Since his retirement from Northern Illinois, Modell has been traveling around the United States presenting his "Making Music" lecture. He created this lecture as a response to an informal survey of colleagues that revealed the majority of today's trumpet students are interested in "higher-louder-faster" to the point of neglecting the most important part of trumpet playing ­ making music.

The premise of Modell's lecture was his view of the music learning process as a 50-50 proposition. The first (and easiest) 50 percent of music learning is capturing technical mastery of the notes. The second half is musical mastery of the passage or as he summarized, "Make the music come to life."

Modell discussed judging a solo clinic during his early career in which he heard a performance of the famous Mendez solo "La Virgin de la Macarena."  The young trumpeter had captured the notes, but displayed little musicality. Modell explained the piece was written about the prayer that a bullfighter might say before entering the arena, entreating the Virgin of Macarena to preserve his life. He then demonstrated the opening of the solo in a brilliant exhibition of virtuosity.

Modell spoke about performance critique, saying that the worst criticism of a performance would be that it wasn't remembered. Modell also mentioned that evaluating orchestral players in performance was often difficult because the conductor often dictated their performance interpretation.

Modell recalled being the only student to attend a clinic with Adolph Herseth during a Chicago Symphony brass clinic. He remembers Herseth saying before each excerpt, "This is how I think it should go."  The point of the story was that there are many valid ways to interpret a musical passage and it is important to develop your own subtleties in musical interpretation.

Modell discussed the need for listening to great musicians, adding that all the great players he had talked to were inspired by musicians that did not play the trumpet. He selected Timofei Dokshizer as "the greatest music maker he had ever heard."  Modell discussed Dokshizer's musicality by describing the practice routine that Dokshizer used.

Dokshizer's routine was made up of three practice periods a day, one before each meal. Before breakfast, Dokshizer practiced long tones with careful attention to dynamic control, which Modell emphasized as essential to good musicality. Before lunch, he spent time on etudes for increased technical mastery, which is a prerequisite to excellent musicianship. Before supper, Dokshizer practiced orchestra and solo literature saying, "I try to play every solo I can get my hands on, but I only perform the ones that like me."  Modell used this illustration to show the importance of practicing all of the literature, but to seek out the literature that "likes you" for recitals and (when possible) auditions.

Modell punctuated his lecture with recordings from various sources including an emotional recording of Dokshizer's performance of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise. He concluded the lecture by playing one of his personal performances of the second and third movement of the Haydn Concerto.