Two Low Brass Master Classes

Yesterday at Arizona State we had not one but two master classes with low brass guest artists, Joseph Alessi and Jason Ham.

First up was Joseph Alessi, Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic. After a short, great performance with piano he worked with two students. The one pull away comment I took from him related to working on excerpts. The student played them well but for one in particular Alessi asked him what the orchestra played right before his entrance. When the student replied that he did not know Alessi said “‘I don’t know’ is never the correct answer.” He further explained to the class that you have to have the music going before your entrance in your head to play it really convincingly. For a horn example I can’t imagine playing the Shostakovich 5 low tutti excerpt well without clearly thinking two bars of the piano part before the entrance. Piano part? If you are not sure what I mean listen to it and memorize it.

The very next hour we had a master class with Jason Ham, Euphonium in the West Point band. I missed the beginning of his class but wish I could have seen it all. Toward the end he addressed the topic of hesitation attacks. His angle was the game of darts. A good attack has very much the same form and feel as a good throw of the dart. It is tempting to set up a board in my office to give people the feel, it is actually quite a good example visually and for the feel of the attack being in one motion, just like a good throw of a real dart.

There were many other points in each class. These are both players you should see present classes whenever you have the opportunity. And check out their websites linked above, there is much to be found in both.