A Tribute to William Adam
by Robert Baca and Brian Thorstad

The following interview involves a rare glimpse into the perspective of one of the world’s greatest brass pedagogs. Bill Adam is widely respected for his views on sound development and its applications for becoming a successful player. Many of his students, such as jazz trumpeters Randy Brecker and Chris Botti, orchestral players such as Bob Platt from the Berlin Philharmonic and LA studio greats such as Jerry Hey, Charlie Davis and Larry Hall to name a few, dominate the performance world and are known for their beautiful tone and rich musical ideas.
     In this volume of Kjos Band News, Mr. Adam will share his philosophical beliefs about brass playing and its applications to teaching. A future volume of Kjos Band News will include direct applications of these ideas for use in any band program.
     As part of a teacher/student collaboration effort, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire student Brian Thorstad (BT) and I, Bob Baca, developed the following questions for an interview conducted with Mr. Adam (WA) on January 20th, 2003. The following are excerpts from that interview.

Background
     BT: Can you tell me about growing up in the Colorado area and developing your early interests in music?
     WA: Well, when I was seven years old I heard Dell Staggers play the Carnival of Venice with the Goldman Band. I told my father at that time that that’s what I’m going to be — a trumpet player. And I haven’t changed my thinking since. We were able to buy an old cornet. And by the way, the funny part about it was that it was called a “Honk” that was made by the Montgomery Ward & Company. When I first started out, I went to see Ben Folss, who, at that time, was the director of the community music and the local barber. He told my dad, “I’ve never taught anybody anything about playing, but send him down and let’s see what happens.” The first thing he did was play a note. Rather than tell me how to play the note, he simply said, “Will you copy that?” Following the lesson, he told me to go home and find that note. So, that’s what I did. I went home and I started to practice, without any music. The next day he introduced me to tunes like Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and all those little nursery rhyme tunes. We sang them, and then we played them. As time went by, I learned all those tunes. When I was ten years old he said, “I think that you better go down to Denver and see the Likes.” Mabel Keith Like was a fine cornet player and John Like was a cornet player in the John Philip Sousa band, who sat next to Herbert L. Clarke. When I started to study with the Likes, I would play a note or whatever the assignment was and they would stop me and say, “Make it sound like this.” So all this time that I’m growing up and learning to play the horn, I had never been given any instruction about forming my embouchure or how to finger the notes on the instrument. It was always on the musical end of things. And they always said, “Make sure you sing the sound.” And that’s where I see that my teaching has all been centered — on singing the sound. You have to develop the sound that you want to hear—the beautiful sound of the trumpet. The embouchure, breathing, and all the rest of the stuff is rolled up into what you hear.
     My mother was quite a piano player and vocalist so every Sunday I played in a church orchestra where we played all the hymns. We didn’t watch much television but we made music every chance we got.

Self Image
     BT: Can you describe how your beliefs about teaching can be applied to any subject area?
     WA: Well sure. The thing that we want to do is to make sure the person who is studying is free — is mentally free. So that’s why I have my students read Psycho-Cybernetics, As a Man Thinketh, Zen in the Art of Archery, Golf in the Kingdom, and books like that. And the reason for that is that very few of the students that come to college have understanding about their self-image. Whether it’s trumpet playing or whether it’s some other job you must have a good self-image. The one thing about teaching is to make sure that you’re going to help the student to become a better person. Now there are many trumpet players in the world today, but there is only one like you.

Embouchure, Breathing and Developing a Practice Routine
     One day Horis Ickler asked me about the embouchure and I said, “Well, I don’t know very much about it.” And he said, “Well that’s good, you can never adjust an embouchure unless the air is going through there.” That woke me up considerably. So I got to thinking about that and I thought well, that’s going to help answer a lot of my problems because if the air isn’t going through the trumpet, you can’t adjust anything. First it’s the breath, but then along with the breath, you have to be able to hear that sound. That went back to old Ben Folss and the Likes. You listen. You sing the sound. The sound has to sing. And of course, if you go through the routine, you notice the first thing that we do is to blow through the tube. The reason for this is to make sure the air is moving through the tube. Not tightening up to blow at it, but blowing through the tube. So the first part of the routine is to set up the freedom of breath. Now, your avenue of breath has to be the same when it goes out as when it comes in. There is to be very little restriction of breath. In fact, the breath is always hot and wet. Thinking hot, wet air causes relaxation. That’s what we’re after. So we’re not going to do anything to squeeze the breath. It has to be full and free and float the sound.
     BT: So the first part of the routine is to activate and relax the breath. The next part of the routine is playing long tones. Are those used for the same purpose?
     WA: That’s right. When we introduce the long tones, you notice that I play the note before you play it? I do that so that you are hearing what the note sounds like, not only the pitch of that note, but the quality of the sound. Then I’ll play the next note followed by you playing that note. Always, the teacher is involved in creating within the student the things that are mental. In other words, the pitch is what you hear. You have to pronounce the pitch. And you have to pronounce the freedom and flow of the breath through that sound. The air must flow freely through the horn without you restricting it, to the point where you don’t have the feeling that you’re making the note, but you’re floating the note. The trumpet then becomes an extension of your thoughts. All this time, we’re trying to increase the ability, not only to hear the note, but the ability to have the breath be free. When you develop the long tones that way, the embouchure and breathing should develop naturally.
     Next, we play chromatic exercises. The student should know that when you see a note you know the fingering, right? And as you see a note, you know what the note sounds like. All the time you are developing your ears. When we play through the first note, sometimes we’ll hold the first note out, right? We think horizontal, meaning that it’s straight out. So that’s what we try to develop. We try to develop a routine to make the basic things work a lot better. You’ve read Zen in the Art of Archery?
     BT: Yes, I have.
     WA: Okay. So the guy pulls the bow back and all of the sudden the arrow flies out of there, right? You don’t pull it back and hold it. In other words, you pull it back and when you’re on target, she’s gone. You take a great big breath like you’re going to yawn and it turns around. You don’t want to hold it in. It’s not going to come out as fast as it comes in, right? But the same sensation is going to be there.

Starting beginning players
     BT: Are there any things you recommend that a music teacher do when they are starting a beginning trumpet student?
     WA: That brings to my mind, where does that sound always come from? That sound comes from your ear. What are you hearing?
     BT: Do you have any recommendations about what they should listen to or play?
     WA: Well, they better be able to sing all the tunes. How many trumpet students come in and you point to a note and they can no more hear it than they can play it? But that doesn’t mean that that’s all bad. They have to develop that sort of thing. The goal of hearing the note is a primary goal. There was a series of videos made at the University of Alaska that I would recommend to you. I would highly recommend that you look at those.
     BT: In the school systems today, sometimes band directors can’t teach private lessons anymore. Instead they teach all of the trumpet students at once. When there are those limitations in the school system, what can a teacher do to make the best of the situation?
     WA: Pray. (Laughter) That really makes it tough. One of the things they can do is listen to a lot of music and work on their hearing and ear training.
     BT: As a music teacher, how can you instill a positive attitude and an open mind in your students?
     WA: Well I think a teacher must be very non-critical, be an inspiration, and lead by example.
     BT: Have you ever had any epiphanies or realizations about teaching? WA: Well, of course becoming a better person and that you have to be an example for your students. You don’t criticize anybody because if you criticize somebody, you’re taking a crack out of your own life, whether you realize that or not. That’s what happens to you. You never criticize anybody because if you do, you’re destroying yourself.
     BT: When a band director is teaching their students, how do you recommend that they instill a practice routine in them?
     WA: Well when you first start out, everything is kind of a basic routine thing. When I was a kid, before I went to school in the morning, I always practiced for a half an hour or forty-five minutes. And once you get in a routine, things are easy and they become pretty natural. But if you have to tell yourself, “you have to do that,” that’s counterproductive.

Note: In the fall of 2003, Mr. William Adam will receive a lifetime achievement award from the International Trumpet Guild.

Footnotes
1. Allen, James. As a Man Thinketh. Putnam Publishing Groups, 1984.

2. Herrigel, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Archery. Random Publishing, 1974.

3. Maltz, Maxwell. Pscho-Cybernectics. AMS Pocket, 1974.

4. Murphy, Michael. Golf in the Kingdom (An Esalem Book). Penguin Publishing, 1997.

Bob Baca currently serves as Associate Professor of Trumpet and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He has performed with the Buddy Rich Big Band, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, and Andy Williams, as well as the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Philip Brunelle “Plymouth Music” Orchestra, and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He also freelances in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. Baca is in demand throughout the United States and Canada as a brass clinician.

Copyright © 2003 Neil A. Kjos Music Company. All rights reserved.