For Trumpeters Only
25. My Schlossberg Seven
By Thomas Stevens
Apr 25, 2008, 03:36

Quotable: “The only thing new under the sun is the history you don’t know.”-Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States

Re: Max Schlossberg

Recently, while perusing some personal files doing research for a publishing project, I found seven (presumed) “Max Schlossberg” exercises that had been passed along to me by James Stamp (1) and William Vacchiano (6) during my studies with these two legendary teachers.

I know precious little about Schlossberg beyond having been coached on a few of his drills and exercises by the aforementioned teachers, both former Schlossberg students, consuming a total elapsed time of about two hours between the years 1959-1965, by having read some publicly available biographical material (e.g. André Smith) and having heard the usual array of anecdotal accounts from his former students, including some well-established trumpet players and teachers.

The seven drills/exercises passed on to me were apparently representative of vintage Schlossberg methodology, because the one recollection-in-common with virtually all of his former pupils was that the teacher of record had an uncanny ability to analyze student’s technical problems and would spontaneously compose (adapt the work of others?) drills or exercises, on little scraps of music manuscript paper that were intended to directly address those specific problems, or, as Vacchiano called the latter-the students’ “liabilities.” Furthermore, according to Mr. “V,” many of these little vignettes were handed down with very specific performance instructions, which is worth noting because the directions for practicing four of “my” seven, specifically those designed to help one develop the requisite embouchure resiliency to play soft and/or in the low register following powerful fortissimo passages (a lifelong liability for this trumpeter) are/were counterintuitive and contrary to how most musicians would instinctively play them if they were approached from outside of the context of the Schlossberg experience or legacy. It is also quite clear that Schlossberg delivered those exercises in a rather spontaneous manner, judging from the number of (again: presumed) Schlossberg drills other trumpeters have shown me over the years, primarily during the 1950s-60s: Some of those exercises were the same, some were the same but different* (using Leonard Bernstein’s well-known descriptive phrase), and some were things I had never seen before or ever again. What has been particularly interesting to me is that none of “my” seven, as well as some others I have seen were included in the famous Schlossberg book, Daily Drills and Technical Exercises!

Are these unpublished Schlossberg drills authentic? Are they Schlossberg exercises edited or modified by others (i.e. Schlossberg-Vacchiano)? Or are they simply traditional items of undetermined origin in the trumpet liturgy that have been passed from generation to generation and erroneously ascribed to the teacher of record? I haven’t a clue, and we will never find definitive answers to these questions because to do so would require interviewing a representative sampling of first generation Schlossberg students, which, for obvious reasons, would today (and probably since the late 1970s) represent a physical impossibility.

All of which is interesting, but not particularly relevant in 2008, save for the fact some of those drills, particularly those designed to address special problems, really worked, and during the past few decades I have heard numerous students who obviously could have used them had they been available.

As my old friend and colleague, the tuba virtuoso Roger Bobo, often mused when confronted with similar situations, offered here as a Quotable: “There’s a master’s [degree] thesis in there somewhere.”


* The two musical examples (below) illustrate this point: In 1959, James Stamp gave me a technical study he said Schlossberg had given him. Four years later Vacchiano gave me a version of the same study he said Schlossberg had given him, scribbling, à la Schlossberg, its first measure on the inner cover of my H. Chavanne book! Many years later, Joseph Alessi II showed me a third version that looked very much like Vacchiano’s.



**Recently I included four of these seven exercises in a publication and attributed them to the “Schlossberg School,” because I personally believe they are definitely related to Schlossberg and/or some person(s) in the Schlossberg food chain (possibly including his own teachers). Since they have never been published, and, further, since the persons who passed them on to me are long gone from this world, it would be almost impossible to establish their provenance; hence, the decision to invoke the Schlossberg School attribution.




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