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Blosari-Kustannus Edition Ay 1999
Esko Heikkinen, a Finnish commercial trumpeter and big band leader, was a featured lecturer at the Lieksa Brass Week in July 1999. He presented a workshop on his new trumpet method book of warmups and calisthenics.
Heikkinen offered this overall analysis of his method:
The foundation of this approach is exercise No:1, consisting of long notes in the low register, which takes about 45 minutes to play. Rather than making the lips weak, this gentle approach lays the foundation of power and strength and promotes a resonant sound. No.1 is a safe exercise to play even with a big concert the same day. One can also incorporate the power exercises into warm-ups according to the needs of the day, but 80% of the warm-up should be spent on No. 1, and remaining 20% on the power exercises. Exercise No. 5, with flutter tonguing incorporated, forces the greater use of air in the upper register. Every person is different and individual. Balance is a key ingredient. A combination of long tones and tonguing, loud and soft dynamics, alternating crescendi and decrescendi toward the upper register, all works to improve playing.
The book is comprised of six exercises as follows, including the author´s descriptive titles: No. 1 " Bear´s Fart," Endurance, Warm -up and Low Register. The low register here is c1 to low f-sharp beginning with four tied whole notes, then single whole notes, followed by half notes, quarter notes, eight note triples, and sixteenth notes. No. 2 " Rabit," Fast Warm-up, consists of a tuneful sixteenth-note and thirtysecond-note scale exercise ranging from c1 to c3. No. 3 " Roller-Coaster", Endurance and Register Development, starts with long tones from c1 to low f-sharp and progresses through slurred lip flexibility exercise is characterized by progressively higher and softer playing, culminating with a c4 marked pppp. No. 4 "Tough Partisan" Endurance and Sound Quality, is a series of long tones ranging from f-sharp to c 3 and explores crescendi and diminuendi. No. 5 " Rattlesnake" Endurance and Range, is a flexibility exercise with a variety of articulations, including flutter tonguing. No. 6 " Heavy Duty", Power and Flexibility, is a short series of exercises focusing on slurred running scales, running scales with articulated repeated notes, slurred arpeggios, articulated scale patterns in various register, repeated note tonguing, glissandi, chromatics, ets.
This book is a handsome edition comprised of 52 pages, and each exercise is a accompanied by considerable explanatory text in both Finnish and English. Heikkinen´s manual offers a physical development and maintenance method similar to the respected method by James Stamp. This new publication is an exellent teaching resource and a refreshing addition to the power and range exercise repertoire. ( Michael Tunnell, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky)
JUNE 2000/ ITG Journal copyright International Trumpet Guild