One or More, Big or Small, Should do it? A discussion by Richard Colquhoun about the differing attitudes towards choices of trumpet mouthpieces for performance and their use in pedagogy. Introduction In April 2016 I travelled to Belgium to meet with Bahb Civiletti. Bahb is one of the world’s pre-eminent baroque trumpet players and his […]
Introduction – My Story Being a professional high-brass specialist and growing up in England with our brass band tradition I have been juggling performing on the cornet and the trumpet for my whole playing life. The first brass instrument I played was a cornet and I was extremely excited to take this beaten-up, smelly heap of […]
In recent months I have been considering writing a few books to aid my students, and anybody in the brass-playing world, to learn to play their instrument more easily. In the past I’ve been torn over whether this is a good idea or a waste of my time. Indeed there are already countless books out […]
One of the first posts on Trumpet Planet was an explanation of how I teach people to play major scales. It is a popular post and I still use this method to date with pupils surprised at how easy it is to understand key signatures when explained in this way. If you have not read that post […]
There are a number of discussions you can find in forums on the web and blogs of players who religiously follow the teachings of one brass guru or another who try to talk about the Tongue Controlled Embouchure. This is good; discussion is healthy; and at least if people are talking about an idea then that […]
In the first week of September I took a trip to the Stomvi factory in Valencia, Spain. I was long overdue a new trumpet (the subject of another upcoming blog post). This is the story of that day. I had exchanged a few emails with Vicente Honorato in advance so when I arrived at the […]
Welcome to the Trumpet Planet blog page! This blog originally started out as a place to share my thoughts and experiences as a professional trumpet player and teacher. I have found that over time it has begun to evolve in to much more. I have found great pleasure in researching and writing longer articles about trumpet […]
What is Einsetzen/Ansetzen? An article that describes, defines and explains the use of these lip positions in modern trumpet embouchure systems by Richard Colquhoun Intro One of the highlights of spending time with Bahb Civiletti in April this year was having the chance to watch him teaching TCE to trumpet players who had not tried […]
