In spring 2004, the Institut Supérieur de Musique et de Pédagogie -Highschool for Music and Pedagogy-, IMEP, of Namur (Belgium) has been the setting of an exciting and amazing trumpet master class featuring Robert “Bahb” Civiletti.

Bahb Civiletti is a well-known American baroque trumpeter; he travels through Europe and America performing some of the most difficult works of the Baroque Era, and gives clinics where he teaches the Tongue Controlled Embouchure (TCE).

The TCE concepts were (re) discovered by the famous embouchure clinician Jerome Callet.

Bahb has studied with Jerome, and still visits him to get deeper insight in this technique; together they wrote and published “Trumpet Secrets” which has been internationally acclaimed.

This technique helps trumpeters to enhance their embouchure and to play with a brilliant, powerful and focused sound without straining. Now, for the first time in Belgium, a clinic concerning this technique was organized. Round 20 trumpeters from Belgium and Luxemburg attended the clinic, the audience presented an interesting display of trumpeters of all level (high school students and teachers, professional classical and jazz trumpeters, trumpeters suffering from embouchure troubles,...).

Bahb started the clinic by playing excerpts from the second Brandenburg concerto by Bach on a regular b-flat trumpet and showed how through the whole range, from double-pedal f sharp to double high C, his sound was cantered, brilliant and yet, this would be done without strain.

During the workshop, Bahb also played excerpts from the concertos by Telemann, Reutter, Riepel and Michael Haydn on the baroque trumpet, these concertos are almost never played in public because of their extreme high range and difficulty.

Bahb then gave a theoretical approach to the TCE, using gadgets such as a play-dooh tongue to help attendants to understand the proper use of the tongue.

The audience also welcomed “Trumpet Secrets” with its French translation, and purchased this book to get a deeper insight of the technique.

Bahb then worked with each attendant individually, first teaching the “spit-buzz” technique and then helping each student to improve its playing.

Bahb’s positive teaching, human warmth and willingness to help immediately struck everybody; furthermore all could witness how most of the students were able to get a strong, brilliant and focused sound.

The workshop went on until late in the night on the first day, on the second day one of the students told how he applied the TCE during a gig on previous evening and couldn’t believe he was playing with so much ease.

On the third day, Bahb gave a clinic exclusively to the students of the trumpet class (Prof. Antoine Acquisto) of the IMEP before leaving for Amsterdam where the trumpet class of Prof. Peter Masseurs was waiting to discover the TCE.