Indisputably one of the giants of jazz Miles Davis has influenced the whole of jazz since World War Two. At several stages in his career Miles has discarded his previous approach to improvisation and taken up an entirely new direction. Time and again the resulting performances have changed the course of jazz history. To put it simply Miles has repeatedly proved to be ahead of the game and the man to watch. Saxophonist and arranger John Robert Brown is a Senior Lecturer of the full-time staff at the City of Leeds College of Music where he has taught harmony and directed ensembles since 1975. He is a Vice-President of the Clarinet and SaxophoneSociety of Great Britain.

Level: easy / advanced Format: English / French / German Embouchure building Studies Elementary Intermediate Advanced High register training In the 17th century there were no studies in the modern sense of the word. Of J. S. Bach, however, we know that he wrote pieces of a study nature for his pupils, indeed he made them spend months, and in his own words preferably years, practising exercises for touch at the keyboard, that is, daily finger exercises, on the principle: There is little point in getting fit if you do nothing to stay fit. From this point of view, relating it to our instrument and to the lips, you ought to look at the following embouchure-building studies. They are not intended as warm-ups, although that term is quite appropriate for some of these exercises. Taken together they serve to build the muscles, rather like an athlete's training. Like him, we too must increase our capacity gradually. The muscles and organs involved adapt to the greater workload, but only if the increase proceeds systematically and rationally. Try to complete the full distance of each study, gradually reducing the time, like a long-distance runner. Adding one exercise, or at most three, according to the difficulty, to your daily workload will be enough. You should only start further exercises when you have fully mastered the preceding ones according to the directions in my embouchure method and have reached a satisfactory standard in rhythm and sound. The deliberately simple fingerings make it easier to check the actions of the diaphragm, the lips, and the tongue inside the mouth cavity. Form a mental picture of their movements and compare yourself constantly to an artist whose principle is: There are no secrets, at best some small tricks, which can be learned.

A diploma candidate's guide to exam success: Trumpet DipABRSM.Foreword Quick Studies can be the bête noir of DipABRSM examination candidates. This need not be the case but confidence in this area will not come overnight. Nor should the Quick Study be seen as merely a longer version of the sight-reading tests encountered in the graded exam syllabus. One key difference is that a Quick Study needs to sound reasonably robust more like a 'learned' piece and less like a sketch or outline. Too many hesitations or passages bogged down by note-searching will cost you dearly while uncertain tonality coupled with woolly rhythms will undoubtedly nosedive your attempt.Misjudged tempi inobservance of critical expression markings or significant shortcomings in musical or stylistic awareness are also more than likely to jeopardise success. If it doesn't resemble a performance to you it won't to the examiners!Bearing in mind that a typical Quick Study will approximate to Grade 6 in the musical and technical demands it makes of you it should hardly be an undue cause for concern irrespective of whether you are taking a diploma in performing or teaching. After all by this point in your musical life you will have doubtless come across a sizeable number of pieces at this relatively modest level and being able to get to grips with such a piece in a short time frame is surely a reasonable expectation for a prospective diploma candidate living in the 'real world'. Diplomas are after all the first rungs on the professional ladder for a Classical musician emphatically not a grade 9 and as such they demand a significant gearing-up in mental attitude. You'll need to think more analytically not just instinctively. This new series of books targets the Quick Study head-on: all freshly composed pieces with the exam kept firmly in mind. It is not a solution in itself nor a means of short-circuiting the skills you will need to develop but a practice tool to steer you in the right direction. The