The Life of a Brass Player
What you’ve heard or will hear at each performance from our remarkable brass players didn’t come easily. All professional musicians haves crosses to bear (listen to the saga of a vocalist sometime) but brass players have their special lifestyles as well and I thought you might appreciate knowing a few tidbits of The Life of a Brass Player.
Professional brass players live on the edge. The difference between hitting a note and missing a note, is razor thin. Each note is produced by a combination of lip tension, air speed and of course, the correct fingering. We hear the note in our heads and somehow provide the proper tension so that one note and only one note can be produced. Like putting on the golf green, speed and direction must be balanced to hit the hole and you know how often that happens!
Like finger prints no two sets of lips are alike and not every set of lips are able to work on brass instruments. Even if they do work, there are often differences in lips as to who can play low brass and who can play high brass instruments. Lips also vary with health and climate conditions. A cold changes the texture and moisture content of the lips and wet and dry climates affect many brass players differently. Often, these adverse conditions cause us to do some really different “tricks” just to survive.
As you can probably tell, high notes are often more perilous than low notes because brass instruments play according to an “overtone series” which is the basis of every sound. As notes get higher, the space between the notes is much smaller to the point that notes might only be one step apart with any one fingering. Hitting the note that you want becomes somewhat of a dart game at that point as we must get the lip tension, airspeed, air volume just right – not to mention the addition of style, vibrato and energy to make the note beautiful. Then it’s on the next note which may come really fast – no time to reflect on what you just did! The ability to accomplish all of this starts with a good education, great teachers, tons of experience, and a little luck. It takes many decades to become an accomplished professional brass player.
Once one does become accomplished, it isn’t like riding a bike – “you can always do it.” All of us in the Denver Brass must go through a series of routines every day with very few days off and never in a row. It takes as much as 2 days of intense practice to get back into performance shape to every 1 day taken off. So a 2 week vacation off the horn can take 4 weeks of practice before one can safely play again in public.
Brass musicians have to worry about fatigue since the lip muscles are very small and wear out much more quickly than the larger muscle groups. So balancing practice with performance is always a dilemma. One can’t rest a fatigued lip too much or it gets out of shape and one can’t practice too much or it gets overly fatigued – a true balancing act.
Finally, the professional brass player is always on the lookout for the newest innovations on their instrument. The instrument itself can become an important factor in the success of a musician. For instance, the five trumpets I use most often are made by Cliff Blackburn in Tennessee. They are all handmade and gold plated and one has to be on his waiting list at least a year for each instrument ordered. Then there is the never ending search for mouthpieces which come in an endless number of sizes, diameters, depths and backbores.
Brass playing is not for the squeamish or hesitant musician. Playing it safe doesn’t work in brass playing and confidence is the name of the game. Now that you know all the dangers, I hope you will sit back and enjoy the many successes of my remarkable colleagues.