Brass Projection vs Resonance - Sean Jones | 2 Minute Jazz

Open Studio artist and master jazz trumpeter Sean Jones breaks down some great tips on developing your resonance in different venues and physical spaces.

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What's up everybody, Sean Jones here at the Open Studio Network, and I'm here in this wonderful space as you can hear there's a lot of reverb here. And I just want to talk to you a little bit about projection versus resonance. It depends on the hall what you want to think about when you're creating a tone or tone production on your instrument.

You want to think about the overall vibration in the room when you're playing okay, playing any brass instrument okay, versus projecting. Your targeting trying to get your sound out there. Okay? So going back to what I was saying with the halls. If I'm outside or in a in a jazz club or something like that, not necessarily thinking about resonance as much, I'm thinking about projection kind of shooting the sound out. But if I'm in a sort of a space like

this where there's a nice reverb, I'm thinking about resonance.

Now the way that I get to resonance is by having absolute vibration on the mouthpiece first and that then is projected into the instrument. So when I practice on my mouthpiece buzz.... as you can hear there's no air there at all. Okay? Some people you might play in the mouthpiece and you'll get this kind of sound. You can hear air escaping there okay so it's not completely resonating if you hear that air. But if you hear this....and the sound is completely resonating in the mouthpiece, and then when I put the mouthpiece into the horn, it sounds like this. Okay? So you can you can hear that complete resonance and sound in the room that I'm in.

Now going back to projection versus resonance, if I'm trying to project outward then I'm kind of thinking of shooting the air out

through the bell past and into the back wall of wherever I am. So it's kind of a percussive aspect to it as well, articulating hard and projecting there. But if I'm thinking about resonating I'm

thinking about trying to make every single thing in the room that I made vibrate around me.

I don't know if you could feel that energy through the through the screen, but it's definitely there, okay? So it's something

that's important to think about as a brass player. Resonating in a certain room so that you don't have to work as hard project, alright? Just something to think about.

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Check out Sean's comprehensive Jazz Trumpet Fundamentals at Open Studio: https://www.openstudionetwork.com/project/jtf-overview/