O5136 - The Sigmund Hering Trumpet Course, Book 1

Good.

This book is written in three languages: English, French and German. It is only 36 pages long so a considerable amount of space is devoted to languages you cannot or will not use. The book begins by suggesting you find a competent trumpet instructor which is certainly good advice but not very useful since, in my area, there appears to be no trumpet instructors at all. What explanations are provided in the text are rather poor; for example, the explanation of the signature key shows the position of the sharps and flats but does not provide the name of the signature and does not explain what you are supposed to do with the sharps and flats in the key signature. Also we have the treble staff with notes indicated but no suggestions on how the various notes are supposed to sound. If you are studying by yourself you will need a spectrum analyzer such as provided in "singingcarrots.com" to give you some feedback. Finally there is no mention of fingering positions. A trumpet has three valves giving eight possible positions and with that you are supposed to hit 30 or 40 notes- so there should be some message as to which combination of valves result in what notes. But not in this book. The book does have a lot of practice songs which I am sure you will find useful.

I'm trying to formulate my own beginning method for trumpet players and picked this to help guide my decisions. This book has a duet fairly early which is fun and a great way to play with a student, but I feel some of the book is too much too soon. Just a few pages in Hering has the player learning G below the staff. This is so they can play a full octave G major scale, but I have been playing for 12 years and still struggle greatly with that end of the register, it's insane to ask a beginner to do it. Other that that the book is pretty dry, much like Rubank is. It's not colorful and there are very few actual tunes in the beginning, just exercises. Overall this book is good but definitely not great.

As I already know a lot about music and fingerings on the trumpet/cornet this should be a good course to learn from. The book is however in another language, not sure what it is, will provide a bit of a challenge.

Hering's work is a tuneful way to begin trumpet study. It will require some supplemental material from the teacher.

Nice

Heft war wie neu, keine Eselsohren, etc.Leider spielt nun keiner mehr Trompete und das Buch liegt nur rum :-(