Bert Lochs

I am a professional trumpet player, composer of both jazz and classical pieces for small and large ensembles alike and a teacher. I am leader/initiator of two trio's: Trio Bert Lochs and Lochs/Balthaus/Herskedal and I play in the Guus Tangelder Bigband, Pieter Basts E.S.P and the Jasper Somsen Group. With my trio's I made some very well received CD's and I played at the North Sea Jazz Festival and a lot of Dutch and German venues. I teach at home and at the music school of Alphen a/d Rijn. One of my main skills is teaching the Balanced Embouchure method. A method of trumpet pedagogue Jeff Smiley. I discovered it in 2002 and it helped me play a LOT better, and it completely turned around my view of how to play and teach the trumpet.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Of old and new

Yesterday I played my Couesnon for the first time in three or almost four years. It played very well indeed, but the reason I switched to a Van Laar became obvious only after a few notes. Everybody who ever played a Couesnon will agree, I guess: those horns are not easy to play in tune. Once you are used to it, it is OK, but I hadn't played it for a long time, and I forgot the pitfalls and that wasn't pretty at all.
Today at home I practiced some more on it, and played it along with my new one, and although I really love the somewhat smokey and intimate sound of the Couesnon very much, the playability, versatility and intonation of the Van Laar convinced me that I had chosen the right gear a couple of years ago. The Van Laar, like the trumpets he builds, sings much more. It just delivers more sound and the sound is easy to manipulate and make it your own. The Couesnon just has a beautiful sound, and if that is what you need, than it is a great little friend.
When I first played my Van Laar, I wrote a song with the same title as this post. You can watch it on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Hubjazz?feature=mhum#p/u/11/2R8cmdWdQnw
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