Books by Phil Collins
With more than 30 years experience playing principal trumpet with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops, Phil Collins knows what it takes to be a successful orchestral trumpet player. In his three books, Trumpet 1, Trumpetudes and Piccolo Trumpet Studies, Phil has composed a fantastic series of etudes that closely replicate the requirements of the real world. Even more important, they are musical and fun to play. Phil cleverly incorporates myriad technical challenges into a musical context. You develop not only the technical side of your playing, but also your powers of musical expression.
Contained on many of the pages are suggestions, humorous anecdotes and bits of advice, which really hit home. Often, with just a few words, Phil can change the way you approach an etude. He encourages you to strive for more than the notes.
These books are not just for trumpet players, but for anyone who wants to develop technique and powers of musical expression. Even if you already have a full complement of etude books, these will spend more time on your music stand than on the shelf.
Piccolo Trumpet Studies is the newest book by Phil Collins. It contains 105 etudes of easy to moderate difficulty, with a focus on control, tone, ease of playing and intonation with the same security expected on the larger trumpets. As with Phil’s other books, technical challenges are framed in musical contexts, frequently referencing specific composers or pieces. As the pieces are written an octave below where they sound on piccolo, they are fully playable on larger horns as well. The book is prefaced with four pages of concise but insightful advice for approaching the piccolo trumpet. This is a welcome addition to the scant repertoire of studies for piccolo trumpet.
Trumpet 1 addresses the myriad musical situations faced by the 1st trumpet player playing pops or commercial repertoire. Musically satisfying and stylistically diverse, these etudes are not terribly difficult, but there are many twists and turns that challenge your reading, endurance, dynamics, articulation, key fluency and overall musicality. The range generally doesn’t go past a high C, but that note can seem plenty high at the end of a long, lyrical solo! There is nothing quite like this book for developing the commercial style of orchestral playing.
TrumpEtudes contains 100 full-length studies based on the orchestral repertoire. Phil often compares a study to specific pieces in the classic literature. Somewhat more difficult than the etudes in Trumpet 1, this book is geared towards a moderately advanced player. TrumpEtudes will prepare you for pretty much everything you might encounter, and will keep you entertained and challenged throughout.