Monday, February 17, 2014

Answering a Question About Orchestral Trombone Playing

Often I receive emails from people around the US and abroad who appreciate the blog and the many YouTube videos that are up. All the YouTube videos are on the blog but many people see YouTube first.
This man from New York City emailed me a couple of questions about orchestral trombone playing, framing it in a certain way about how to find the balance in your own expression and the section and the conductor. A great question really and I got his permission to answer him in the form of a video. Here is the video for you to watch if you have not already seen it. The companion post will be put up in several posts. Following this video is companion post 1.




Companion Post 1

The main point  of this video is to inspire getting into the essence of the music no matter what orchestra, section or conductor you are playing with. Schools of playing are born from people, players who have found something that works for them and they pass on the concepts and methods to their students. This is all fine but in my view if it becomes a block to ones own development that is a problem. Or if the allegiance is to one school, tone color or one articulation or a certain make of equipment, then are we getting biased and it  maybe difficult to appreciate anything that is different to that. I have addressed this issue a lot because it so hits at the core of what humans do and have done throughout history in one form or another. This is my concern at the core level. It also really begs the question, WHAT IS MUSIC? This is a great frontier and I have explored aspects of it on many blog posts, masterclasses and videos but it might be the time to really open it up even more soon. Here ends Companion Post 1.


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