Most people work on range by playing scales and arpeggios. Most range books use these because they LOOK good in print. Scales to Double High C LOOK good. Sadly they don’t make your range playable in real music.

To play usable high notes, you need to practice music in the upper register.

I looked at a LOT of music for flute, clarinet, piano…

I looked for music that worked on basic trumpet skills but in a register that we don’t normally practice those skills.

“The Next Level” is a collection of music that will help teach you to PLAY music in the upper register.
This music will make you stretch out and improve your technique in the upper register and help you to become what MOST lead players are not.

A MUSICIAN.
I use this music in my in-person lessons and people are surprised that anyone tries to play this type of music in this register.
Regardless of your current playing level. “The Next Level” will not only challenge you, but it will also guide you to improvement in all areas of the trumpet.

It is 31 pages of info and music that will stretch your playing abilities.

Dear “Pops”,
I recently bought your books a week or more back, and they have helped me a lot on my range and my endurance.
I went from a C as my high note, to double C and even higher as my high note.
I want to thank you for helping me with your books.
Sincerely,

Adam

The post The Next Level: Play Music in the Upper Register appeared first on BBTrumpet.

People ask me every day why they can’t play high or why they don’t play well high.
Range books are written to make you FEEL good and not written with real life in mind.

They have you play lots of arpeggios. So you play 1 C, 1 E, 1 G, 1 high C. You don’t don’t build a base for the high notes. You build a range flagpole. It has no support and doesn’t work on the gig.

You won’t get a good high C by playing 10 high Cs a day. Not ever. Not in 1,000 years.

We should build a range like a pyramid. 100 high Cs a day, 80 high Ds a day, 60 High Es, 40 high Fs. Can’t go on to G until you increase the Fs to 50.

If your range or endurance isn’t there you start lower. 100 Gs on top of the staff, 80 As, 60 Bs, 40 Cs. Don’t do D until Cs get to 50 a day.
Or even lower. 100 Es, 80 Fs, 60 Gs on top of the staff, 40 As, and don’t play B until you increase the As to 50.

The idea of playing more high notes to improve range is why I wrote the New Expanded Range Arban book a couple of years ago.  It gives a lifetime amount of material to work with.

You play Arban exercises, songs, my weird exercises, and more songs… and all of these are in a dozen or more keys so that they fall in the part of your range that you are working.

There are thousands of ways to accomplish the goal of a good high note pyramid.

I have had countless questions about how to do this, what to play, where to start…

That is why I wrote this practice book “Range Pyramid Practice”. It is a 108 page Ebook. I have a playing test that shows you exactly where you need to start in the exercises to improve quickly and safely.

Then it has weekly exercises the lowest ones top out at 3rd space C and the highest ones top out at G above Double High C. (3rd G above the staff.)

The workload increases every week and it only takes 14 minutes a day. BTW 7 of those minutes is resting.

Range Pyramid Practice a 108 page

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I and countless other teachers have complained for years about people doing pedals the wrong way and creating problems in their playing.
Part of the problem was always how the exercises in the books were written.
None of them ever used a setpoint idea even though some of the teachers who wrote the books used a setpoint when playing.

I finally decided to write a pedal book explaining the HOW to play pedals and using a setpoint written into every exercise to promote ONE embouchure set for the whole exercise.

Playing the pedals correctly requires us to think more about keeping the normal embouchure and letting things build and correct by themselves. We can NOT change things to make them sound pretty as that disrupts the one embouchure set.

You will discover more flexibility between registers and more volume in every register as you work in this book. The range extension part uses pedals and high notes in the same exercise so that you build your ability to play 3, 4, and 5-octave lines. It feels amazing.

Pedal Tone Book – Trumpet Power Builder

Pedal notes are a special component of trumpet skills, which many players first recognize as they venture further along their musical career. These super low notes can sound a bit strange when you first hear them, but they are doing a vital job. These Pedal tones would make the embouchure relaxed, and also work on your air speed control as well as full instrument flexibility.

The Pedal Tone Book presents exercises that lead players through this frequently neglected technique, encouraging them to work on improved fundamentals as they do so.

The post Pedal Tone Book: Learn the Correct Way appeared first on BBTrumpet.

In the old versions the etudes were in one key. The top note was too high for younger players and not high enough to work on range for experienced players.
This was a problem and it bothered me when I was in Middle School (too high) and in High School and College (not high enough).

I decided to fix that problem. I took the 1912 version of the book and I wrote the studies and Etudes in different keys and covering the range from Low F# to Double C.
If you are working on making high E, F, (whatever) a more stable note; this book has exercises that use that note.

The post The new expanded Clarke technical studies appeared first on BBTrumpet.

Mouthpiece guides all say the same thing about every mouthpiece. They are all made for a player with a strong, well trained, robust, good… embouchure.

This is meaningless.

They also say this gives a brighter sound but compared to what?
And just HOW much does it brighten it?
We all need to know this but we don’t get the information from the charts.

Yes sometimes you can go play a new mouthpiece in a store but most people are limited in what is available locally. Plus we only hear what is behind the bell.

In this Ebook you hear the sound that is out in front of the bell. (Just like people who listen to you play would hear it.)  Some things may surprise you.
The point behind this Ebook is to teach you how to pick a perfect mouthpiece for YOU for the style and sound that you want. This book is almost like having a pro go with you to try mouthpieces.

For the videos; I played a shallow cup (Schilke a or Bach e), medium cup (Schilke b or Bach d), C cup, Combination Bach BC cup, deep cup (Schilke d or Bach b cup), a TC cup (Trumpet/Cornet), and a TF cup (Trumpet/Flugel). So I played 7 depths on the same diameter mouthpiece. I also play bored out throats against stock throats, and I play 4 mouthpiece depths with and without a mega sound sleeve.

I played all of those so that you could tell how much or in some cases little difference there is between this depth and that depth.

One of the players was shocked by the sound he was getting on one mouthpiece. He thought that he was getting a much darker sound and the day after we did the videos he ordered an new mouthpiece. He and his college directors love the new sound.

The other players also use many different mouthpieces in the videos.
We all change depths often.

Later we start changing diameters (sizes) so that we can show what to look for in sizing a mouthpiece for you.
We get to the point where the mouthpiece is too small and you hear the distinct sound that makes. We point out how to tell and why it makes that sound.
We get to the point where the mouthpiece is too big and you can hear what that sounds like. Again we point out what the problem is and why it makes that sound.

This Ebook is 10 pages and there are 2 hours and 20 minutes of videos letting you hear several different players showing how changing mouthpieces affects the sound.

In these clips we show 1 mouthpiece. In the ebook you hear the other pieces that were compared to these and get the full picture.

Trumpet Mouthpiece Sound – What to Expect

A trumpet mouthpiece may seem like a tiny bit of kit, but it can make a dramatic difference to how a player sounds and feels when they play. And, according to Goran, different mouthpiece shapes and sizes influence tone color, comfort and even the response of certain notes. For this reason, so many musicians search around for a mouthpiece that fits their playing style.

Ultimately by understanding how these variations of a guitar influence sound, players can make more informed choices in selecting this type of gear.

The post Mouthpieces: What will it sound like? appeared first on BBTrumpet.

OK, I finally did it. After being asked literally hundreds and hundreds of times. I wrote a practice book just for trumpet range and trumpet high notes. This is in many ways what Don Jacoby had us do to develop range and high notes when I studied with him.

Many people don’t know how to go about practicing to increase trumpet range.

This shows you what to do and how much to do.

There are exercises and instructions that cover from Low F# to F over Double High C.

I have seen good players get tired on the first 2 pages and rest before going on. (These stop at high C but are written in an interesting way.)

The exercises are progressive and push you in a way that also develops accuracy.

29 pages of exercises and directions that will wear you OUT. They help make your range and high notes powerful and seamless.
These follow my thoughts on Lip Setpoint and maintaining ONE embouchure set and are written to help establish that habit.

What if I can only play a high C or C# you may ask?
You play what you can and keep moving (in tempo).

Play the C# and the D even if you miss the D (just don’t push for it).
The Eb E F… play them as far as you can.

This keeps you moving higher even if you miss the last note.
Try an F arpeggio and miss the F; you still played the C.
Try a G and miss the G you still played a D.

See trying further down the exercise than you think you can play – makes you play and try MORE high notes.

The point is to work on harder stuff and keep going.

This is 28 pages of mind-changing ideas and music to expand your range.

Improve Trumpet Range – High Notes Training

Many trumpet players strive for hitting higher notes. Building powerful, soaring high notes takes more than will; it is about airflow efficiency, embouchure balance and even consistency of practice habits. With the proper technique, building range is not a struggle; it is something that can be done bit by bit.

In high note training, you develop control and strength so that the upper register comes out naturally rather than forcing it.

The post More Power -> More Range -> High Notes appeared first on BBTrumpet.

For all of my life I have been disappointed with standard key studies. They are usually scales or parts of scales and often they leave out what they consider to be difficult keys.

Great so everybody can play in the key of C, F, G most in Bb and D then we start losing people and by Db we have lost 95% of players and by F# oh well.

This problem happened to us because most people did what Arban did. The Arban key studies had 15 exercises for C major and 1 for F#. As the keys got more sharps and flats he had fewer exercises.

We won’t practice what we don’t have.
So in my New Arban every key had 24 exercises.

But still they weren’t songs.
I used these 2 Concertos The Haydn and The Hummel with my students but I never had them in a key study book. Each Concerto is written 24 times and covers every key. I even do the B Cb, C# Db and F# Gb combinations.

These are great songs and work the keys extremely well. Plus as an added benefit I kept going so that we had great music to work range with. So this book covers a LOT of playing issues at once.

The Haydn and Hummel Trumpet Concerto Key and Range Study Ebook is 485 pages and covers the concertos in every key.

The post Trumpet concerto key and range study appeared first on BBTrumpet.

Over the years I’ve had thousands of people ask how and what to practice when you only have 30 or so minutes a day.

Is there a way to maintain your skills or even to improve some of them.

Well now there is

It is all about working both hard and smart. Not wasting 1 second of valuable practice time. And more importantly working each and every muscle and skill we need to play well.

This book does that.

30 Minutes A Day to Better Playing is all about working both hard and smart.

9 unique Musical Trumpet Music exercises that will work the mind, fingers, tonguing skills, breathing, breath support, tongue arch, tongue hiss, flexibility, range…. In short everything.

Just a quick note to review Clint McLaughlin (Pops’) recent book, “30 Minutes A Day to Better Trumpet Playing”. This is necessarily a pretty slender volume (30 minutes ain’t long!), but it covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time.
There’s a very compact warm-up, a tonguing exercise, major/minor scales, lip flexibility, wide interval studies, compression/tongue arch/hiss exercises, and the atonal study designed for target practice (“sensation drill”), along with some specific instructions for how to approach the exercises, technically and physically.
It’s a pretty grueling workout, even with rests inserted. I’ve elected to use it every other day or so, and it feels like it covers alot of bases I wouldn’t otherwise necessarily cover in a regular practice session.
(For the record, my practice session sometimes consists of picking up the horn, warming up, and sight-reading some material or working on improvisational material…not very focused, in any sense. This method seems like a good way of touching alot of bases in an organized way.)
There are “options” that extend beyond my comfortable range, and obvious flexibility to increase speed on various exercises, so I feel like there’s room to grow.
There are also some good diagrams discussing tongue arch and tongue hiss that I hadn’t seen before.
Anyways, thought you folks might be interested.

Jeff Helgesen, trumpet
Facebook
Jeff played in the Ray Charles Orchestra (1987-1990) along with much more and several recordings.

This book put it all together for me. I became a better, stronger player in a couple of days.
I really had misunderstood the concept of the tongue arch, and now I know why I struggled for so long. I can only get to the horn every couple of days (if I am lucky–working for a living really screws up my leisure time), but I honestly got so much more efficient that my range and endurance are both VERY much increased.
I went from having a weak G above high C in the practice room to centered double high Cs, and an A that I can wail at the end of a gig.
Everybody in the band hears the difference and I get encouraging looks from each of them.
Easily the best thing I ever did for my playing. Buy the book, if you need range or endurance. Its cheap but worth more than you can afford.
BTW, Pops doesn’t even know me. I ain’t working for him.
Peace.

Gary Comingore

Clint…hello!
I received your “30 Minutes…” book and I’ve got to tell you that at first I thought I bought a bottle of snake oil! But, after reading the material, popping the mouthpiece in the horn and starting the routine, this book was good…very good!
At the 20+ minute mark I felt I had a real workout on my hands. Your book will become a part of my daily routine (gigging day or not). Many of the examples can easily be modified or varied to make it all more interesting.
Great work!
Thanks.

Don

Trumpet Practice Tips – 30 Minutes a Day

Most trumpet players do not have long hours available for practice. Between school, work, or other obligations consistent practice can seem difficult to keep up. The good news is that getting better doesn’t always require long practices. Even a dedicated 30-minute routine can provide significant advancement if that time is used effectively.

Short, structured practice allows players to stay consistent without becoming fatigued or frustrated.

The post 30 minutes a day: How to improve on trumpet with a limited schedule appeared first on BBTrumpet.