Method
3. "The musician has to learn how to pruduce the vibrations with his own body."
When parts of a piano keyboard are missing or an organ's motor isn't working, you would always ask an instrument repair technician for help before trying to play on the instrument. When brass players have difficulties with sound production, endurance, range or control, then these problems are not the instruments' or the music's fault. They are much more problems of the generator and need to be tackled where they originate - by dealing with your body.
In order to do so, you must know how generator works and which simple and natural possibilities our body has to master these requirements.
So compared to most other instruments, brass instruments have a different way of producing vibrations. In addition, brass players also are confronted with problems that have to do with the different kinds of muscles in our bodies:
We have:
- conscious muscles - which we are familiar with from every-day use, such as the fingers
- subconscious muscles (such as the mimic muscles),
- vegetative muscles that belong to our body "operating system" and normally is not controlled consciously or directly (our breathing, for example)
- psychomotor muscles that react to how we feel and then influence our vocal cords and breathing, for example
- muscles, that in part can work even when only certain physical principles are given, without any physiological activity. (the vocal cords can also work this way)
Of course there are many overlaps and intersections.
As annoying as it might be, a brass players needs all of these "abnormal" muscles in order to make the body work as a generator. When learning this method, you will:
- develop a consciousness for the muscles that brass players need to play their instruments,
- establish a practice routine that trains the muscles that we need, and
- learn how to avoid superfluous and counterproductive actions.
The special advantage of this training program is that all exercices are initially executed independently from playing on the instrument!
This means that you will practice on your instrument as usual, and independently from that will improve your motoric abilities. Even further down the road, you do not need to consciously influence your playing, because the exercises are meant to improve your intuitive abilities. They will positively influence your playing without you consciously having to change anything.
The certified teachers listed on this website are all excellently trained and continue their training on a regular basis. They will support and guide you to solve all brass playing problems.
Furthermore, Malte Burba offers master classes where he explains and illustrates his method in detail.
