WindWorks Trumpet Academy Forums WindWorks The Cat Empire and effortless playing

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    • #100190
      Alistair
      Participant

      Hi Windworkers,
      Just wanted to share this video of my all time favourite band, whom have just announced they are splitting up and replacing about half the members 🙁 Anyway, for those who don’t know this is the band The Cat Empire, from Melbourne Australia.

      Check out this video of the brass section trading solos and I want to share a few things I noticed and how they relate to WindWorks.

      The first trumpet solo is from Harry Angus (the guy with the beard), this guy has a MASSIVE sound. To hear this sound it could very easily leads our instinct to think he is blowing super hard, tons of effort and on the edge of breaking up, but if you look at him, he really isn’t blowing that hard at all. Body stays fairly still. The other thing I notice is his eyes looking up and to the side, I think NLP has something to say about what region of the brain is being accessed when that happens, but this is something I don’t really know much about yet.

      The other trumpet soloist is Ross Irwin. This guy is the model of efficiency. He actually looks like he is about to fall asleep as he plays his opening solo line. All over the horn, tons of technique, range, ideas, its all there. The trumpet playing equivalent of a F1 racing car. When he plays those long lines, every single note speaks so clearly, nothing catches or gets stuck, really indicates a thick flowing airstream, lips out of the way and a deeply ingrained knowledge of the shape of each note.

      Check out the video, let me know what you think.

      Oh, and just a side note, Greg has played with these guys when Covid-19 shut all the Australian state borders and band members got stuck in different parts of the country, Greg gets the last minute call to come and fill in.

    • #100336
      trumpetim
      Participant

      Did you manage to get tickets to their last Melbourne show? It sold out within about 10 minutes. They added an extra show for the night before, but I think this may have been a pre-meditated marketing tool. But yeah, I’ve been around Ross for a bit. He makes it look too easy.

      • #102137
        Alistair
        Participant

        Didn’t get tickets to the final shows, which is a bit sad as I’ve seen them so many times in so many different venues and it’s always amazing. Will be enjoying the final show with the virtual tickets and a dance around my lounge room. Also, I saw your Facebook video post in the Windworks group and have responded there.

    • #101558
      glyonx
      Participant

      Fantastic! Thank you!

    • #102183
      somerville465
      Participant

      Right on the money Alistair. Observing players like that is so different for me since windworks came into my life. Instead of panicking and thinking I’ll never be able to do that, I think of everything Greg is saying and think the only thing stopping me is in my head. Thanks again for that clip. regards, Brian Somerville.

    • #106732
      paulholly
      Participant

      Love it. Thanks for posting. Hope they come to London one day (or I get back to Oz).

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