Bernardo Silva and Trompas Lusas
O INÍCIO
As Trompas Lusas são um quarteto de trompas português, fundado no ano de 2010, e que está radicado na zona do Porto, norte de Portugal. O projecto nasceu de uma relação de amizade de vários anos. Fizemos a nossa formação inicial na mesma escola, Artave, e fomos convivendo regularmente tocando inicialmente em Bandas Filármonicas, e mais tarde colaborando em várias orquestras. Durante anos tivemos em mente o projecto de criar um quarteto de trompas, pelo grande prazer em fazermos música de câmara e podermos fazê-lo entre amigos. Em 2010 aconteceu o nosso primeiro concerto, surgiu a oportunidade de apresentarmos o Konzerstück para 4 trompas de Robert Schumann. Foi em Espanha, com a Orquestra Sinfónica da Cidade de Pontevedra. Esta fantástica obra foi um enorme desafio para um grupo que estava a começar, mas os sucessivos ensaios e o resultado do concerto deu-nos a motivação necessária para continuar com o projecto. Passados 5 anos, em 2015 voltaríamos a interpretar o Konzertstück de Robert Schumann em mais um par de concertos.
SOBRE OS MEUS COLEGAS
Os meus colegas das Trompas Lusas são músicos freelance, colaborando de forma regular com várias orquestras portuguesas. Uma dessas orquestras é a Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto, orquestra da qual sou membro efectivo desde 2000. São também professores bastante activos, lecionando em algumas das principais escolas desta zona do país.
Bruno Rafael leciona na Academia de Música de Guimarães, Universidade do Minho e Escola Profissional de Música de Viana do Castelo. É membro da Orquestra de Guimarães. Somos colegas há 23 anos e para além da paixão pela trompa, partilhamos a paixão pelo futebol e pelo mesmo clube Sporting Clube de Portugal!!
Nuno Costa leciona no Conservatório do Vale do Sousa, Escola Profissional de Música e Academia de Espinho. É membro da Orquestra de Guimarães. Muito prestável e polivalente, tanto toca trompa grave como aguda, sendo também o responsável por manter as contas do grupo equilibradas!!
Hugo Sousa leciona no Conservatório Regional de Vila Real, Academia de Música Sociedade Vizelense e Academia de Música de Vila Verde. É o membro mais jovem das Trompas Lusas, em jovem chegou a ser meu aluno e sem dúvida um dos alunos mais talentosos com quem tive oportunidade de trabalhar. Grande especialista de trompa grave, é um músico muito seguro. Fora da música é um apaixonado por desportos radicais, em especial downhill mountain biking!
Jonathan Luxton - the Gulbenkian Orchestra and ESML
Jonathan Luxton with João Gaspar
by Jonathon Luxton
João Gaspar and his horn quartet were organizing a horn workshop. He wanted me to do an interview talking about my 30 years in the Gulbenkian Orchestra, teaching for 26 years in the Escola da Música Lisboa (ESML), and my life in Portugal. It was filmed and recorded, and an article came out in a Portuguese magazine. I'm not sure how my Portuguese was as I was suffering a little from jet lag (I’d just returned from China, on my last big Gulbenkian tour).
After the general introductions, the interview started with João asking me why I'd come to Portugal to play for Gulbenkian. I explained that I had seen an ad in the Saturday Telegraph and had auditioned in London. I was not the first choice - that accolade went to Andy Antcliffe, now in the BBC. He didn't take the job, so they rang me. After some negotiating and doing 3 weeks here and there with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, I decided it was the job I wanted. The Orchestra was at that point only a chamber orchestra. Over the next 5 or 6 years, they started to play an ever-larger repertoire. I insisted on having 4 horns. They accepted, but we never got the 5th horn, even though our repertoire needed one.
Then we spoke about teaching and the legacy I was leaving in Portugal. I was honest and said that when I first came to Portugal, the general horn playing level was not what it is now. There were some good players, but they were few and far between. I'm a firm believer that beginners need the best teacher. It's quite easy to motivate students at University level, and if they arrive with their technique sorted out it makes teaching them easy. In my first few years, I taught at various Professional Schools (6th-12th grade) before starting at the ESML. Quite a lot of my ex-pupils were at this workshop. Paulo Guerreiro, (principal in OSP; also playing the Sao Carlos Opera), said that Bohdan Sebastik and myself were responsible for players such as Abel Pereira, Jose Bernardo Silva, Filipe Abreu and Paulo (and of course others). These wonderful players go on to teach, thus raising the level. The younger students take inspiration from their peers, and so the cycle goes on. I congratulated Paulo on taking over my position at the ESML and continuing to produce wonderful players like Ana Beatriz Menezes.
Interview of the month: Abel Pereira
Kristina Mascher-Turner: When I think of Portugal, I think immediately of the sea, the long maritime tradition, the beautiful coastline, fresh seafood, the salty air…Your family roots are steeped in this tradition. Can you tell us what it was like spending so much of your childhood on the ocean?
Abel Pereira: Yes, that is true. My childhood playground was the beach. Not a day went by that I didn’t spend time there. In the summer we would go surfing all day long, even at night, and on winter evenings we would make fire pits in the sand waiting for our moms to come get us, sometimes waving wooden spoons if it was too late! I used to play with my friends jumping from boat to boat, imagining we were in pirate battles. Sometimes I would even skip school to go out on the water with my friends in small sailing boats that had been abandoned by the coast. We had no idea how dangerous that was, but for us, those were the biggest adventures!!! Usually on weekends if the weather were good I would go out on the water with my dad, helping the fishermen on the sea front. That was one of my favorite activities.
KMT: What was your first encounter with the horn? Was there a distinct moment when you knew you wanted to spend your life playing?
AP: Well, when I was about 11(?) our neighbors experienced a tragic incident and my dad, concerned for my safety, no longer wanted me to spend weekends on the boat with him. Instead I started playing the horn with my town’s marching band. I fell in love with the horn right from the beginning, especially after listening to Hermann Baumann’s sound, but at first I thought it would be something I did just for fun. At that time I couldn't imagine myself doing anything that wasn’t connected to the ocean. At the age of 14 though, after discovering the beauty of Brahms, Strauss and Mahler, my heart felt very divided between the sea life and the music world. I thought I had two options, either work on the boat during the week and play my horn on weekends or play my horn professionally and have some fun on weekends with the boat. Obviously I chose the second option.
KMT: You’ve studied both in Portugal and in Germany. Is there a significant difference in the horn playing traditions between the two countries?
AP: Yes, there is a big difference between these two countries. Germany has a 300-year-old tradition of horn playing during which they have created their own style. It’s a country full of great orchestras and amazing players. Through the years some of the orchestra’s horn sections may have developed more individually but the core of the style remains very strong. In Portugal the situation is very different. There is no strong tradition yet but rather a mix of styles. There are few orchestras in the country and most are not more than forty years old. When these orchestras were created there were not enough professional musicians to fill the spots so they had to import some musicians. Now there are some very good musicians and teachers but many of them come from different places like the US, France, Czech Republic and England, and with them they bring their own playing traditions!
Practice and Performance – The Mental Game
by Jeff Nelsen
En Español(See the accompanying video here)
As musicians, we are creative athletes, and as with other sports, music-making as a discipline has both mental and physical aspects. In order to share our music in a compelling and convincing way, our preparation and performance must satisfy both the intellectual and the corporeal demands of our craft. This is no simple endeavor.
Though this work might be frustrating at times, I can usually find a way to appreciate how complex this learning is. With each day, I get to try to simplify my complex discoveries into usable pieces, put those pieces together, and go out there to try to share some beautiful musical lines out my bell. We are all at this place because we’re always learning…and we always have potential growth ahead of us.
About a year ago, I was doing some intonation work, and choosing to get frustrated with the slow progress. I was feeling uncomfortable with my work because I’d been seeing pretty much the same level of results over days and weeks. One day I went to a lecture by music education learning coach Gregg Goodhart, and he revealed this graphic.
I was VERY relieved to see this!! So, that uncomfortable feeling was simply due to me being out of my comfort zone? I was in a good place when I was feeling uncomfortable!? And it’s called the Learning Zone. Nice.
This graphic explains an important idea in regards to how we approach our time both in the practice room and onstage. The comfort zone is fine. Hang out there. There are some seriously good super-hero movies worth watching! But once you’re working, leave your comfort zone and get learning. Push yourself. If you’re in your comfort zone, you’re maybe not doing badly, but you might be missing out on some growth.
Practice and Performance – The Mental Game
Hola a todos,
Este mes, vamos a centrarnos en los aspectos mentales y físicos involucrados al hacer música. Como músicos, somos una especie de atletas creativos. Con el fin de compartir versiones irresistibles y convincentes de nuestra música, debemos abordar la preparación y la ejecución de una manera equilibrada. Esto no es en lo absoluto una tarea sencilla. En ocasiones pensar en esto pudiera ser fustrante y usualmente puedo encontrar la manera de apreciar cuán complejo es éste aprendizaje.Cada día, trato de simplificar éstos descubrimientos que me resultan complejos y los convierto en piezas manejables que al juntarlas me permitan compartir líneas musicales hermosas a través de mi campana. Todos nos hemos encontrado en éste punto debido a que estamos aprendiendo continuamente... y siempre tendremos frente a nosotros ése potencial para desarrollarnos.
Para ésos momentos en donde pensamos que nuestro aprendizaje se ha detenido, recuerda que eso es solo algo mental. Ése momento de dificutad, es una elección. En su libro,“How The Best Get Better”, Dan Sullivan escribe que cuando te has tropezado con ése muro y sientes que has dejado de aprender, te has topado con lo que él llama " El Techo de la Complejidad". Te has desanimado o has colapsado de tal modo que es demasiado para poder abordar el siguiente paso hacia tu objetivo del aprendizaje. En éste punto, él escribe que lo mejor que puedes hacer es desglosar todo y comenzar de nuevo. Así veo yo mi rutina diaria. Comenzar de nuevo, tanto como sea posible con todo lo que tengo hasta ahora a la vez que trato de incorporar también el nuevo aprendizaje.
Tal vez mientras lees esto descubrirás nuevos elementos para añadirlos a tu rutina de mañana. Pero recuerda....
Hace un año aproximadamente, estaba haciendo algunos ejercicios de entonación y elegí fustrarme ante mi progreso que era lento. Me estaba sintiendo incómodo con mi desempeño. Un día, me encontré con una lectura del coach en aprendizaje de la educación musical Gregg Goodhart, y él mostraba el siguiente gráfico:
Fué un GRAN alivio el ver esto!! Entonces, esa sensación desagradable era sólo porque estaba fuera de mi zona de confort? Estaba en el lugar correcto cuando me sentía incómodo! Y ése lugar era la zona del aprendizaje.Qué bien!
Este gráfico explica una idea importante con respecto a la forma en que abordamos nuestro tiempo tanto al momento del estudio como en el escenario. La zona de confort está muy bien.Quédate un rato allí. Hay muchas buenas películas de superhéroes que valen la pena ver! Pero una vez que estás trabajando, deja esa zona de confort y concéntrate en aprender. Esfuérzate. Si estás en tu zona de confort, tal vez no lo estés haciendo mal, pero tal vez te estés perdiendo una oportunidad de crecer.
Ése es el primer error – buscar sentirse cómodo. El segundo gran error que la gente puede hacer es abandonar todo cuando se sienten incómodos. Ellos piensan que estar incómodo es algo malo, por lo que se saltan su zona de aprendizaje y van directamente a la zona de pánico. Este gráfico nos ha ayudado, a mis alumnos y a mi, a adoptar y aprovechar ese sentimiento de incomodidad. Sí es posible detectar lo que nos incomoda y así profundizar en ese sentimiento. ¿Realmente necesitamos tener el control total? ¿Queremos estar totalmente seguros de algo que tal vez no lo sea? Tal vez tenemos que salir de nuestra zona de confort, calmarnos, y ver lo que sucederá luego.
Si desean escuchar un poco más sobre el tema del juego mental, he hecho un vídeo corto al respecto.
Este mes, tenemos una entrevista maravillosa con "El Músico a prueba de balas" y profesor en interpretacion de la facultad de Juilliard, Noa Kageyama. Él se refiere al término "Músico a prueba de balas" como un sinónimo del músico que se "sumerge profundamente al realizar una obra"... y ahonda en este tema y otros enfoques valiosos para el entrenamiento y la psicología. El Dr. Peter Iltis comparte (junto con Eli Epstein) la investigación y propuesta de su "Proyecto de Archivo Internacional del Corno/Trompa con resonancias magnéticas". Acá ellos acostaron boca arriba a varios cornistas, nos metieron dentro de una ruidosa máquina de resonancia magnética, y nos hicieron tocar un corno natural de cobre por un rato. Gracias Pedro. Eso fue muy divertido! Jaja ... ahora soy testigo de que lo ustedes han hecho, vale la pena para todos! Vamos también a conocer este mes a nuestro fabricante de cornos Darin Sorley! Y por útimo tendremos a Andre Cazalet quien estará a cargo de nuestro artículo pedagógico.
En esta edición del "Corno y más" esperamos que encuentren algunas ideas que les puedan ayudar en sus actividades musicales, sobre el corno y más...
Saludos cordiales,
Jeff...
Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Horn Playing: The MRI Horn Repository Project
by Dr. Peter Iltis
For many years, horn players and teachers have been interested in studying the physical phenomena associated with their art. Much has been written regarding breathing, formation of the embouchure, playing posture, and even hand position in the bell. Commentary regarding these physical manifestations is commonly based upon what can be externally observed, and much can be learned in this way, particularly from those elite performers who have become masters of their instruments. Philp Farkas’ photographic study of the embouchures of virtuoso horn players immediately comes to mind. As a young student I spent many hours on those revered pages.
An area, however, that has been shrouded in mystery concerns the many movements that occur inside the airways and oral cavities of fine horn players. A quick perusal of the available literature will reveal many different points of view regarding playing mechanics, particularly in reference to tonguing, tongue position during sustained and changing notes, oral cavity configuration when playing different dynamic levels, movements of the larynx, and even control of the glottis. At best, the savvy artist/teacher will develop a set of guiding principles based upon their own kinesthetic perception; principles that they believe allow them to have success. The ensuing logic is obvious: if great performers believe that they do things a certain way, then their opinions must be valid, and ought to be replicated in students. But what happens when great performers believe different things about what they do, particularly in regard to the inner workings of the mouth and throat?
Real-time magnetic resonance imaging (RT-MRI) provides a tool that promises to lift the veil of uncertainty that obscures our understanding. Since the fall of 2013, it has been my distinct privilege to give impetus and direction to a series of studies being conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany in collaboration with The Institute for Music Physiology and Musician’s Medicine, Hannover, Germany. For the first time, we are able to safely and systematically study movements inside airways and oral cavities of brass performers by recording movies utilizing this new technology.
Pedagogy: André Cazalet
Upon the invitation of my friend Ab Koster, who has asked me to participate in the pedagogy column of the IHS E-Newsletter, here are a few lines which I hope will be of interest to you.
It is very hard to theorize on pedagogy, which refers more to children, and on didactics, which refers more to teaching, because of their etymology. The music instrument teacher has to master both of these disciplines. If pedagogy is more of a general concept, didactics is specific and concerns a particular discipline.
My experience as horn professor of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (hereafter named CNSMDP) since 1985, 31 years this autumn, makes me think that the psychological relationship established between teacher and student is crucial and decisive in the evolution of the latter.
The consideration of physical, intellectual and mental capacities of each individual should determine a suitable program, as much on the technical as on the musical level. If the mastery of all registers of the instrument were the prerequisite for the training of any future professional horn player, it would be absurd to deny the natural tendency of each individual and not to consider specializing in a specific role and register.
More specifically in my class, with as objective a discourse as possible, we work essentially on the basic technical exercises: Verne Reynolds’ studies – which prepare best for all the atonal intervals ever more frequently used in the contemporary musical language – as well as solo and orchestral repertoire.
There are, in France, two Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs de Musique. One is located in Lyon, where David Guerrier is the horn teacher. The other one is in Paris (CNSMDP), where Jacques Deleplancque has a class of six students, and where I am teaching twelve other students. There is alsoa natural horn class at the CNSMDP under Claude Maury, open to students of the modern chromatic horn.
Each year, we invite a leading figure of the horn world for a master class, an even as anticipated by myself as by the students. To end this communication, let me mention some of our last guests (may those I’ve forgotten forgive me!): Ree Wekre, Neunecker,Tuckwell, Baumann, Bloom, Koster, Gaag, Vlatkovic, Dohr, Sommerville, Ruske, Orval, Schneider, Terwilliger, McWilliam, Wittgen, Tapani, Lansky Otto, Zempleni, Barboteu, Garcin Marrou, Dalmasso… and in March 2017, Frank Lloyd.
English translation by Louis-Philippe Marsolais
E-Newsletter November 2016 Introduction
Hola a todos,
Como músicos, somos atletas creativos, y al igual que con otros deportes, al hacer de la música una disciplina debemos estar consientes de sus aspectos mentales y físicos. Con el fin de compartir nuestra música de manera fascinante y convincente, nuestra preparación y posterior ejecución debe satisfacer tanto las demandas intelectuales y físicas de nuestro oficio. Esta no es una tarea sencilla.
Es éste nuestro tema para este mes en el Periódico Digital de la IHS.
En las siguientes páginas digitales, tenemos para ustedes:
- Un artículo y un video CORTO (lo prometo!) en donde hablo sobre el aprendizaje y sobre cómo conectar nuestra práctica con nuestro rendimiento en el escenario.
- Una entrevista maravillosa con "El Músico a prueba de balas" y profesor en interpretacion de la facultad de Juilliard, Noa Kageyama. Él se refiere al término "Músico a prueba de balas" como un sinónimo del músico que se "sumerge profundamente al realizar una obra"... y ahonda en este tema y otros enfoques valiosos para el entrenamiento y la psicología.
- El Dr. Peter Iltis comparte (junto con Eli Epstein) la investigación y propuesta de su "Proyecto de Archivo Internacional del Corno/Trompa con resonancias magnéticas". Acá ellos acostaron boca arriba a varios cornistas, nos metieron dentro de una ruidosa máquina de resonancia magnética, y nos hicieron tocar un corno natural de cobre por un rato. Gracias Pedro. Eso fue muy divertido! Jaja ... ahora soy testigo de que lo ustedes han hecho, vale la pena para todos!
- Vamos también a conocer este mes a nuestro fabricante de cornos Darin Sorley!
- Y por útimo tendremos a Andre Cazalet quien estará a cargo de nuestro artículo pedagógico.
En esta edición de "Corno y más" esperamos que encuentren algunas ideas que les puedan ayudar en sus actividades musicales, sobre el corno y más ...
Saludos cordiales,
Jeff
translation by Gabriella Ibarra - traducción de Gabriella Ibarra
