Robert Pichaureau

Robert PICHAUREAU was born in Chinon in 1918. He studied at the Tours Conservatory in the class of Marcel PAPAIX, himself a pupil of the Masters Eugène FOVEAU (student of Merri FRANQUIN) and ALBUS of Toulouse.

   In 1936, he entered as a listener at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris and worked with the master Eugène FOVEAU. He then made a career at the desk of the flugelhorns of the Music of the Air.

   At the same time, he devoted himself to pedagogy, which led him to take an interest in the new techniques introduced by American musicians in 1945. Over-acute is indeed a common thing in the jazz or variety arrangements of these orchestras.

   What many only skim over, he studies thoroughly, applying it with his students. This leads him, after decades of practice, to become the doctor of struggling instrumentalists. The musicians who make the trade knew well that they could count on him to put them back in place in the event of a bad patch.

   He taught at the Lilas music school and directed the Brétigny-sur-Orge music school in the Paris region. After his retirement in the 1990s, he settled in Gratens, south of Toulouse, where he continued his teaching until his death in February 1999.

   A word can sometimes lead to the opposite meaning, Robert PICHAUREAU was aware of this, and he always refused to freeze the results of his research in the form of a method. He preferred the lively exchange of the course where listening was as important as talking. Above all, he did not want his method to be misinterpreted and misused.

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   "Years of solitary research led me to analyze and understand the unconscious work of our body, when we vibrate an instrument. Subsequently, years of teaching allowed me to verify and apply the results It took a lot of patience to locate the cause of our problems: the students who come to see me come up against seemingly insoluble problems, otherwise they wouldn't come, and they ask me to solve them very quickly. In fact, it is not so easy”.

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   "I was listening to what I was playing. What mattered to me - and to my teachers - was what came out of the instrument. My experience later showed me how fundamentally wrong this is. was missing was important, that's what I now call the base: the root of sound! I had to analyze the problems of sound production for 10 years, before arriving at find out the secret. I had been on the wrong track from the start of my studies".

you have to focus your mind on much more concrete things than the sound itself.

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   The stake is important.  It is therefore necessary to avoid  to remain dependent on luck or chance and to suffer from premature fatigue. In music, we cannot content ourselves with approximations, we cannot erase, correct, complete, what is played is played. In order to achieve great safety, you will have to go through a very special apprenticeship: it is essential to know yourself well. This task is not however insurmountable, because the voluntary movements of the beginning gradually become instinctive, following a long and methodical work. To get there,  the means of playing must be developed to such an extent that the subconscious can take over from the will. This requires significant, rigorous work, an analysis of each movement, on each element of the body concerned. The acquired reflexes, the gestures become natural, instinctive, the instrumentalist will be able, declares Robert PICHAUREAU, to concern himself only with the intense life of the music.