That Sounds Like Shit

| Dec 13, 2016 |

Tom Stevens was principal trumpet in the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1972 until 2000. In addition to his wonderful playing, he has always been known

for championing and commissioning new works and for teaching a generation of players. I was one of those lucky students.

Tom was a phenomenal teacher for me, and a great mentor. Although I haven’t seen him in quite a number of years, his concepts and ideas are with me today and have been filtered through me to my students. And many of the ideas I gained from Tom came from one of his teachers, William Vacchiano. Tom has a DVD called “Vacchiano’s Rules” that explains a number of these ideas.

I studied with Tom during the summer of 1967, and I did no music festivals that summer so that I could practice. And practice I did–six hours a day: two in the morning, two in the afternoon, and two in the evening. If I remember correctly (it was a long time ago!) we didn’t really work on orchestral excerpts that summer; I had covered all the excerpts before with Irving Bush, also a fantastic teacher and mentor. What we did work on was solo literature and also etudes, especially the Ernst Sachse transposition etudes. That course of study was determined by this conversation at our first lesson together:

Tom: Irving tells me that you can really transpose well.

Me (false modesty): Well, I guess so.

Tom: OK, then sight read this etude in D-flat.

Me (after a pause): Um, I’ve never transposed in that key before.

So, we were off to the races with transposition. Tom would give me several different to learn per lesson, and in my practice I would also sight read in every key, from F down to Gb every day.

I learned many specific things from Tom about musicality and the trumpet, but perhaps more than anything he taught me ideas and concepts about how to approach music. Years later I was still learning from him. As an example, I had always thought that musicianship and musicality were just different words for the same thing, but then I read an interview with Tom in which he stated that musicianship has to do with the basic rules of phrasing and music, whereas musicality is what each individual, using these rules, brings to a piece.

Tom’s favorite phrase after I played something for him was “That sounds like shit.” Then he would tell or show me what to do, and I would immediately sound better. Our lessons were long and wonderful (at least for me), and I remember leaving them feeling both depressed because I seemed to know so little and inspired because I was learning so much.

A highlight in my life came ten years after I studied with Tom and was asked to teach at the University of Southern California, where Tom was the principal teacher. It was a huge honor for me, but after a month or so I realized that a number of students came to their lessons unprepared. (Some things never change). So I called Tom for advice and started the conversation by asking, “When I studied with you, I was always prepared for our lessons, right?” Tom immediately knew why I was calling, and we discussed the situation for about ten minutes. Then, just as were were about to hang up he said, “Yeah, you always worked really hard for me. You always sounded like shit, but you were always prepared.”

I’m still laughing about that.