Eddie Lewis took private trumpet lessons from 1975 all the way through to 1991. Sixteen years of trumpet lessons from seven different teachers. Through those teachers, Mr. Lewis is connected to the history of trumpet playing in the United States.

The following outline is something of a family tree of the trumpet teachers who lead Mr. Lewis to become the musician he is today. The numbered names are trumpet teachers Mr. Lewis worked with for at least a year. The bullet points following each of the numbered names are the known teachers of Mr. Lewis’ teachers.

For example, Dick Schaffer is known to have studied trumpet with Vincent Cichowicz and William Vacchiano. Vincent Cichowicz is known to have studied with Schilke and Arnold Jacobs.

In this way, Eddie Lewis is indirectly connected to some of the greatest names in trumpet lesson history. His pedagogy is rooted in the teachings of trumpet teachers such as Vincent Cichowicz, Max Schlossberg, Bill Vacchiano, John Haynie and Earl D. Irons.

  1. Dick Schaffer (Houston – 1989 to 1991)
    • Vincent Cichowicz
      • Renold Schilke
        • Edward Llewellyn
          • James D Llewellyn
        • Arnold Jacobs
    • William Vacchiano
      • Max Schlossberg
      • Walter M. Smith
      • Louis Kloepfel
      • Frank Knapp
  2. Sam Trimble (El Paso – 1982 to 1987)
    • John Haynie
      • Haskell Sexton
        • Joseph Gustat
      • Earl Irons (mentor, not actual teacher)
  3. Kenneth Capshaw (El Paso – 1979 t0 1982)
  4. David Robins (El Paso – 1978 to 1979)
  5. Michael Hamm (Hawaii  – 1976 to 1978)
  6. Mr. Johnson (North Carolina – 1975 to 1976)

This is a work in progress. We will update the outline as we gather more information.

More About the Trumpet Teachers

The following are some quotes from and/or about the trumpet teachers listed above. These quotes represent much of the foundation of Mr. Lewis’ pedagogical approach.

Vincent Cichowicz

From an article called The Teaching of Vincent Cichowicz
“I would try any inductive way I know to stimulate thinking. New thinking. Then we trust that your body will try to carry the message out to achieve that new concept. If it does not work, then we try from another direction. I never go about changing someone’s way of playing from the standpoint of physiology. I like to start the musical imagination first so you are not thinking what muscle is doing what.”

Joseph Gustat

When asked about a lesson with Joseph Gustat, Armando Ghitalla said:
“While at Illinois Wesleyan University I won a $10 prize in a competition playing the Carnival of Venice. It may seem a bit presumptuous that I wrote a letter to Joseph Gustat, first trumpet of the St. Louis Orchestra, asking for a lesson for $10. His response was yes, and a bus trip brought me to the music store on Olive Street in what seemed like a gray and dark city. Gustat turned my embouchure around in that two-hour lesson. I grew up during the days when one was taught to smile harder to play the high register. The higher one played, the more one stretched the lips, and of course the sound thinned out accordingly. He wanted a complete reversal – a pucker – which, after much consternation on my part, I was able to half do. He shouted, “That’s right!” and hit me over the head with the mirror that was being used. All the way back on the bus to Bloomington I tried to remember this very new concept. I have experienced many times, as a teacher, a similar attempt to change a concept or to find a different physical position that you as the teacher understand so well, while the student hasn’t an inkling. Gustat’s two-hour lesson was, as I realized years later, a great contribution to my trumpet playing. I wanted to express this to him, but in the interim he died.” May, 1997 / ITG Journal

John Haynie

“Mr. Haynie’s friendship and concern taught me so much about the ‘asides’ in teaching. I do remember one really frustration procedure, and I still impose it upon myself and my better students. I was playing a Charlier etude in one of my lessons. It was one of those two-page monsters, and it was going quite well until the very last line – one of those “Z double-sharps” came out instead of a note. He stopped me and said “Whoops, too bad. Well, go back to the beginning and try again.” I still use that in trying to get my students to reach more perfection in their playing.”
A quote by Mr. Sam Trimble from Inside John Haynie’s Studio pg. 128

Renold Schilke

Quote from Scott Laskey
“I think Mr. Schilke’s greatest value as a teacher was that he taught trumpet. He did not teach classical trumpet, he did not teach Jazz trumpet, he did not teach lead trumpet or any style of trumpet. He taught trumpet. He presented you with the studies needed to develop the skills and techniques needed to play trumpet. He then allowed you to apply those skills and techniques to whatever style of music you were playing.”

Haskell Sexton

“In time, and well before I came to North Texas as a teacher, I developed a real and sincere appreciation for all those things that Haskell taught me about style, finesse, use of dynamics , nuance, and doing it all with a mastery of playing the notes.” pg 232 from Inside John Haynie’s Studio by Anne Hardin