that you've gone to, how many have they handled?
Some of the ones that felt like there was something going on, whether it was valid or not,
they would say, I don't know, why don't you pull out a little bit?
I feel like you're a little bit low.
I'm there to do a good job.
My personal opinions about where the pitch is and who's playing out of tune,
if I'm in the section, are totally irrelevant other than they're my opinion.
I'm there to play a job and make sure everything works right.
So you have to make it work right.
You're going to play with people you can't stand.
You're going to play with guys that are sitting above you that you're better than.
But it doesn't help you to get bugged about it or reactive about it.
Because it actually comes back to you later on.
Okay, so let's see.
As far as sound, let's see, do I handle sound?
What is that sound?
Pitch and sound.
Okay, sound, kind of that includes style.
How you would handle that.
Classical players, you're going to have to listen to that.
Timothy Dodgshitzer, all those players.
Those are your role models.
For jazz players, things like that, I would listen to,
I think Conrad Gozzo was probably one of the best lead players
that there's actually recordings of.
There's other ones that you won't be able to get, let's see.
Rachel Scarry was good.
Frank Beach.
Anyway, there's a ton of players.
I must say that a lot of the new players coming out,
there's that guy with Robin Connell.
Yeah, a real solid player.
I like the way he plays.
He's never real flashy.
He's always there.
And he's always like, you can always rest on him.
He's always there.
So those guys are the people that I would listen to develop my sound and style.
Because obviously that's the guy that's making it.
Somebody likes that, whatever product he's putting out.
Same thing with that person or those guys.
Obviously they're products there.
Okay, now the next thing would be support.
You play so the lead player can sit on top of you so he can rest.
You carry him through the gig.
Obviously the lead player is always going to be sound higher
because his part's written higher.
Now over blowing the lead player just again puts him into a point
where he works too hard.
I did this when I was younger.
I actually ruined a lead player.
I didn't like him.
I did the wrong thing.
I'm not sorry for it.
No, he was one of those prima donnas.
And he would have been okay other than the fact that he was always telling me how great he was.
And it doesn't sit with a guy that's sitting in a section who wants to be a lead player or aspiring to kill people.
So anyway, man, I just over blew him all night long.
And by the end of the night he couldn't play.
He just couldn't play.
So that's an important thing.
Again, you don't want to hold back so much if you're playing in a section
that this guy's so exposed that all of a sudden he's got nothing to sit on.
Case in point, one situation that you'd really see would be
have you ever had those pops like a high F above high C or something like that or a D?
And the guy is an oddity below you.
The same thing.
You've got to be so darn strong so that you feel it.
You can sit back there and just jump on it.
Now I've had some guys come in that after a period of time they'd be like da da da da.
And he's playing down an oddity and goes like this.
What was that?
And it's not quite there.
And then pretty soon it's like you're all exposed and then you start missing and things like that
because he never gave you the support.
You're never there.
That caused me a lot of mental anguish sometimes on jobs
over long periods of time of having problems with notes I never had problems with
until I discovered what the actual source was.
The problem started pretty close to the time this new guy came on the band.
And then I just started taking a look at how he was doing things
He would always back off.
And I told him to blow stronger and he always backed off.
Okay, so he had a real serious personality and he was actually trying to do me in.
That was fine. I did my job and spotted the oddness and I didn't feel bad about it.
So that was one point that occurred.
Another thing is if I've got a guy that I'm playing with
and he has to come in on a real exposed thing
and I'm either doing odd things or a support thing with him
I'll let him establish the pitch.
I'll come in like a millionth of a second later
but I let him have it so he can lock into it.
I mean if he's not playing the right pitch or stuff like that
we want a good product out of this job or whatever job we're doing.
So I'll hang back and I'll let him get on the note and I'll be right there after him.
I'll let him get that note and I'll make him write for it and support him.
But I let him get it first.
It's a real neat point when you're trying to assist other players.
Listen, the best players are always section players.
I hate playing with guys that play league their entire life.
They have no consideration for what goes on in the sections.
The pitches, the resolutions of the notes.
I've been a league player.
I've been hanging on a note and there's a resolution there
or I'll be playing in a section and there'll be some guy playing league
and I have to resolve a note.
And he puts playing.
He cuts off on three rather than holding it to one in the next bar or four.
And there I am, all exposed.
And musically it sucks.
So those type of things there.
The section players are always the best ones.
They're the ones that have ears bigger than elephants.
I learned a lot from Larry Sousa.
You're going to be Larry Sousa later on this week.
He helped me out a lot with that stuff.
He's one of the best league players I like playing with
because he's done everything.
He's played all sorts of different music.
He plays jazz, he plays classical, everything.
I mean we used to play together.
We played at Circle Star Theater.
We played together a lot.
We would actually make mistakes together.
I mean we got so much in a groove.
And boy that's fun.
That's a blast when it gets to that point.
Really connecting with this guy.
Okay, so let's see.
When you're playing league, like in the last thing,
as far as phrasing, things like that,
you grab onto the league player.
You want to make sure.
You don't follow a league player.
You've got to play exactly what he's playing with him.
If you're following him, you're behind him already.
So that's about all I want to say on that.
I mean we could talk and talk and talk.
But following a league player,
you should be playing like the league player
except a different part.
Now the last two things here.
Notes on observations of league playing.
And that I actually already answered.
That was where anybody that's played in a section
ends up being the best league player I've ever heard.
Because they can play with others.
Okay, now we're going to play some music here.
Before we do, I'm going to do the major symbols
in playing and marking your parts.
You'll probably want to turn over
the back of your sheet of paper
if you want to copy any of this stuff down.
I just wrote up two lines of music here,
and we're going to do some real basic ones.
If I move up and you've seen one
that I'm not explaining to you,
raise your hand and we'll cover that one too.
But I just wanted to cover very basic ones
without overwhelming you.
Okay, so you guys will be seeing some of this stuff
when you come up here.
One of the first things you'll see,
usually at the top of the page,
will be something like this.
You'll see things saying BB.
That means downbeat.
A next important symbol that you'll see,
usually at the top of the page,
because it shows you where this chart's going to start
if it doesn't start at the right place.
All of a sudden you've got all this scribbly stuff
on the first couple of lines,
and that just looks like a zero like this,
and then a little thing like that.
That means start here.
If you ever see that, it's start here
and wherever the arrow is.
So a lot of the things you may see at the beginning of a chart
would be actual numbers,
and they're usually count off numbers.
You may see that, or you may see like 2, 3, 4, or 3, 4,
which means the guy's either like,
he's like counting silently.
He's on 3, 4, and then you're in.
Oh, usually what this will see,
CO, which means count off,
some type of a count off will be there,
and then the numbers are there.
Sometimes with count offs,
the reason that there's a count off
is because there's a click track.
Everybody understand click track?
Okay, click track is,
you have an orchestra playing here,
and you have a tape machine that you're playing with.
It's called a click track.
Click track establishes the rhythm usually,
and it usually has overdubbed voices
so that orchestras sound fuller.
So the click tracks are going along, and they'll stop,
and then the guy, the leader, punches the button,
it initiates it, and then it gives him the time
that he's got to start the band with
so that everybody plays together.
You understand that now?
Okay, good.
So that's usually where you see that type of a thing.
Also at the top of the page,
you may see things like,
two things like that, or four of them,
and it just means,
it's usually a player's already played that chart,
and the chart's in two.
You know, it just means it's giving you a count per bar.
Sometimes you'll see,
wait, that means there'll be four beats in a bar.
Okay, another thing that you might see,
can I erase some of this stuff?
Do you guys think I've got this?
Japanese?
Okay.
Sometimes you'll see this at the beginning,
and maybe this,
and what it means is there'll be a temp roll
before you go into it.
Okay?
Now, other little items as you're going through stuff,
a real cue when you see from now and then,
but by the time you see it,
you're usually in trouble,
is a thing that looks like eyeglasses.
Okay?
And what that means is watch out.
It's like something's coming up that's hairy or difficult
or you need to pay more attention to.
Okay?
Unfortunately, usually the guys write it about,
like this would be the bar, you know?
So when you're going along and reading,
you see it about the same time
that you get hit with whatever that section is
and it didn't do you any good.
And then there was, you know, notes and stuff.
And it says,
that's real common.
I've got six lead boats here
I want you guys to look at after class
of all the different shows in town.
There's also one bone in the Follies Brugere show
so the bone players can see a book.
But you'll see things like this all the time.
What this means is the pulse remains the same.
So if the pulse is going along like this,
you're just going to go into 2-4 keeping that same pulse.
That's it.
Or if it was 2-4, the 4-4.
Or if it was in 6-8.
You know, let's say this would be 6-8.
Usually the guy up here,
it would say, let's say so,
a real good marker of parts
would like put two slices.
Like, okay, 6-8, that means it's in 2.
That's with the pulse.
So it's like da, da, da, da,
1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-3-4-5-6.
Okay?
We all got that?
Everybody asleep?
Okay.
Now, marking a cut in a part.
I think what I'll do first is like,
have you ever seen things where notes are circled,
completely circled?
Something like this.
That means don't play that note.
The bar is good.
It would become a rest.
You just don't play that note.
Now, the same thing can be done in the larger scale
if you do things like this.
You put it like this.
It's called brackets.
Now, if you ever see something like this,
and you'll see it all throughout these books here,
that means the bars are good.
You just aren't going to play them.
Now, guys that mark their parts real badly,
sometimes you'll see an entire bar with a circle around it
that's mismarking.
And it throws you into confusion.
You don't know where the dang bar is out
or whether just the notes are out and the bar is good.
You know, whatever.
You have to trust them.
You just have to.
Here, let me show you.
Okay, this is called bad marking right there.
See that crack?
Okay, you just stretch it out and load an arrow over to here.
Well, you don't know what they're like.
Well, is there something happening over here?
Or is this where things are starting and things like that?
Yeah, you have to trust somebody.
You also have to be kind of ingenious
in figuring this stuff out
because there are so many players.
The guy that marked this one is a new player
and he doesn't know how to mark parts.
I mean, how I learned to mark parts was with Billy Wagner.
I got on my first job.
I don't know how to mark parts.
I don't know what's going on.
You know, and the conductor cuts us off.
You know, and he's saying,
well, listen, wait a minute.
Let's put a cut over here on bar 47 and do it to 53.
You know, and I pick up my pencil and I'm going like,
I'm looking at Billy, seeing how he does it.
You know, that's how I learned.
Oh, that's how you do it.
Yeah, I can do that.
You know, and I do it.
You know, I was always behind him.
You know, but I mean, I was always like,
well, what the heck's going on here?
Because I mean, I didn't know.
Even though I had a lot of experience of that in high school,
I just didn't know some of those markers.
I didn't know how to make an effective cut.
I'll show you how to do that next.
If you're actually going to make a cut,
you make what is called railroad tracks, what we call them.
It's like two lines and a slash like that.
Okay, now, once you do that, let's say we're going to wipe out,
we want these two bars to be wiped out totally.
What's going to happen is this is going to go right to there.
It's starting to look like a mess, isn't it?
It's just you write a line and you snake it down.
It could go over to another page,
but you're going to snake it down to this point.
And what it shows you is this bar mark is the same as that bar mark.
So you're going to play here and you're immediately here.
Continue on.
And if it's marked clearly enough, you can make it really easy.
Okay, a couple more things.
Let's see if I can wipe out some of these.
Okay, I'll do, sometimes you'll see at the end of a tune, you'll see,
or as you're getting near the end of the tune, you'll see the words tag.
Lights should go off in front of, or lights should go off in the head.
That means something's going to happen at the end of the chart.
It means you're going to go back and play this thing again from that point.
It's a tag.
Sometimes it's listed as bowels.
Okay, you can write that in.
Bowels, what that means is you just played the chart for some animal act
and they're trying to get off the stage now.
So they need a little filler music while they get all these animals
and everything they leave on stage off the stage.
So you get back to the thing and the guy will say, bowels.
And you're right back there and you just play out the small part.
Another thing you'll see, and if I'm going too fast,
you just raise your hand and I'll keep it up there.
Yeah?
We never make those marks.
Yeah, everything's always done in pencil.
Anybody ever told otherwise?
The reason being, it's like sometimes when you're reading new shows
or doing new cuts and things like that, sometimes they don't work out.
You have to change it again.
So everything's done in pencil.
Do you always carry a pencil with you?
Okay, now on music charts where there is an act of some type,
where there's an indeterminate amount of music playing,
you'll see things like tilt cuts.
You may have something like this musical piece just keeps repeating.
You've got this guy down here who's trying to make a dog jump through a hoop
or something like that, or some guy's trying to spin his father around.
You see, you'll have this music and it keeps repeating.
It keeps going on and on and on and on and on.
And you'll see this thing written.
Generally, if a guy marks it right,
you'll mark it near the top of the chart so it doesn't hit you.
It'll say tilt cut, which means the leader who's paying attention to the act.
There's a certain spot where they'll pay.
Finally, if they did what they're supposed to do, it cuts you off.
Now, at those times, sometimes you'll have a tilt cut,
and then you're right into another tune,
or you'll see tilt cut and chord.
If you ever see this when you're playing the chart for the first time,
you'll probably find in some obscure corner down here
something that was handwritten like this with a bird's eye,
and that's the chord.
Boy, you better find that chord.
I probably played a lot of tunes where it said tilt cut and chord,
and I got the cut and I hadn't found where the chord was yet.
It was so fast.
Or we were playing the chart and it was so busy, I didn't even see it,
and I just barely caught the cut.
So when the guy goes like this,
there's like two guys playing out of a whole band.
It sounds like a broken accordion or something.
Now, everybody know what these symbols mean?
Like D, D, C?
Are we OK on that?
Anybody raise your hand if it doesn't help.
I'll explain it.
D, C.
That's my job to tell them that.
You'll see things like this.
You'll see that at the end of where the phrase is,
and it means when you DS, it means you go to the spot
that you see that insignia.
DS sign.
OK.
Two more.
Everybody know what that is?
OK?
OK.
You know how to play music and all of a sudden
you'll see a quota of things through there,
and it's your second time through when you go to the quota, right?
OK, we'll be clean on that.
Now, when you're reading multi-page charts
or a large book where there's a show going,
sometimes in between acts, in between changes of scenery,
at the end of the music you'll see something like this.
Generally, those terms have been abused.
Segue generally means that like, oh, it's S-E-Q-U-E.
Segue means that we're going to go into the next tune.
There'll probably be an applause segue or something like that.
We're going into the next tune.
It's fairly rapid.
If you see BS, that's Vito Subito,
which means we're falling.
It's like, if you took time to read this thing, you're lost.
In this one show it's got a lot of this stuff in it.
I mean, it goes like...
It means you've got to have the page turn, too.
So you're actually, as you're coming down,
Okay, as you're coming down, you're grabbing the page and you're playing the chart and then you rip it over while you're playing the chord so that you can immediately get ready for the next thing.
Okay, are there any other symbols that people have seen that they don't feel cool about or got a misunderstanding on?
That I can handle right now, yeah?
Oh, I'm sorry. This would be a timpani, like a roll. You know, you'll see the chart, everything looks real clean, but you see the birds, I think, with some of the timp, or t-y-m, or, you know, spelled out, or drums, drums.
It just means there'll be a roll there and then it's downbeat or something. They usually will have some other marking besides that. It'll either be count off or downbeat. But those are just basic terms.
Okay, are we okay on that?
It usually always does. You'll see C-O-1-2-2-2 or something like that, you know, whatever it is. It's usually marked there because the conductor does that consistently and the guy that was playing the part wrote it down so that it helps.
It's guidelines. I mean, how would you drive on the freeway if you didn't know where the hell the signs were? You don't know how fast to go, you don't know where to make the turns, you don't know, you know, what's coming up.
All this stuff is just signposting.
Okay, now I need three trumpet players and two trombone players down here. We're just going to do a couple of things.
This is actually a comedian act in a show.
Let's not all jump up at once. Two trombones. There's one. This isn't a big deal.
We're just going to play just a couple of minutes.
Two trumpets are over there, two trombones are over here.
Hey, uh, Daniel, you got your phone?
Okay, well, there's two Japanese people over here.
The one that's fringing over here.
That's right.
Closing glasses.
All this is is, oh, let me pass out these things so you can start looking at them.
Are there seven or eight or something like that?
What happens is things occur on the stage.
We've got this guy and he's got this fairly overweight woman that he tries to get on his shoulders in this comedy act, you know,
because she's talking through the whole thing and, you know, there's a draft up here and all sorts of stuff.
And what happens is this is the play-on, the very first music that we're going to play.
You're going to watch me because I'm going to cut off once I get on the stage, okay?
All right, so it'll be like, we don't have a rhythm, so I'll be the rhythm.
So I'll give you one, two, and then you're in.
So it'll be one, two, one, two, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
Ready?
Okay, now let's, hopefully you picked up some of the things of playing together in this thing.
All right?
Okay, now we have the jolly jovers.
One, two, one.
Stop.
Okay.
Why doesn't he play this one?
He can play that one.
Isn't that the easiest?
No?
Okay.
Okay.
Lead drummer player, you're letting us down.
We don't know what the hell's going on here.
I'm just filling the gap in between here.
Okay.
Well, that's what this whole camp is about.
We're here to get a viewpoint on how to do this stuff.
Okay.
And there goes the jolly jovers.
One, two, one.
Okay, somebody count this thing up.
You count it up.
Okay, you just give it one, two, one.
One, two, one.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, part of that is like unique, unique.
When you're playing this thing, if you're playing lead,
I mean you just jump on it like you own this thing your whole life.
Okay.
We'll take it a little slower.
Okay.
So, we'll do this once more and then we'll go on
with the rest of the show.
Okay, here they are.
They got rid of the girls off stage.
Blah, blah, blah.
The audience is applauding.
Okay, and here we go, the jolly jovers.
One, two, one.
Hey.
That was great.
A lot better.
Okay, now we'll go on.
Yeah, good.
Okay, number two.
What is that?
Oh, yeah.
Let me do something silly on stage.
Okay, we're right here.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, what I'm going to do is it will be downbeat on this thing
because I'm looking at the stage.
Okay, she finally falls.
Okay, here we go.
Okay, again.
Finally falls.
I'm looking over here.
See, you guys got to be ready.
Everybody's got to be ready.
Okay, she falls on the stage.
Everybody's laughing.
Okay.
Why don't you guys switch?
Yeah.
I'll make it easier.
I don't want to push anybody over here.
Okay.
Then there's a timpani.
Timpani on the next one.
So something's happening on the stage.
She knocks him down.
Okay, ready?
Now it's in four.
Downbeat.
Here we go.
Good.
Good.
Okay.
Okay, then you've got to repeat the same thing we played there before.
Okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Something happens.
It's in four.
Ready?
Downbeat.
Good.
Okay.
Okay, now you get it.
Okay.
So they're doing something on stage.
This is going to be Star Wars.
I think there's actually, I just remembered a problem on your part.
And see that B written in there?
Yeah.
They actually copied the charts wrong.
And so we substituted, we actually put the melody line.
They did put the melody line.
That's all.
Okay, so you've got certain things cut out.
Yeah.
You will not play those things.
You will play the B.
Okay.
Okay.
Good.
I see I gave you too much of a chance here.
What a guy.
What a guy.
Okay, so it goes on stage.
They're getting to their big finale.
And here they go.
Now I'm going to give you a count off on this one.
One, two, three, four.
Okay, good.
And now everybody's getting the applause.
And they're getting ready to go off stage.
Yeah, keep the applause going.
Okay.
Okay.
Three, four.
Three, four.
And now everybody's getting the applause.
And they're getting ready to go off stage.
Yeah, keep the applause going.
Okay.
Yeah.
There's the closet.
One, two, three, four.
All right.
Well, here we go.
Come on, everybody.
Let's do it one more time.
One, two, three, four.
Okay.
Okay.
Good.
And now everybody's getting the applause.
And they're getting ready to go off stage.
Yeah, keep the applause going.
Yeah.
One, two.
[♪ music playing, applause and cheering from audience.]
Perfect.
You guys, that's very good.
Very good.
[♪ applause and cheering from audience.]
Take that over there.
I don't want you passing anything you don't feel clean about, okay?
Just to get some of the nuts.
Probably going too fast, okay?
It's not a big deal.
Just take a look at it.
Okay.
You guys did great.
And it's like that sometimes is exactly what happens.
You'll come in on something and you'll have to play it.
Like you've been playing it all your life.
You did very good picking up on it.
There's just so many things that occurred.
And it's even different when you get into the situation
and there's people there and there's things going on in the stage
and there's things going on around you.
So anyway, that gave you an idea.
We didn't even get into the fact that you have to blend with each other.
You have to, you know, do all those other things.
Those are things that are there too.
But we don't want to do anything that's like...
I noticed this piece doesn't really have its sort of dynamics level.
There's two points here.
Right.
Exactly.
Other than that, I don't see the surface.
It would be in.
It would be in.
Whoever's sitting there, that's who's going to do that.
Now, we actually interpreted this part two different ways.
Sometimes we would do it as a swing.
We tried that a couple nights.
You know, we'd do it like...
Guys that were playing for eight years on the same show
and this act would come in, they couldn't play it.
You know?
So we'd say, Alex, let's swing it a couple nights.
And so it entirely changes the style.
We went...
We swung this.
When we took it up to tempo, I had to do straight eights.
You can't do that.
So then again, you get into interpretation style.
And that's just experience.
Anyway, that's it for the lecture.
Are there any questions?
Anything that I've brought up today that I happen to handle?
Okay, great.
That's it.