Brass Playing Advice from 57 Authors!

[dwerden]

The Brass Player's "Cookbook" has just been released. It is a collaboration of 57 noted brass players from various countries. The name "cookbook" denotes that all the contributors can offer tips to "brew up" some very fine playing. Articles are related to topics such as brass playing, tips on a specific brass instrument, musicality, or performing in an ensemble.

I am very pleased to have been a part of this project. As with the other contributors, I make no royalties on this project (it would be impractical to pay royalties to 57 people!). The various players' efforts were assembled and encouraged by the tireless efforts of tubist Kenneth Amis (Empire Brass).

This link is to Amazon's listing, but your local music store can probably get you a copy as well (it is distributed by Hal Leonard):
http://tinyurl.com/qc3nl

Contributors include:

Euphonium players:
Demondrae Thurman, Steven Mead, David Werden

Tuba players:
Kenneth Amis, Roger Bobo, Velvet Brown, James Gourlay, Toby Hanks, Daniel Perantoni, Jon Sass, Deanna Swoboda

Trumpet players:
Jeffrey Curnow, Ronald Romm, John Wallace, Warren Vache

Horn players:
Dale Clevenger, Gail Williams, Froydis Ree Wekre

Trombone players:
Ralph Sauer, Douglas Yeo, Charles Vernon, R. Douglas Wright

...and more than 30 other authors:
Jeff Adams, Lisa Bontrager, John Clark, Abbie Conant, Kurt Dupuis, Peter Ellefson, Laurie Frink, Jack Gale, Wycliffe Gordon, Dick Hansen, Kevin Hayward, Lesley Howie, Gregory Hustis, Alex Iles, Ingrid Jensen, Dave Kirk, Craig Knox, Mark H. Lawrence, John Marcellus, Raymond Mase, Brad Michel, Gregory Miller, Bob Montgomery, Jennifer Montone, Marc Reese, Mike Roylance, Susan Slaughter, Phyllis Stork, David Taylor, Kenneth Thompkins, Rick Todd, Adam Unsworth, Tom Varner, Bill VerMeulen, and Jeremy West.

Many of the authors used the cookbook idea to write in a manner similar to recipes, but the talk is all about music in some form or other. Just as a collaborative cookbook is a collection of ideas from different cooks about making the best and most interesting food, the Brass Player's Cookbook is an assortment of ideas about making the best and most interesting music.

Thanks to Kenneth Amis for making this happen! I'm sure you can all imagine what it would be like to coordinate this project with 57 people from all over the world.

[Mark]

Ordered!

[RyanSchultz]

Ken's the man! Truly a class act.

[dwerden]

Ken's the man! Truly a class act.

Yeah, Ken was great! He was very patient but diligent, and he seemed to keep his sense of humor all the way through. As I said, managing 57 people (musicians, yet!) can be a challenge.

It's the first time I've worked with him - pretty impressive.

[Rick F]

Got my copy in today's mail and just started reading it this afternoon. Excellent so far - well worth the 15 bucks.