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Matt Shulman and Multi-Phonics
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I’ve been
using my voice while I play to create two- and three-note voicings with
the trumpet. It’s called multi-phonics. When you sing certain intervals
into the trumpet as you play, the two tones mix within the tubing of the
horn and produce a third tone, creating various triads. It liberates me
from the single-line melody approach, and as I’ve developed and applied
it, it allows me to delineate harmony as an accompanist within a piece
of music, much as a pianist or guitarist does when playing. My single-line
melodies have been enriched as a result, and I feel as though my playing
has a more multi-dimensional quality to it now.
As far as the brass instruments are concerned, trombonists have been doing
multi-phonics for some time -- I think the German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorf
was one of the first pioneers in the 1960s. I learned the basic technique
while I was on tour with a trombone player. The concept can also be traced
to didgeridoos. On the trumpet, multi-phonics are fairly uncharted
territory, but there’s actually a rich tradition of using the human
voice in the history of jazz trumpet. Dizzy Gillespie was a master scat
singer, Louis Armstrong and Chet Baker sang like they played and played
like they sang, and Roy Eldridge would almost always end up grunting through
his trumpet to create his "growl."
I venture into multi-phonics primarily when I play solo trumpet concerts
or perform with my trio. My CD, While We Sleep, features both solo
and trio playing and is the first documentation of this approach. The
multi-phonics can be a challenge to execute because the instrument is
receiving and sharing the input of two tones; as a result, you have to
back off the horn to do it, relying less on mouthpiece pressure compression
and more on diaphragm and inner-embouchure compression to make room for
the added impulse -- no two pieces of matter can occupy the same space
at the same time. "Backing off" is a more efficient way to play,
but it also uncovers unnecessary tension and sheds light on inherent stabilization
limitations in the current approach to playing and teaching the brass
instruments. This, in part, led me to create the Shulman System for Brass.
— Matt Shulman
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