High notes, low profile

Ask professional jazz trumpet player Mark Zauss what the best part of his job is, and he'll tell you it's not the gigs.

"This is what makes playing fun for me," the Orlando, Fla., trumpet player said after working with a few high school trumpet players in a clinic Thursday afternoon in Academic Hall.

Zauss plays about 150 gigs a year in the Orlando area -- most of them corporate functions -- and has two CDs that get regular play on jazz radio stations. Thursday night Zauss performed with the Southeast Missouri State University jazz program, but earlier that day he opened up his schedule for K-through-12 students on the university campus.

Only a few students showed up, two of them coming from St. Peters, Mo., but the small size of the clinic allowed those students who did attend to receive close attention. Zauss taught them an improved breathing method inspired by yoga and gave the students a few pointers on how to deal with stage fright, drawn from his experience studying psychology, a field he's pursuing a master's degree in.

"The fear that you have is the judgment you place on yourself," Zauss said, telling the students to transform their fears using a technique called "cognitive reframing."

Besides demonstrating techniques, Mark Zauss gave insights on the history of jazz and ways to ward off performance anxiety during a youth clinic Thursday.

Zauss said even he, a professional jazz player, wasn't immune to messing up.

"I promise you I'm going to screw up tonight," Zauss said. "I'm going to flub some notes. I'm not a machine, I'm a human being."

The great jazz players, like his acquaintance Arturo Sandoval, only worry about having fun and satisfying themselves, not what others think of them, Zauss said.

"Life is too short to take this so seriously," he said.

Zauss led the clinic with a down-to-earth attitude, talking to the students almost as a peer. In between his talks, he demonstrated his playing and technique, hitting extreme high tones on his trumpet to the students' amazement.

Zauss' playing was what attracted the students to Thursday's clinic, after all.

"I heard some music on his Web site, and it was amazing," said 15-year-old Nate Nall of Cape Girardeau.

Chris Matthews brought his son, D.J., and a friend, Ben Kennedy, from St. Peters after reading about the clinic online.

Zauss was able to focus on each of the three boys, teaching them his breathing technique as a way to improve their own playing -- keep your spine straight, your head up and your throat open.

Playing the trumpet is not about straining, but about relaxing and letting the air do the work, Zauss said. He even had a war story to back up his claim, having torn his abdominal wall from straining too hard and having bad posture while playing in college.

"I've heard some guys say, 'Play the trumpet in a warlike manner,'" Zauss said. "I'm going to be honest -- that's crap."

On Wednesday, Zauss delivered a clinic to some 30 Southeast students, members of the jazz program and other instrumentalists. Dr. Robert Conger, jazz program director, said the students took a lot from the clinic and learned lessons that will reverberate through the program for the next few years.

Conger knows Zauss from past teaching jobs in Orlando and brought him to Southeast as part of his program to expose university students to professional jazz players.

"What it is, it's finding out there's someone better than you," Conger said. "College students sometimes think they know everything, and when you find out you don't, it makes you work harder."

Zauss says university students have all the help they need right on campus, with instructors who give good advice rather than foster bad habits, and do so in a way students can relate to.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182