L-R: Sarah Luers, Susan Slaughter, Jason Lozer

On March 10, Principal Trumpet of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Susan Slaughter gave a master class at the University of Missouri.   Immediately engaging her audience, she began the session by walking around the room and having everyone play part of their personal warm up. After this introduction, she asked everyone to compare the routines of their colleagues and gave a few suggestions.

Ms. Slaughter noted a few warm up priorities with her suggestions.

• A good warm up sets the player up where he or she is ready to produce the best sound possible.
• Bending notes is a great way to help with proper air flow
• Good players have the sound in their mind when they play

 “The sound is the most important thing.”

• Practice and warm up should be dictated by your needs as a performer.

“A lot of my practice is dictated by my performance. If I’m playing a lot of loud playing, then I make sure, in my warm up, that I’m doing a lot of soft playing.”

• It is important to warm up your tongue by playing different articulations rather then just slurring in your warm up.

Susan Slaughter & Iskander Akhmadullin

After this introduction, Slaughter invited Iskander Akhmadullin, MU’s Assistant Trumpet Professor to join her in the performance of John Cheetham’s Concert Dialogue. This duet was written for Susan Slaughter and Betty Scott, Professor Emeritus of Trumpet at the University of Missouri.

Afterward, a few MU students worked with Slaughter. She emphasized that it is often helpful to have an image of the music. She asked graduate trumpet player Chris Farris, who played the second movement of Leopold Mozart’s concerto, “What are you thinking here? Does this remind you of anything? An occasion?” She had him play with a couple of different images – that of a procession, a wedding ceremony, and a funeral – asking Chris’s colleagues to note the differences. Having an image, she says, helps a performer communicate to his or her audience.