James Stamp, subtle teaching

It is now more than ten years since I happened to hear of Jean-Pierre Mathez's campaign, then passing through Paris, with its concert tour entitled "The Demilitarisation of the Trumpet". This campaign was pursued in various ways, notably by the publication of an anti-authoritarian teaching method conceived in an entirely new spirit (see J.-P. Mathez, Trompetenschule, Universal Edition, Vienna) and by various attempts to promulgate the teachings of James Stamp (by organising courses, publishing warm-ups and passing on advice in Brass Bulletin).

There is no doubt that the martial and triumphal aspects of the trumpet continue to hold the centre of the stage; drills, the violent muscular development programmes, the race for loud and high notes etc. — all these are still taught. There is a counter-current, however, and Brass Bulletin is working to support it. James Stamp is a key figure in this movement. He is aiming at artistic trumpet playing by practising the art of the teacher.

Stamp is a clinician, adapts his teaching for each new pupil and is reluctant to commit himself to writing. Many users of his warm-ups have only fragmentary knowledge of his playing strategies. The following notes, all too brief, try to fill some of these gaps. They are drawn from observations I made during Stamp's course (Moudon 1977) and from a conversation I had with him.

When did you begin to teach?

I was teaching even before I was in the Symphony. And it seems I always got results, even though I had only part of the things I have now; there was always a similar sound. Later on, when I got some pupils that were not so talented as others, I found out that the things that work very well for most people just didn't register.

I got into teaching in Los Angeles during the G.I. bill (which offered higher education to ex-servicemen) and the music schools were loaded. And it wasn't long before I had a very heavy load of teaching. And it was the kind of the success I had in teaching that established me. It was all in private although I had some brass classes in school where all beginners come in.