richard vodden’s blog

This week sports my first lesson at the esteemed Royal Academy of Music under the most talented (and also esteemed) Paul Archibald. This is really rather exciting. With a bit of luck Paul will be able to help me with the embouchure problems I’ve been having and help me a bit with my stamina, which is starting to be a limiting factor in my playing.

In related news, I have recently taken posession of the sheet music and piano reduction of John William’s trumpet concerto. Having played through it a couple of times I can testify that it is really rather difficult. It surprised me slightly. It isn’t as obviously John Williams as I was expecting. Whilst, if you look, you can detect the style portrayed by his film scores, the sounds and tonality used are very different and in my opinion a world apart. All I need to do now is to get very good and perform it somewhere. Hmmm…