James Stamp Method The mouthpiece and trumpet are only the amplifier – the buzzing of the lips is where the sound is formed. Most of us know James Stamp’s method book. My hope is that the Stamp Strip could be useful to other players.
Getting the trumpet to consistently do what you want it to do is a lifelong process, and there are many legitimate ways to approach playing the horn. Like most trumpet players, I use concepts from several different schools of thought in my own playing, but one of the people from whom I’ve borrowed the most is James Stamp. I’ve recently developed a practice tool that has helped me do a better job of putting a couple of his ideas into practice, and I’d like to share it here (more on that in a minute).
James Stamp was one of the most influential brass teachers of the 20th century, and his approach to the trumpet has only become more popular since his passing in 1985. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a trumpet player who uses a Stamp exercise or idea in their playing, and what’s really interesting to me is that players of every stripe seem to like Stamp.
- “Hold the mouthpiece with the thumb and index finger of your left hand” was one of the first things I heard from a short stocky man with a gentle voice. The year was 1965. The place was Hollywood, California. James Stamp was not an obscure teacher even back then.
- Boyde’s routine is said to be written with Stamp at the end of James Stamp’s life and are considered by many to be Stamp’s definitive routine. I copied the routine for myself, including the extensive mouthpiece routines. I haven’t included the mouthpiece studies here, but would willingly post them if requested.
Håkan Hardenberger is a fan, (see Mark Dulin’s great January 2009 ITG Journal Interview), but so is Wayne Bergeron (see Derek Reaban’s write up of a 2008 Bergeron masterclass). I don’t know about you, but as a trumpet player who strives for proficiency in all types of playing, hearing two names as different as those attached to the same set of ideas perks my ears up.
Most of us know James Stamp’s method book Warm-ups and Studies as well as the book’s ubiquitous “Basic Warm-up #3” (if you don’t know “Basic Warm-up #3,” ask my wife how it goes. It gets stuck in her head like a Disney song).
As I see it, the backbone of Stamp’s philosophy to remain centered at all times, and the specific techniques in Warm-ups and Studies reinforce this philosophy, especially this one from page four:
Keep thinking down going up and thinking up going down.
Stamp Trumpet Pdf
I had an “A-ha!” moment a couple of years ago while reading Craig Morris’ excellent series of blog posts Stamping It Out. In particular, this excerpt caught my attention (from the second post in the series):
Imagine that you are playing facing a tall brick wall (if you have an actual brick wall, that will be even better). Assign each brick its own unique note. The top brick on the wall is pedal C; the bottom brick is however high you are able to play; Bb, C, or A should be right in the middle. Before you play any note, find its location on the brick wall, and then place the note there when you play. Thinking in this manner improves three things: 1) As mentioned in the book, it helps to keep you from playing sharp in the upper register and flat in the lower register. 2) It keeps you balanced when you play, preventing you from puckering out too much when you are in the lower register, and from stretching too much when you are in the upper register. 3) It gives you a more concrete placement of each note before you play it. When playing the trumpet, we have almost no visual feedback or guidance. If you play the piano, you know where every note is; they are all laid out in front of you. The same thing is true of string instruments, albeit to a lesser degree. With the trumpet, however, we have almost no visual help. But if you visualize the place each note resides on your virtual (or hopefully real) brick wall, then it will reinforce to your body where each note goes, and what is involved in placing it there.
This made a lot of sense to me, and I started putting it into practice. I began thinking of high notes as lower on the imaginary brick wall and low notes as up near the ceiling. Like most players, I struggle with over-tightening in the upper register and over-loosening the chops below low C, so this approach was just what I needed.
I used this concept in the abstract until fairly recently, when I decided to experiment with an artificial “brick wall,” so to speak. Meet my latest (and nerdiest) creation: the Stamp Strip!
The basic idea is similar to what Craig Morris outlines above, but I’ve given each “brick” its own printed note name. While playing Stamp, scales, flow studies and the like, I associate each note I play with the printed note on the strip. Using this tool keep my high register feeling easier and more accessible and my low register less tubby. I’ve noticed a big improvement in ease of playing as well as smoothness of slurs.
My hope is that the Stamp Strip could be useful to other players, so I’m offering it as a free PDF download:
Some assembly is required, but not much. Just cut along the dotted lines, tape the strips together (remember that pedal C is at the top and double C is at the bottom), and hang it wherever you practice the most. That’s it!
Many of my colleagues, and indeed trumpeters the world over, swear by the practice routines of James Stamp. I hear lots of players warming up to these exercises and repeating them all through the day.
Personally, I don’t like to get tied to any particular list of exercises, the reasons have been stated many times in other posts on this blog. I bought the Editions BIM Stamp book when I was at school at fifteen years old. I tried it for a while but didn’t stick with it. I revisited it at college for a few months and several times over the years for extended periods. I also bought Roy Poper’s excellent book explaining the studies more fully.
Schlossberg, Max – Daily Drills and Technical Studies for Trumpet Stamp, James – Warm-Ups and Studies (Editions BIM). *Resist the urge to practice during the warm up--if you make a mistake, move on. If you make consistent mistakes, choose easier material or slow the tempo down. Allen Vizzutti Trumpet Method Book 1. Uploader avatar Harlan Almeida. 111336753 James Stamp Warm Ups. Uploader avatar.
Some trumpeter colleagues of mine went over to Loa Angeles to study with the widely respected pedagog Boyde Hood, himself a student of Stamp. Boyde’s routine is said to be written with Stamp at the end of James Stamp’s life and are considered by many to be Stamp’s definitive routine. I copied the routine for myself, including the extensive mouthpiece routines. I haven’t included the mouthpiece studies here, but would willingly post them if requested.
This time, I stuck with the routine for ages. I gave up on the mouthpiece routines first. I realised that for me, and I do a little mouthpiece playing at the onset of my playing day (and a little throughout the day’s work), I would rather play mouthpiece studies of a more musical nature. I do a little mouthpiece ‘solfeg’ out of the Kodaly book or I may play some hymns or anything really. This works better for me.
The full Stamp routine, pictured in full at the end of this post, simply took me too long and even after a year or two my chops were quite stiff, sore and my mouthpiece never felt good on my chops etc. Things really improved when I gave up the routine altogether. I also began to be ‘addicted’ to the routine and would struggle to play unless I had laboriously gone through all the pages!
For me, the full routine has too many pedal tones, covers too much range unnecessarily in each exercise, and the studies aren’t especially musical. So I stopped! From time to time I do a much shortened version just to get my chops going – I do this as a change so that I don’t do the same exercises every day and get stuck in a rut. I only go down to low F sharp and as high as top C. no pedal tones! Then I get straight to the music; maybe a solo piece, then I work on what I have to learn for work. I am fully aware of the many top players whop do the full routine every day. It just doesn’t work for me. Here is my short version followed by Boyde Hood’s full routine…
Stamp?Hood Full Routine
Stamp, James
Warm-Ups & Studies, w/MP3 Download
Modern classic study book used by collegiate level trumpeters worldwide. Includes sections on breathing, a variety of warm-ups, slurs, trills, bending, octaves, scales, arpeggios and more. Piano accompaniments available for the exercises as a download direct from the publisher. 34 pages. -cdpThe Stamp exercises, perhaps more than other brass methods, emphasize musical principles as much as physical concepts to accomplish the desired technical results. Perhaps the most famous Stamp aphorism was that if it sounded correct (i.e. «in-tune») thenone was doing it correctly. Or, conversely, if one did not play correctly it would not sound correct. Indeed, everything that has been said or written about Mr. Stamp and his teaching/playing concepts reinforces this basic idea.
To implement his concepts, James Stamp would play the Warm-Ups/ Exercises on the piano keyboard while the students would simultaneously play them on the mouthpiece or the instrument. This method imposed a certain discipline and minimized the need for an inordinate amount of verbal instructions and analyses since any problems would become known almost immediately and consequently could be addressed early in the training process. -the publisher
James Stamp Trumpet Method
Accompaniments, formerly included on CD, are now available as a free MP3 download for Bb or C trumpet.
James Stamp Trumpet Method Pdf
James Stamp Trumpet Method Pdf
James Stamp Trumpet Method Pdf
(Breathing)
(Preliminary Warm-Ups)
(Basic Warm-Up)
(Slur Exercises)
(Scale Velocity)
(Three for Stamp)
(Bb Trumpet Accompaniments)
(C Trumpet Accompaniments)