Playing

Working with the Posaunenchor

From Württemberg youth groups to mass brass gatherings in Ulm, a community tradition links faith, education and amateur brass playing across generations.

By Max Sommerhalder

Singing lessons for brass players?

Explores how vocal training can benefit brass players, improving breathing, phrasing, tone production and musical expression.

By Heinz Knodt

On the sensitivity of brass instruments

Cold-hammered hunting horns retain a tactile memory of sound and playing, leading Jacques Poncet to question how brass instruments evolve in use.

By Jacques Poncet

Mikhail Innokentiévitch Tabakov (1877-1958)

Founder of the Soviet trumpet school

A towering figure of trumpet history: Tabakov shaped generations—including the legendary Timofei Dokchitzer—and laid the foundations of the Soviet trumpet school.

By G. Orvid, S. Riaouzov

A scientific study of pulmonary function

As applied to wind instrument playing, with emphasis on the study of lung function in trumpet playing

Do trumpet players breathe differently? William W. Bing shows not really—except for greater lung capacity tied to endurance, with no harmful effects.

By William W. Bing

Editorial

Beyond technique and instruction, musical growth depends on trusted relationships, where friendship becomes both a measure of progress and a safeguard against isolation.

By Jean-Pierre Mathez

Science and Technology in Trombone Teaching

What if tone production depended less on instinct than on understanding how the instrument, the lips and the air function as one interconnected system?

By Sergej Gorovoj

Part 2

Arnold Jacobs

Interview

From Curtis to Chicago, a tuba player's path crosses Reiner, Koussevitzky and Ormandy, while teaching evolves toward breathing, thought and musical function.

By Roger Bobo

Part 1

Playing and singing simultaneously on brass instruments

From Weber and Vivier to contemporary solo works, singing into the brass instrument becomes a multiphonic technique shaped by notation, acoustics, and practice.

By Benny Sluchin

Editorial

Between disciplined practice and creative folly, musicianship emerges where scales and systems give way to imagination, instinct and the unsettling freedom to think.

By Jean-Pierre Mathez

Harmonics or partials?

Behind every brass note lies a compromise between acoustical theory and instrument design, as E. Ferron questions what players call a harmonic.

By Emile Ferron

300 Years of the Horn in Bohemia

An unsigned portrait from the Dresden court links the rise of Bohemian horn playing to the ceremonial world of Baroque hunting culture.

By Kurt Janetzky

Impossible?

Kurt Janetzky challenges the notion of the “impossible” in brass playing, arguing that technical limits evolve and that demanding repertoire—past or present—should never be dismissed as unplayable.

By Kurt Janetzky

ASA-Method

From Bach’s clarino tradition to modern piccolo trumpet playing, extreme high-register technique is tied here to breath support, pressure control and disciplined endurance.

By Rolf Quinque

Editorial

Progress by Stages

Between technical routine and lived experience, musical growth emerges through setbacks, observation and the gradual shaping of an individual voice.

By Jean-Pierre Mathez

Part 3

The Trumpet and the Cornet in Jazz and Popular Music

The pluralism of the so-called “modern” forms (1945 to the present)

Bebop, Miles Davis and the rise of the flugelhorn mark a postwar jazz landscape in which trumpet playing splintered into competing sounds and ideals.

By Michel Laplace

Blowing as a body function

Breathing habits, posture and body mechanics converge in a practical view of tone production, where William F. Cramer questions prevailing assumptions.

By William F. Cramer

Jabbo Smith

The Unrecognised Jazz Trumpeter

Overshadowed by Armstrong and later by Eldridge, Jabbo Smith emerges as a crucial trumpet innovator whose speed, range and phrasing anticipated modern jazz.

By Michel Laplace

Part 2

The trombone in Maurice Ravel's Boléro

Boléro as ordeal: Jean Douay reveals stage fright, pressure, and the weight of the final solo—where one moment can elevate or undermine the entire orchestra.

By Jean Douay

Editorial

From cultural codes to personal sincerity, Jean-Pierre Mathez questions how musicians recognise truth across styles, traditions and musical languages.

By Jean-Pierre Mathez

Reflections on the horn

Francis Orval reflects on horn playing, discussing tone production, breathing and the influence of French and German traditions on sound and style.

By Francis Orval

The hunting horn

Long-held beliefs about the French hunting horn are challenged as forgotten playing practices and Baroque traditions reshape its early history and repertoire.

By Jacques Poncet

On the question of articulation in the horn concertos by W. A. Mozart

How should Mozart really sound? Peter Damm questions traditional editions and reveals how articulation—often missing—must be rebuilt through style, listening, and musical judgment.

By Peter Damm