Monthly Archives: March 2021

Design Innovations : Ultra Pure Oils

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Ken Saul is the founder of Ultra-Pure Oils LLC, and talks to us here about getting started with creating his first valve oil product and how that has developed in to the extensive range that we see today.

Can you give a little of your background and your relationship with the trumpet.

I started the trumpet when I was 10 years old as part of our public school band program. Trombone was actually my first choice, but my arm was short and my older brother already played the trombone, so trumpet became my second choice. My main trumpet teacher in high school and college was Joe Alessi, Sr., the father of the famous trombone player of the New York Philharmonic. We were so fortunate to have Mr. Alessi in our town. He was formerly with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and a student of William Vacchiano, Harry Glantz, and Max Schlossberg.  So Mr. Alessi’s students all got great training on trumpet fundamentals (lots of Arban, Schlossberg, Clarke, etc.). After receiving my college degree in music performance, I went on to study electrical engineering, which had always been my hobby. Even though I had a 30 year career in high tech as an electrical engineer, I never stopped playing the trumpet, and have been principal trumpet in our local university symphony for over 20 years. You can hear me on my YouTube channel .

What led you to start Ultra Pure Oils?

When my son was about 3 years old, he was digging around my trumpet case and I remembered that the bottle of valve oil was hazardous and to be kept away from children. I started looking around for a good valve oil that was not so smelly or hazardous, and was not able to find anything at that time (1990).  I was familiar with synthetic oils from my day job, and began to blend oils to produce a good valve oil for trumpet. At that time, it was just a hobby, but I found it to be interesting and rewarding.

What were the first products that you launched and why?

The first product was just a good valve oil.  At that time, we really only had kerosene-based valve oils, and these smelled bad and would evaporate quickly.  Some even left residues behind which would gum up the valves if not cleaned constantly. I intended Ultra-Pure Professional valve oil to be odorless, long-lasting, super smooth feeling, and to leave no residues behind.

What was the R&D process like for your products? Did you get other people/players involved?

I am trained in design of experiments, statistics, and material science, so I definitely approached product development from an engineer’s perspective. After I was pretty happy with the valve oil, I sent it around to many of my friends and got feedback from them to make any fine adjustments.  I began selling it through an ad in the ITG Journal. Remember, this was before the internet was invented! Mostly it sold to people I knew, and it grew slowly by word-of-mouth. In the year 2000, Dave Monette began using Ultra-Pure valve oil on his fine instruments and word spread more quickly about our product and we added a few retail dealers.  We then added regular and light tuning slide greases.

Have there been any unexpected challenges along the way?

Keeping oil in the bottle and not leaking in shipment is a definite challenge that every valve oil company has faced. It is difficult to tighten the caps properly by hand, and we gradually added power equipment and automation to properly seal and tighten caps.  We have also had to meet all the regulatory challenges involving types of bottles and caps, labeling, and warnings that are required of all consumer products that are light viscosity oils, even if they are food-safe and generally harmless.  The most recent challenge was during this COVID pandemic, most of the bottle makers changed their factories over to making only bottles for hand sanitizers, hand soap, and other essential health needs.  The bottles we needed took many months to procure instead of the usual few weeks. Fortunately, we did not run out of bottles, but we did have to ship oils in some unusual bottles as a stop-gap measure.

How do you balance running UP with having a life outside of work?!

This is a great question! Ultra-Pure Oils began growing organically, but gradually began consuming all my nights and weekends. Right at the point that it was clear that Ultra-Pure Oils was bringing in enough income on its own, I was offered an early retirement incentive from my employer and jumped at the opportunity. That was nine years ago, and our business has blossomed since my “retirement”. We finally had time to find excellent distributors all around the globe and started working with many instrument makers to provide their private label lubricants. Working for myself in our home workshop is incredibly rewarding and leaves me time to get out for a good walk everyday, practise trumpet, and enjoy gardening.

Any plans or new developments for the future?

We now offer a full line of lubricants for every instrument, including valve oils, rotary oils, trombone slide lube, tuning slide oils and greases, and excellent care kits for brassesand woodwinds.  I look forward to travelling to more to trade shows and festivals when we are able to do so again, and to meet many of our customers and dealers.  

Please visit the Ultra-Pure Oils website for further information.

You may also be interested to read this article written by Ken on how to clean the trumpet.

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Mind the Gap!

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Bob Reeves Brass have been at the forefront of brass custom work for many years now. Regular readers may have already read this great interview with Bob Reeves himself.

The ‘gap’ between mouthpiece and the start of the lead pipe has long been a mystery that is brilliantly explained in this video by Brett.

Watch as he cuts a trumpet mouthpiece for the Reeves Sleeve system, which allows the player to adjust the gap between the end of the mouthpiece and the start of the venturi of the leadpipe. This is a critical adjustment that players can use to fine-tune their trumpet and mouthpiece setup to optimize intonation, response, slotting, and projection.

Learn more about the Bob Reeves Sleeves at www.bobreeves.com

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Power over Pressure

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Marcus Reynolds is an embouchure specialist and founder of the Stratos Embouchure System. I tells us here about his philosophy of ‘Power over Pressure’.

” I was introduced to brass playing at school and later joined a military band, winning a scholarship to the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, where I studied under Professor Teskey.

Six weeks after leaving the Army, I turned ‘pro’ and did TV and radio, early BBC Come Dancing sessions, West End shows, big band concerts, jingles and other work. I taught for Surrey schools for 12 years and then disaster struck when I fell from a collapsed stage. This caused a smashed lip and Focal Dystonia, and marked the end of my playing career. I had to spend years retraining the muscles in my mouth before I could play again professionally.

I didn’t set out to become an embouchure expert, but my knowledge of the subject was enhanced greatly as a result of the accident. I now teach students all over the world via Skype, even helping top professionals to stay on top of their game. For example, I recently visited Los Angeles, Ohio and Frankfurt to give individual and group embouchure assessments, plus elementary and advanced training on the Stratos Embouchure System (below), which I developed as a result of my quest to play again. I was looking for something to ‘hover’ over my scar tissue, which of course brass players know is not possible.

Moving on from how I got into embouchure training; what follows is a ‘cheat sheet’ to help you become a world-class brass player. The key is to use the natural physiology of the body at all times. Stay upright, bringing the instrument to you – don’t go to it. Do not move the instrument towards you as you are going forward because the note will start with what I call fusion and this mobility will confuse you to the point where you will not know where the note starts.

Try not to slump over your instrument. There is nothing worse than for a conductor to see a sea of players slumping – keep your shoulders down – stay relaxed and breathe evenly. Before I start on the tips for the embouchure, I must stress that any embouchure that works is fine. It’s only when you want to move your playing up (from third stand to second, from second to first, or even as a first foray as a soloist) that you might feel resistance to what you are trying to achieve. It’s time to examine the finer points of the embouchure.

Almost from day one, some lucky players can just play wonderfully, but even after years of experience, such players are unable to advise others about embouchure problems because they simply do not understand the issues involved. Not all of us have been so fortunate! One of the questions is… where is the air going? Hold your palm about six inches in front of your lips and whistle. If you don’t think you can whistle, simply mimic the shape as if you were blowing out a candle. In many cases, the air will be felt between the last joint of the fingers and the upper palm, as illustrated by the diagram below. Now, keeping the hand there, blow as if you are playing your instrument or you could even buzz. You may think that you cannot now feel the air, but further examination will show you that the air can now be felt at the wrist.

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One of two things could have happened; your chin dropped back, your top lip ventured over the bottom lip, or possibly a little of both. A brief look at the mouthpiece shows that the back-bore hole is in the middle. Moving the air away from that forward direction will incur even greater resistance because the air is now being blown against a wall of metal. How should you remedy this? This is where Stratos comes into play, providing a healthy way to alleviate the amount of pressure being exerted to increase the airflow as you play higher notes. Possibly for the first time in your playing career, you have something for the chin to ease towards and, in doing so, some of the unnecessary weight is removed from the top lip. Through this process, the ‘chin jut’ reaches towards the chin rest of the Stratos, pulling the corners of the mouth forward. By staying in the ‘jut position’, the chin also adds sonority. “

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Marie Speziale : Leading the Way

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In an effort to share the many ways the ITG serves the worldwide trumpet community, the International Trumpet Guild is regularly sharing content from the ITG Journal on their social media platforms (as well as here on MouthpieceOnline.com!). In January of 2020, they featured one of their ITG Honorary Award winners, Marie Speziale, in an article by Wendy Matthews and Marcelyn Atwood.

Marie was the first woman trumpeter ever to be appointed to a major American orchestra, held the associate principal trumpet position with the Cincinnati Symphony for 32 years, and, more recently, built one of the top trumpet studios in the US at Rice University. Marie is a kind person, nurturing teacher, and wonderful ambassador of the trumpet. Please enjoy learning more about her here:

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE IN FULL

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Trumpet Artist Profile : Evan Taylor

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2020 was a tough year across the globe, but despite this, Evan Taylor continued his upward trajectory as a winner of ‘Jazz in Europe 2020’ and a finalist in the ITG’s Jazz Improvisation Competition. So what is next for this talented young man?!

What first drew you to the trumpet?

When I was about 10 years old my dream was to be a drummer. In fact, I had saved up and bought a Pearl drumset that I kept in my room and used to play it every day. My mother made me join the school band in 6th grade, where I assumed I would be a percussion player. However, the program I was joining required that you spend one year on either, Flute, Clarinet, Trombone or Trumpet. My uncle had an old Bach trumpet lying around, which would eliminate any rental costs for my parents, so we decided that was going to be my avenue for the first year. Not long after I developed a natural affinity for the horn and it became my pride and joy! 

Can you talk a little about your early influences and inspirations?

My early influence for music was Church! My grandfather was a pastor, and my father and mother had both dabbled in music. I grew up singing in church, playing guitar in church, etc. My influences on the trumpet were Bob Parker and John Taranko. Bob was a choir director at Ludington High School, who had previously studied classical trumpet at Michigan State University. Both were my private instructors in high school and middle school and helped develop my early playing. I think at the time I was listening to mostly Lee Morgan & Blue Mitchell records.

What styles and genres of music were you into as a child?

As a child I loved listening to my mom’s CD’s. Mostly contemporary christian and gospel music, I recall a lot of Michael W. Smith albums. I would pop them into the DVD player and just sit on the carpet listening to them in the living room. I was attracted to a lot of John Mayer’s early albums as well, my mom was a big JM fan. She had all his early albums on disc and would keep them in the car!

And now? Who are your biggest influences?

My influences have a pretty widespread variety now, on purpose, because I’m trying to diversify as much as possible. Kris Johnson and Etienne Charles were two musical mentors that I studied with over the course of the last six years who have had a big impact on the way I treat my journey. As far as the trumpet goes, the last few years I have been really listening to and digging into the style of Marquis Hill and Sean Jones. A lot of my writing techniques are in an attempt to emulate them or pull sounds from the same palette. However, I’ve found myself working much with analog sound production in the last two years. I have a home studio where I record and I’m constantly checking out different styles of beatmaking, house music production, and hip hop artists. This has drastically changed the way I think about ensemble playing and how trumpet / horns fit into recorded or performed music.

When did you realise that you wanted to play the trumpet for a career?

Sometime around the end of highschool I decided if I was going to do it, I needed mentorship. I was really inspired by my time studying at Michigan State University and the music faculty there really shaped my playing abilities. I don’t think I ever realized it, I think I was sort of just pulled in that direction because of things that had occurred in my life. Music had always been my way of connecting to the world, and trumpet became my voice for that. 

You have had some fantastic competition success so far. Can you talk a little about preparing for big competitions like the 2020 ITG contest?

Thank you so much! ITG was a really cool experience that pushed me extremely hard. They had a heavy hitting staff list applied to judge the competition. I really had my head down during that time and knew it was a big deal to even have the opportunity to be a finalist. I focused hard on my fundamentals, I developed a pretty distinct practice routine in the months leading up to that competition. We recorded the tapes for it on campus at the University of Utah. I really learned a lot about improvisation while I was getting ready for that, I spent a lot of late nights in my home studio just listening to Greg Gisbert and Clark Terry albums. 

Do you have set, regular practice routines that work for you? Do these play a big part when you are teaching too?

Yes, one-hundred percent. I still do Arbans 47 almost every day. It’s like breathing for me. I don’t even really think about it anymore, and I can play it almost any way you can think of, and definitely in all 12 keys. I put all of my students on this exercise and make them learn it. It’s an interval study and if you can get it in all 12 keys major, minor, harmonic minor, altered, it can really really change how you think about music. I also do a longtone flush every day just to keep everything vibrating smoothly. This helps me with range, tone development, and just staying fluid. I practice more fundamentals than I practice anything else at this point, mostly because I don’t always have time to do the things I’d like to work on. I’m too busy recording or out playing gigs, etc. Gotta make sure the lips are working at all times and I’m ready to play whatever is put in front of me.

Can you talk a little about the your relationship with Victory and the process of selecting your horn?

The owner of Victory, Melvin Quinones, is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. He is one of the most humble, genuine cats I have ever come across in the music industry. I connected him via my friend Candido Abeyta who has been a Growling Sax artist for Melvin for the last several years. My first time meeting Melvin in person we stayed in a hotel in Anaheim my first year as an artist for Victory and worked together at the NAMM conference testing horns and comparing Victory trumpets with a few other brands. Melvin has always taken great care of me, and when I found out they were developing a horn that had a Christian stamp on it, I knew I had to try it. The “Trumpet of Jesus” professional model is by far one of the best horns, if not the best horn I have ever tried. It fits me perfectly. I believe in God, and destiny. I believe that this company has created something truly, truly, heaven blessed by designing this horn model. It was a no-brainer to decide to be an artist with this company.

How has the COVID lockdown affected you and your work? Have there been any positives that you can take at all from this?

COVID was one of the most dramatic, hard times I think any of us have ever been through. I lost a lot of friends because of this awful, dreaded virus. I’m confident that this time has revealed a lot about our culture and the things we truly cling to. I’ve changed a lot in the last two years and realized what I value. Life is short. As far as priorities go, I just want to put God first, then family, close friends, and music last on the list. I hope that my trumpet playing and musicianship can inspire people, and honor the people I’ve lost. 

What are your plans and ambitions for the future?

I just moved to Miami, FL this week. I made the 35 hour drive from Salt Lake City, UT to here throughout the course of the week by myself. I’m hoping by moving here I will have made a grand step in the right direction. I will be continuing to do studio recording work for several companies, meanwhile working on pursuing my artistry and broadening my network. I’m humbled to be affiliated with the projects I am currently on, many of them I can’t talk about at the moment, but my team has big things cooking for 2021! I’m very blessed to have plenty of work already lined up in Florida as a trumpet player, producer, and composer. I also teach private lessons via Zoom for a local music program in Detroit, Michigan. My ambitions revolve around building a healthy lifestyle that honors God and my family, and I hope that my music can be a vessel that contributes to that process.
Much love!

You can find out more about Evan Taylor and his music by visiting his website.

You may also be interested to read this interview with Victory Music Instruments’ founder, Melvin Quinones.

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