I cannot believe how fast this semester seems to be going. Another week is in the books and I happened to consume another nourishing mind meal filled with delectable nuggets of educational gastronomy.
Monday was pretty standard and it was easy to meet my inner expectations because wind ensemble rehearsal was cancelled, so I could spend the day practicing and honing my skills. I went through my standard warm-up exercises; however, I did note that when hitting some lower notes with my trigger I tended to puff my cheeks a bit which is a huge mistake. I have been observing myself in the mirror more often in the practice room to ensure that it does not continue. Additionally, I have noticed that some of my alter slide position warm-up patterns have gotten easier.
Last week I expressed how I have become a bit disgruntled with my lip-slurs, however, I have kept them slow, steady, deliberate, and with a ton of air behind them. I have noticed that when doing certain patterns, the air whisp does not occur when I tongue the bottom two partials. I thought this was interesting and should be brought up in conversation in my next lesson. I am going to continue the slow and steady route with my flexibility exercise in order to properly build focus and accuracy in my embouchure. Another benefit of performing lip slurs is getting comfortable with playing in all registers with one setting.
In my second practice session, once a week I will pair an interval expansion exercise in order to further increase the success of expanding my embouchure with my lips with the minimal setting. Additionally, once I spend approximately five minutes working on interval expansion I will also then work intervals to further traverse the alcoves of my horn. Interestingly, I ran into a steep challenge when working through Tonal and Aural Mastery I got hung up on transposing “The Rakes of Mallow” in different keys. I have determined the difficulty of this piece resides in hitting the goalpost intervals. “TRoM” covers the entire octave, including the major 3rd, minor 3rd, perfect 4th, minor 7th, and the root triad (Tonal and Aural Mastery, 22). Perhaps it is time to revisit the patterns in the beginning until I have sufficiently grasped more of the patterns presented, and then give the last few transposition tunes another stab in a few more weeks.
Once I finished my transposition exercise I worked on my etude of the week “Rip Tide” where I crossed referenced the recording of last week’s lesson in order to obtain more rhythmic accuracy. I made a note in my log stating that my accuracy has increased, and based on the feedback I had received the next day post trombone lessons I knew I was on the right track. I concluded my second practice session with sight reading in tenor clef. I believe that I have made enough progress that I can now throw myself into the 3rd level. Interestingly, the third level includes dynamics, articulation, ties, and no leaps greater than a 4th.
Tuesday started with low brass studio and a chamber ensemble class because most if not all of us chose to play through Collins #2. In the interim, I got some time to warm-up before pedagogy. I see pedagogy as a mind-frag mine-field because everywhere I seem to step new information permeates and rearraigns my perspective on brass playing. For instance, here is a small write up about my findings in Also Sprach Arnold Jacobs. Also Sprach Arnold Jacobs opens with the idea that you are the product of the challenges that you overcome. Initially when I first read this it reminded me of a quote from Carl Sagan” We are the product of a grand evolutionary sequence.” Conflict is part of the human condition that we must all face from time to time, but how we handle challenge or conflict allows us to evolve as human beings. Jacobs states that you should be patient with development. Often times I believe for one to be successfully in music is being patient with oneself, but also to craft the patience to see where the art takes us. Additionally, Jacobs presents the concept of “how it sounds” rather than “how to do it” … and as a brass player we should always be developing our sound and how to tell a story with it. Often times I try and look for the metaphors in music to shape my sound, however, I must say that with the literature I have been working through recently I am entirely more focused on playing the correct rhythms and pitches and neglect the musicality. I see now that I am the mechanic of my instrument and not the driver. Telling a story reminds me of an etude that I played last semester for studio class where the comment was made that painted a picture or told a story. I finally understand what that means and now maybe I can replicate that even more to tap into the essence of what Jacobs is talking about.
Another concept that Jacobs presents in this chapter is imitating great musicians to create your own greatness. Hear the ideal sound of your instrument and hear it continuing to play as you play. This reminds me of a simple sign in my teacher’s room which stats “TAH,” not tah which parallels the ideal sound that Jacobs is looking to replicate only then will you be able to add your own creativity into the mix and soon this conceived imitation of great playing will happen naturally. I am not at the advanced stages of adding my own creative twists into my playing, however, I listen to many recordings of various great performers to achieve only a slight inkling of their gorgeous sound. For instance, when I approach a legato excerpt I always try to get the idiosyncratic legato of Bill Watrous because of how divinely smooth and beautiful it sounds.
Finally, Jacobs states that one should simply develop good habits and not try to correct bad habits. In the case of correcting my whispy lip slurs I understand now that if I take them slow, deliberately, and with good air my problem disappears. Thus, I do not attempt to fix the bad slurs, but rather start a better habit which will become the norm once I have grown accustomed to playing my lip slurs in a certain way.
Interestingly, these concepts were never explained to me in great detail, but now I have much more insight into the concepts that my teachers have presented me. I also understand the rationale behind why they say certain phrases or do certain things. Understanding the why behind this was a missing piece of the puzzle that has now slowly started to manifest.
Last Tuesday’s lesson went well. Multiple break throughs were thought to have been made. A set of goal notes drastically helped how I approach some of these intricate chromatic lines that start using the higher range of the trombone. Additionally, spending a few weeks with some of the other etudes helped familiarize the syntax of jazz, but the etude that I was looking at. Overall, I feel as though looking at constant changing accidentals has also helped with certain pattern recognition in other areas of my playing. Moreover, I was able to keep very relaxed while playing through this specific etude. Honestly, the last time I had lesson that satisfying was the day I played the 12/8 Rochut etude sometime before my Navy audition, circa march 2016.
On Wednesday of last week, I decided to start introducing strangeness into my practice routine. I have come up with a few key words that indicate strangeness. For instance, in my log I use the term blackout to indicate that I closed my eyes while practicing which shifts my focus to use my ears more often. Additionally, I have an awful habit of moving my eyes and eyebrows whenever I am playing something a bit demanding and I notice a huge difference in my playing whenever I simply relax and close my eyes. This habit that I have also allows an extra avenue of tension and stress to seep into my playing. When I use the term balancing act I do a selected exercise on one foot sometimes extending my leg to be parallel to the ground. I also put a circle beside certain exercises to indicate that I recorded the exercise so I can later listen and critique.
One of my many jams of the week came from Apex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85-92. The track that I pulled from the album “We are the Music Makers and the Dreamers of Dreams” is easily one of my favorite compositions of the album because of the nifty sampling of Gene Wilder from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The Wilder Bias is strong with this one. Listening to a tune like this is a great way to find motivation even before practicing. In fact, I buzzed my mouthpiece to this composition and before too long I found myself lost in an artisan groove. I specifically incorporate contemporary music buzzing into my routine because it makes getting warmed up frictionless.
On Thursday pedagogy consisted of learning about the mental controls of brass playing. My writings of this are as followed….
Also Sprach Arnold Jacobs Chapter: II Mental Controls tells one how should a player approach the complex enigmatic organ brain. Jacobs tells us how we gather information either through sensory nerves and or motor nerves… the ability to receive information is far greater than to impart information… listening to music is a sensory activity. Playing music is a psychomotor activity (ASAJ,19). Thus, is may being possible to tap into those psychomotor heighten by using your imagination. Perhaps I will attempt to buckle my seatbelt before practicing my horn later today. Not only will this in return get my mind thinking in that capacity, but it may also introduce some strangeness into my practice session.
Jacobs then talks about being a great artist in your imagination. When I initially read this, I thought about how I perceive myself as a grizzled sword fighter, training himself, in an attempt to one day be an unknown badass who can just show up and slay whatever monsters he faces on the musical battlefield. However, although engaging in fantasy/ imagination may be fun
Jacobs talks about shutting your analytical mind off when playing. It interferes when we add analysis and skepticism into the mix. I cannot recount how many times I have heard one of my teachers say “do not think just play.” I watched a small video by Hal Galper who explained this concept brilliantly he said “how many times do you practice the cool lick, and when it comes to preform it falls flat because you bring intellection into your playing.” Like Jacobs, we are to shut off intellection and save it for the practice room where you essentially become a scientist working in a controlled environment finding out what experiments work and what does not. We go through a refinement process which yields optimally progressive results. “If the brain is asking questions, it interferes with making statements. Uncertainty and worry about what your body is doing can cause you to ask questions and disrupt musical statements (ASAJ, 20). I cannot begin to explain how many times I have been in a rehearsal and have turned on intellection and skepticism in the middle of piece. Usually, the inner dialogue in my head screams “What is the key signature!” this usually then results in me playing/ missing a note and sometimes it even derails my performance because I chose to incorporate intellection into my performance. However, we must be extremely careful about auto pilot because that can invite some terrible habits into our playing.
Friday is one of my favorite days of the week because once 4:00 p.m. concludes I get to kick back for the weekend and enjoy practicing until my heart is content. I take my normal routine and extend it past the boundaries. Friday is interesting because it shows the evolution I make from week to week. One of my main focal points specifically this session was to focus on keeping my face relaxed while playing because of the mannerism that I make with my eyebrows has become somewhat of a bad habit that needs to be squashed. I have decided to return back to the basic ear training patterns in Tonal and Aural Mastery because I hit a wall with some of the transposition exercises. Overall I have been really pleased with all of the progress I have made this semester and I look forward to continuing on this path….
