ISBN 9781491111536.
The Singing Trumpet: Using Singing and Speech as Literal Models for Trumpet Performance by Peter Bond is a comprehensive book that explores the ways in which trumpet players can enhance their tone production through analogies with singing and speech. Divided in two parts, the book begins by addressing basic concepts of tone production on the trumpet, with suggestions on how vocal models can be incorporated in trumpet performance for enhancing the expressive range of the instrument. Numerous illustrations and photographs highlight important aspects of embouchure and breathing. The second part then puts the theories of the first part into practice, and here the author features numerous musical examples, some drawn from the orchestral literature, others composed expressly by the author for this book. This is not a systematic method meant to be studied front-to-back, as the author warns, but a presentation of ideas and suggestions for greater efficiency and expression in performance. Author Peter Bond is presently the principal trumpet player for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, a position that he has held for the past twenty-eight years. His experience with the Metropolitan Opera and daily contact with some of the worldas most renowned singers has inspired his unique approach to trumpet performance. As he notes: aFor twenty-eight years, Iave observed the worldas greatest opera singers. Without histrionic breathing or red-faced straining, they can fill the 3800-seat Metropolitan Opera House with magnificent sound. Some can overpower a 100-piece orchestra. I began to think; aWe brass players are taught to blow, but what if instead we use our air and resonance of our body more like opera singers?aa.
