Posted by Julian on October 01, 2003 at 09:54:10:
I¡¯m wondering what is the story behind why Dizzy Gillespie poked out his cheeks when he played trumpet? Brass players say that that not good, but I¡¯ve seen several brass (including tuba players) that do that, and it didn¡¯t look like it effected them at all.
One case is when I walked into a building, and there was a tuba player playing Bach¡¯s sonata, behind a door. Nobody could see him but yet, everyone (all brass players of course) including myself agreed that this guy was very talented; that is, he sounded really good playing his tuba. However, when the door was opened, we saw him playing with his cheeks poked out. Then all of a sudden, in that second, he became a bad player just because of that, and people were trying to force him to not play like that. I wanted to tell those guys that, ¡°if it ain¡¯t broke, don¡¯t try to fix it.¡±
So now, I¡¯m starting to gather a philosophy that some universal techniques that is said to be bad for everyone, could varies from person to person. What may be bad for some, may not be bad at all for others. Second in music, sounds should come first, not the way the person looks. This is what I learning. But, I want to expand on what I saw.