~ Suggested Resources ~

Readings

Here are some readings that will help you improve your musicianship.

Mike Vax on Practicing

Mike Vax is an International Artist for the Getzen Company. Mr. Vax performs exclusively on Getzen trumpets, cornets and flugelhorns. He has played lead and solo trumpet with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, the Clark Terry Big Bad Band, and the U.S. Navy Show Band.

Mike has also performed and/or recorded with such greats as Art Pepper, Al Grey, Freddy Hubbard, John Handy, Don Ellis, Don Jacoby, Louie Bellson, Joe Williams, Anita O’Day, Barbara McNair, the Four Freshmen, The Glenn Miller and Jimmy Dorsey Orchestras, The Navy Commodores, The Army Blues, The Army Jazz Ambassadors, The Air Force Falconaires, the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band, and the Dukes of Dixieland in New Orleans.

He has appeared as guest lead trumpet and soloist with symphony pops orchestras around the United States, as well as the All-American Collegiate Orchestra at Disneyworld. He has toured extensively in all 50 states, Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, South America and Japan.

As a recording musician, he has performed on more than 75 albums, including 20 under his own name.

Currently he is leading his own groups: The Mike Vax Jazz Orchestra, The Mike Vax Big Band (featuring alumni of the Stan Kenton Orchestra), TRPTS (Trumpets), The Great American Jazz Band, and the Mike Vax Quintette and Sextette.

Mike has done workshops and concerts in over 2000 elementary and junior high schools, high schools, colleges and universities all around the world, over the past 35 years. He is very active as a clinician and soloist in both the classical and jazz idioms.

In a recent posting on the Trumpet Players International Network, Mike had these thoughts:

...One of the first things I do in a clinic situation, is to ask the high school students how many of them practice 1/2 hour a day, at least 5 days a week. Ten to twelve years ago, more than 50% would always raise their hands; sometimes even more. Today? In a band of say, 80 players, maybe 8 - 10 will raise their hands, and the rest will usually giggle.

I then tell them that they would be flunking my class, because they would be doing practice cards, which would be 50% of their grade. There would also be "spot checks" of individual people playing certain passages to make sure that they weren't "fibbing" on those practice cards. I tell them that NOBODY in the room, including me, is good enough to play a concert by only going to rehearsals. If they aren't practicing at home, then THEY are the weak link in the "team." [While some may be right contending] that 1/2 hour isn't much, it is FAR more than doing nothing. And for young people, that IS striving to be more than mediocre, since mediocre for them, is NO practicing. A 1/2 hour commitment is a true commitment to make themselves and their band better.

I also tell them that there are 48 half hour periods in every day of their life and that if they practiced one half hour a day, there would be 47 other equal time periods to get their other stuff done. That really does open up their minds to how easy it is to make the commitment. I also tell them that practicing a musical instrument will transfer over to everything else they do in their lives and it will teach them how to be successful in whatever they choose to do.

I then tell them that if they want to be really good players and maybe make all region or all state band that they must be practicing at LEAST an hour a day, seven days a week. I then make a joke about the Lord resting on the Sabbath, but they can't. That usually gets at least a little chuckle.

The next thing we talk about is why professionals practice more than amateurs, even in sports. I get them to give me reasons why they think this is true. The first one, of course is "We get paid." And I say that is true, so we had better be at the top of our game all the time. We then talk about commitment, practicing, enjoyment as you get better, and the fact that in music, you can get better for your whole life. I also talk to them about baseball players hitting .300 and being superstars. Football quarterbacks completing 50% of their passes and being superstars. I then ask them how they would like to hear a musician who missed 50% of the notes. Good laugh here. Then I tell them that musicians are expected to "bat" .999 every time they perform. That is what our audiences expect. And - our audiences don't accept "slumps." Some overpaid, crybaby baseball player, who makes more every time he goes to the plate than we make in a year, doesn't hit in 10 or 12 games. "Oh, that is too bad, he is having a slump. He'll come out of it......." If a musician did that they would be FIRED.

So, I stand by my statement about at least a half hour a day as being at least some sort of commitment to striving for SOMETHING, as opposed to nothing. True, they are not "mastering" their instrument in the way you are thinking about, but they ARE learning to be responsible to strive for SOMETHING in their lives.

Jon Trimble On Life as a Working Musician

Jon Trimble is a working musician in the Branson, MO area.

A recent post on TPIN stated:
"I was wondering what it is like being a professional trumpet player (jazz, orchestral, etc.) and what kind of training you all received and what you all do on a day to day basis."

Jon's response:
Hey, great question, I know you'll get a ton of answers.

All I do is trumpet and that's the only [thing] I ever thought I would do in life from day one. I don't know if this will help but I'll try my best to spell out what has worked for me so far.

[Growing up in] in Vegas, I listened to everything I could get my hands on. My paper route (at age 11) gave me 200 bucks a month which all went into buying records and tapes. I listened to each one and transcribed what I enjoyed. My father worked as a Trombone player so I got into many of the shows recording and transcribing the books. Mom (step-mother) was/is a concert Violist. I would grab and read her [music for 'exercise'].

I took [lessons] from Walt Blanton (principal trumpeter for the Las Vegas Symphony), John Harner (lead player for Stan Kenton--He got me onto the Caruso method), Tommy Porrello, lead player for Harry James, Woody Herman, etc. and finally Ron Barrows for Jazz.

Anyway, my life revolved around trumpet...Hit the gym, hit the horn, cram for whatever school test I "had" to get thru and get back on the horn. Television was as useless to me then as it is today.

At age 13 I was playing in the local musician's union "kix" bands where the players of the day hung out. I spent most of my life around that scene anyway.I had the incredible experience in watching musicians kill themselves with drugs and booze (I found out real fast what I didn't want [to go that route]). I watched and listen to countless greats at the Four Queens. If someone could do something better then me, I found out why and pursued it. I thought I was going to live and die in Vegas playing those shows. How little did I know...

An interesting note, (after all of this junk)...no matter how well you can play, you still might not get the gig. Politics suck!!!! I went to Pittsburgh with Ray Stevens one year, hit a bar and heard at least a dozen trumpeters that could clean my clock on the jazz stage and I had never heard of them. In college, I majored in music AND minored in sociology. The sociology education actually helped me more then the music studies.

Here's how [all of this has] helped me for what I do now...

I currently play trumpet for the Showboat in Branson (ten months work a year ~$45K). I record for about a dozen theaters here in town which makes another $10K or so (come to find out, they called me since not only could I play things usually in one or 2 takes, but I could play lead, jazz, scream something or simply listen to the tune, make 2 passes and they had 2 trumpet parts). In addition, I play a few bar gigs which usually brings in another $10-15K a year. I also arrange mostly horn parts for various bands bringing in some extra chump change from time to time. January and February, I ping pong around catching up from the previous year and hit the studio a lot.

I had something on my locker at work and had to take it down since it upset so many people I work with (whimps). This is what it said...........

PRACTICE AND PLAY EVERYDAY LIKE THERE ARE 100 CATS BETTER THEN YOU WANTING YOUR GIG. WHY?....,,,BECAUSE THAT'S THE TRUTH!!!

[The] sad thing is this; do all of that and you still might not have a gig. I've been very fortunate.

Here's what you need to learn...

EVERYTHING YOU DON'T KNOW AND EVERYTHING YOU CAN'T DO YET. Go to every clinic with opera singers, drummers, piano players, writers, etc. Buy everything and when you can't play, read about it, or listen to something you can't play and learn that. Grab the bear then eat him. Train like an athlete. Bill Knevitt has an awesome book called the truth about double C.  Man, forgetting the double C, it's an awesome book on trumpet focus.

I am currently supporting myself, my wife (been married 18 years) and two daughters.  I live in an OK house which has more then doubled in value the past several years. I have what I need. I'm not rich at all but I'm OK. For me, music and the trumpet never had anything to do with money. I guess I'm somewhere around the $70-$80K mark which is pretty decent for the Branson area.

Hopefully some of this will help you with the mind set of nuts like me. Set some goals and go after them man. There's work to be had or made. The hardest part, I think, is finding like minded individuals to come along. I believe they used to call that a band...:)



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