Yesterday, I shared some of my favorite trumpet video makers during the pandemic, but I forgot a very special one: Julian Zimmermann, who did an interview with me on Trumpet Journey nearly three years ago. He has continued to produce wonderful videos during the pandemic that show what the NATURAL baroque trumpet (without finger holes) can do.

One of my projects that I did last summer was to take virtual lessons with Julian. He helped me understand more about tone, articulation, pitch-bending and history that I hadn’t learned before. And we worked on some Fantini ricercate, some of which I recorded. Here’s the third ricercata by Fantini that I did on a “Natural Trumpet Making Workshop” trumpet that I made back in 1994. The mouthpiece has a diameter of 19.5mm, but the design is a little too late to be authentic for Fantini (it has a backbore). This video took several days to record, because of how bad I was on the larger-than-modern mouthpiece:

Let’s compare that a little bit with Julian’s playing on this documentary he made. He starts out with the twelfth ricercata of Fantini (but I encourage you to listen all the way to the end of this video, since he demonstrates amazing trumpet playing in range and control–amazing by baroque or modern standards).

He helped me pick out a new baroque trumpet–a replica of a Michael Nagel trumpet from 1657 made by Egger. Here I am again, trying out the fourth ricercata by Fantini on this instrument. I’m working on phrasing based on “articulation points” in this video, but I notice that I am a little “boring” in my phrasing. Again, this took a long time to get to this level of quality (days).

I shared this with Julian on June 10 this past year, and he responded with a quick recording made right after he heard me (basically in one take, I would imagine). Although it is on an English-style 18th-c. trumpet (that’s what he was working on at the moment), I was amazed at how easily he did this, and I think you will, too. I hope he doesn’t get angry with me posting this unlisted video!

You can see all of Julian’s listed videos if you go to his YouTube Chanel. Stay tuned for more videos of me trying out a mouthpiece a little larger–more like Julian’s. It is really difficult for me, being mostly a modern trumpeter with a Bach 1C mouthpiece (only 16.75mm rim).