trumpetherald System Administrator
Joined: 25 Oct 2001 Posts: 1495 Location: USA
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2002 4:14 pm Post subject: |
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Although I didn't personally study with Jimmy, I have had the occasion to learn quite a bit about his approach from several different players, including Tom Stevens, Boyde Hood, and Bert Truax. I also was fortunate to study with some other people who use his approach but did not study directly with him as much as the above 3, including Stephen Burns, Eric Aubier, and some others.
So, I'm hoping that some of you who did study directly with Jimmy will contribute. I felt it was important enough to have this forum that it should be created.
For those of you who don't know much about Jimmy, I'll tell you a bit. He played principal in the Minnesota orchestra for 17 years until 1944 when he moved to Los Angeles and became involved in the recording studios. He suffered a major heart attack in 1954 which left him bedridden - doctors told him he was not likely ever to recover well. He began an exercise (walking/jogging) routine and within a couple of years had largely recovered from the heart attack. After this point in time he began to teach more and more and achieved a very high degree of success in the Southern California area.
In the seventies he visited Europe where his reputation preceded him - Tom Stevens had invited him to participate in a workshop the location of which I don't remember. A very young Hakan Hardenberger was present at this program and was introduced to Jimmy's teachings. At this workshop Jimmy also was introduced to Jean-Pierre Mathez (Editions BIM) who convinced him to publish the now-famous book of Warm-Ups and Studies. Stevens, Stamp, and Mathez wrote down the exercises which were used at the workshop and organized them into the book.
In this way, the Stamp 'book' resembles the Schlossberg book in that it is really a compendium of drills that Jimmy used, and not a 'method' in the sense of Arban or Saint-Jacome. Furthermore, the manner in which the drills are represented in the book is not the way that they were presented by Jimmy to each student. He was pretty flexible with how he used them. This is an important point.
Jimmy died in 1985 and continued to teach pretty much to the end, I believe. He continued to play as well, impressively. Stevens told me that, in the late '70's when he was again studying with Jimmy after a hiatus, he would go to see Jimmy after the last orchestra rehearsal, arriving late in the afternoon. The two would play duets. After teaching, playing, buzzing all day for some eight hours, Tom said Jimmy could still play him under the table on those duets!
So, that's my brief intro to Jimmy from my experience. Those of you who studied with him, please correct me if I missed something, and fill in some blanks if you can!
All for now. This evening or tomorrow, I'll talk about the buzzing, and how it is frequently misunderstood by those who pick up the book and do the drills without instruction.
Editor
[ This Message was edited by: trumpetherald on 2002-03-14 19:16 ] |
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