Avid TPTV viewer, Joe Aumann, interviews Mike about his studies with Arnold Jacobs. The theme song to the TV show Hogan’s Heroes drew Mike to music. Toby Hanks’s inspirational tuba playing solidified Mike’s interest in the tuba. When Mike auditioned for Northwestern University he did not know anything about Arnold Jacobs. But upon matriculation, Mr. Jacobs returned to the Northwestern faculty. Prior to Jacobs, the brass pedagogy Mike encountered was more feel and body focused, including tight-gut respiration. Mr. Jacobs’s approach was 180 degrees opposite of that. Mike had a pronounced double buzz issue when he initially played for Jacobs. Jacobs remedied that problem by using more air at the lips, and in particular by letting lower notes below the problematic ones be the teacher. Jacobs turned Mike around in terms of his priorities. Be less analytical where the body is concerned. Think the music in the mind much more, sing, and put much more wind at the lips. Be a full-breather instead of a half-breather. Jacobs trained Mike to realize that he had more lung capacity to tap into. Fuller breaths. Jacobs was persistent and patient that Mike play melodies on the mouthpiece. Tone quality, pitch, endurance all improved when Mike began buzzing. The pitches became more alive in the mind, too, as Mike buzzed more and more. Jacobs used melodies on the mouthpiece more than drills with Mike. If you can’t play it, buzz it. If you can’t buzz it, sing it. If you can’t sing it, learn to sing it, and then add the buzz, and then the instrument. After Mike moved to Savannah, he continued studies with Jacobs by making the 2000 mile r/t several times per year. Mike augmented those lessons with phone consultations with Jacobs. As Mike’s studies with Jacobs progressed in the late-‘80s and ‘90s, he noticed Jacobs’s nomenclature changing from wind and song, to song and wind. Jacobs’s use of gadgets with Mike decreased over time, too. Mike thinks Jacobs may have begun to sense that the gadgets were becoming the ends, rather than the mean to an end, which was always great art. Deep knee bends discussion. The brain is pre-occupied with the large muscle group movements allow for change to occur in the mind. Discussion of neural pathways. Strangeness versus sameness. Sneaking in new habits. Discussion of why Mike started TubaPeopleTV. Jacobs developed a curriculum for each individual student. There was no “Jacobs Method” other than the two principals of song and wind. Jacobs’s goal was simply to help the student sound terrific. “Do it all wrong, but just sound great.” Jacobs was a generous person, and a genius. He had the medical knowledge of a medical doctor. Jacobs worked to meet the student in their mind in order to help the student fully. Future plans of TPTV include organizing the nuggets of info from each episode into one easily accessible format/place. Mike had an epiphany at his first lesson with Jacobs, “This isn’t hard. It’s easy after all”. Breathing more deeply, be more relaxed. “Jelly belly”. Tight gut. Mouthpiece buzzing. Singing. Make statements while playing. Keep it simple. Don’t drive the car from underneath the hood. Prior to Jacobs, a lesson was “Do as I say because this is what works for me.” Due to his extreme knowledge of body and mind, with Jacobs, a lesson became “Do as I say because this is what works for people.” Common universal truths of being a human. The Gospel according to Jacobs. Why is it important for younger people to know about Arnold Jacobs? It is more important that they know what he taught. Jacobs was a fallible human. A world class musician, with an amazing body of knowledge and intellect, but he was just a man (not a god). Mike’s theorem is that Bud Herseth and Arnold Jacobs changed the world of classical music.
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