The Development of Brass Artistry Through Sound Fundamentals

by William Stowman

The most effective pedagogy is simple, repeatable, and effective. Throughout my career, I have always appreciated those perfectly stated phrases shared by teachers in lessons or master classes that seem to immediately make sense and have a lasting impact. It seems that great pedagogues have handfuls of these phrases at their disposal to wield at any given time and usually at the perfect moment. I have worked diligently to build such a vocabulary and work each day to add to my collection. 

To that end, Body-Center-Breathe-and Flow was born of the need to create a simple, effective catchphrase that could serve as both an outline for instruction, as well as a powerful mantra heard by the player in the moments before sound is generated. In fact, the phrase itself fits beautifully into a four-beat preparatory pattern (1-and, 2-and, 3-and, 4) that reminds the player of the most vital aspects of making a great sound as they stand, or sit, to deliver.   

Much work has been done to categorize the most important elements of efficient playing. The phrase Body-Center-Breathe-and Flow is a distillation of four common issues:  Posture, Ergonomics, Breathing, and the Airstream itself. Couched in the idea of the Spiral Curriculum, these issues are introduced to beginners, then refined and repeatedly addressed with performers throughout their career. While the basic pillars remain a constant, the amount of detail associated with each one increases exponentially as players develop physically, gather more information, and gain experience. As a result, the system has been effective with students from the elementary level through the adult level. 

In greater detail, for the purpose of instruction:

 By Heidi Vogel with Gergely Sugar

Over the years the IHS has run various programs that offer cash, performance and learning experience awards. The deadline for the contests and scholarships this year is April 1, 2018. Imagine having all your expenses paid to attend the 50^th International Symposium in Muncie! How about the opportunity to perform at the Symposium? Cash awards? An orchestral coaching session for free? The key word is OPPORTUNITY! You can’t win if you don’t apply.

Many of our winners have gone on to illustrious careers involving the horn. One winner was asked about his experiences as a scholarship winner.

Gergely Sugar (GS) is a member of the ‘Wiener Symphoniker’, and a University Professor at the University for Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria teaching both Double- and Vienna-Horn. Gergely won the Hawkins Scholarship Award in 1996, which covered his expenses to attend the International Symposium held in Eugene, Oregon that year. Being a student back then in Budapest at the Franz Liszt Academy, the scholarship was really everything. Without the financial help there was no way he could have been able to visit the workshop in Eugene.

We asked Gergely: Was the Symposium for which you were awarded the Scholarship your first IHS Symposium?  If so, what was the experience like for you?  If not, how did it feel attending as an honored student, playing in a masterclass, or recital?

GS: Yes, that was my first symposium and a long time dream of mine. It was just mind blowing. The whole world opened up at a blink of an eye. I loved every moment of it…. It felt like being shot to the stars.

IHS: Has the Scholarship had a positive influence in your experience/education/career?  If so, how?

GS: The Scholarship had many influences on me, first and foremost, just to be able to be there and learn and listen and absorb. Then certainly the fact that my CV became suddenly serious. A winner is a winner, they took me at face value, it was easy to receive an invitation to auditions and, this one I only realized years later, some people even recognized me from the Newsletter at my audition in Vienna.

IHS: Anything else you would like to add about your experience with the IHS Scholarship/Contest program?

GS: If someone is willing to step into the headlight, international competitions, IHS contests and scholarships are one quick way to do it… It worked really well for me.

To see more about the IHS Scholarship and Award programs please click here.

By Jeffrey Snedeker, President, IHS

At IHS 50, the IHS will host five (5) 50-minute sessions, celebrating fifty years of symposia with panel discussion on various subjects. Current and past Advisory Council members, Honorary members, and other horn luminaries will serve as presiders and panel members for retrospective looks at the role of these symposia in The Development of Horn Pedagogy, Sound/Tone, The Business of Horn-Making, The Music Workplace, and the IHS itself. Each session will begin with a brief lecture by the presider, and then a panel discussion including questions from audience members.

Renowned pedagogue Douglas Hill will preside over the Pedagogy session, which will reflect on how pedagogy has evolved or even been influenced by past workshops. Frank Lloyd will preside over the session on Sound/Tone, which will explore how the concept of sound/tone of the horn has evolved over the past 50 years. Richard Bentson of Wichita Band Instruments will preside over the session on Horn-making; the panel for this session will feature horn makers and others who will consider the question: “How has the business of horn-making evolved over the past 50 years?” Nancy Jordan Fako will preside over the session on The Music Workplace, whose panel will reflect how issues of respect, equity, and gender issues have evolved in the music workplace over the past 50 years. Finally, I will preside over a session on the IHS itself, and the panel will present various perspectives on how workshops have both reflected and influenced the growth and priorities of IHS programs, including new music for horn, scholarship programs and competitions, the presence of the society in the music world, and more.

This celebration of 50 years of symposia and the parallel growth and development of our society should provide a lot of fun, memories, and provocative discussion. Please make time in your symposium activity schedule to attend these sessions!

I’m very happy to write a pedagogical contribution for the IHS newsletter, at the invitation of Prof. Ab Koster. Today I will speak about chamber music and the importance of playing together, as I teach in my lessons.

I’ve just taken over the professorship at the Conservatory in Lübeck and am in the process of building up a new studio. To this end, it is of particular importance to bring together a good mix of very young students just starting with their bachelor’s degrees, alongside somewhat older master’s degree candidates who can also start gathering their first orchestral experience.  Everyone can learn from everyone else in this context, improving their own playing and letting themselves be pulled along by those who are further down the road. I experienced this very thing during my studies in Stuttgart and would like to keep this model from the very beginning as the highest priority in my own teaching studio.

To achieve this, I started right off by putting together horn quartets within the class, with whom I can work in ensembles in addition to the private lesson (which of course is and should remain the most important component in the course of study).

Through my many years of experience in the most diverse of chamber music constellations, most of all in these past years through quartet playing with German Hornsound, I know how important mutual music-making, listening to one another, and especially communication in general (also outside of playing and rehearsal) are. Communication with colleagues and other students is something people particularly need to do well in every career, whether one becomes an orchestral horn player, chamber music specialist, or pedagogue. This is why I am diligent about bringing together and uniting various age and ability levels within each quartet. Through the medium of the quartet repertoire, we work on intonation, balance, playing together and in general achieving a common articulation and phrasing. This we do to create a quartet sound that allows each individual to be heard but nevertheless brings the sound quality and uniformity of the ensemble to the fore. Furthermore, I try to get the students to play as much chamber music with string players as possible. The way that string players phrase, differentiate, and communicate should also be goals for us horn players despite the technical difficulties that affect our instrument. We should hold ourselves to and imitate this standard.

In addition to quartet pieces, I also work with the ensembles in playing orchestral excerpts as a section. Aside from the many solo passages for first horn, we have a large number of duos (Beethoven symphonies, Mozart operas…), trios (Eroica, Fidelio, Dvorak Cello Concerto, Weber Clarinet Concerto…), and quartet or unison passages (Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner, Shostakovich, Strauss…), all which work together well and help ensure you stay fully aware of the other parts. Audition excerpts are an important component (as well as the joy and pain) of every student. Everyone has individual strengths and weaknesses, has passages that are harder or easier for them, and they notice that these will be different for each player.

In my experience, playing and working on the excerpts in a group setting, helps enormously, not only for working the notes into your chops for the audition and then after all that, often being nervous anyway, but also for having the feeling of the presence of the others from the group, even when they are not there.

Performing in front of others is another very important point for me. As often as possible, I hold internal practice performances, in which the students mainly play their audition repertoire. I also try to set up a large horn ensemble concert with the quartets once a semester, in which they can collaborate on octets or larger horn choir pieces as well. Aside from the individual problems that every horn player has and solves in private lessons, the vast majority of students also have troubles with stage fright. An important step to combat this is to make one’s performance become routine, thereby transforming the nervousness (the negative kind that makes the knees shake, the mouth feel dry, that makes the breathing shallow and closes off the throat) into positive energy, thus converting itself into the fun and joy of bringing something to the public; in the best case, going even further to create that certain special, magical something, that makes our vocation so wonderful.

Aside from his activities as solo horn of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Christoph Eß has won several prizes in international competitions. Starting in the winter semester 2017/2018, he has followed his calling to become professor of horn at the Music Conservatory in Lübeck. He studied with Prof. Christian Lampert in Basel and Stuttgart and graduated with honors in June, 2008. The ARD Music Competition (2005), Prague Spring Competition (2007), the Richard-Strauss Competition, as well as the “Concorso per Corno di Sannicandro di Bari” have all awarded him prizes, among others. As a soloist, he has appeared with several leading orchestras in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Czechia. He is also a founding member of the horn quartet, “German Horn Sound.”

Translation: KMT