Andrew McCandless, Trumpet

On Monday October 19, 2009, Northwestern University’s celebrated trumpet professor, Barbara Butler gave a master class at The Glenn Gould School of Music. This master class held a special interest for us since Barbara is not only one of the most renowned trumpet pedagogues in North America, but is also the former teacher of Andrew McCandless; our own trumpet professor.

The afternoon class had us each performing a solo work for the group. Barbara helped students to better communicate their musical ideas by inventing characters for each section of the music. For example, in the first movement of the Hummel Concerto she suggested having three characters: fanfare, lyrical and a joker. Barbara also discussed sound projection; comparing our sound to a ball being thrown against the back wall of the concert hall. She told us that we should listen to our sound as it comes back to us, not as it comes out of the bell. That way we will not only be playing out to the audience, but will also have a better understanding of what they are experiencing. Along those same lines, Barbara stated that our ears were our best teacher and to diagnose our problems through hearing the imperfections in our sound.

In the evening, Barbara spent some time talking about Daniel Coyle’s “The Talent Code”; a new book about the brain and learning. She discussed the importance of “deep practicing” or practicing correctly so as not to reinforce bad habits.

The rest of the evening was spent working on excerpts. Barbara spent quite a bit of time working on air and breathing; especially on the topic of connecting the air between notes. She reinforced the idea that air should always be moving forward, no matter what the music is doing. To hold back the air is to create tension. On the subject of auditions she told us there were four elements to a successful trumpet player: work ethic, intelligence of work, perseverance and the least important of the four: talent!

Barbara Butler is a great player and an amazing teacher. There is no doubt in our minds as to why Northwestern University turns out such incredible trumpet players! We were very impressed by not only her ability to diagnose our problems, but also the determination with which she went about trying to solve them. She would not let us get away with anything less than a full understanding of the message she was conveying. We all greatly enjoyed the experience and hope to see Barbara back at The Glenn Gould School in the near future.

Thanks for a great class Barbara!

Our next trumpet master class is on March 1st, 2010, with Robert Sullivan, Principal Trumpet, Cincinnati Symphony.

The GGS trumpet studio.
Lynn Peterson, Rob Weymouth, Isabelle Arseneau-Bruneau and Patrice Boileau
Studio of Andrew McCandless