Month: November 2010

SSO Big Band Rehearsal With Wycliffe Gordon

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I spent this afternoon and evening rehearsing with Wycliffe Gordon and the Starkville Symphony Orchestra Big Band (Starkville, MS).  Wycliffe sent some challenging charts, but he he’s a pleasure to play for.  He sets demanding standards for the band, but he has a relaxed vibe that makes rehearsals a lot of fun.

Not to mention that he’s a monster!  Just when I think he can’t get more intense with the next chorus, he does.

Here’s the SSO Big Band trombone section (minus me, I’m holding the camera).  On the left, closest to me is Cliff Taylor (band director at MSU), then Richard Human (trombone prof at MSU), and on bass trombone is Jason Begthol (who teaches brass at East Community College).  All three are great players and it turns out that Cliff also scat sings really well.  If you come to the show tomorrow night (November 31, 2010), you can hear him.  The concert is at Bettersworth Auditorium at the Mississippi State University campus at 7:30.

Wycliffe Gordon with the Starkville Symphony Orchestra Big Band

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Tomorrow night at 7:30, November 30th, 2010, I’ll be performing with the Starkville Symphony Orchestra Big Band at Bettersworth Auditorium in Lee Hall on the campus of Mississippi State University.  Yes, the SSO has a big band.  Or at least does for this concert.  I got invited to play in the trombone section.  When I heard the guest artist was going to be trombonist Wycliffe Gordon I jumped at the chance, even though it’s a long way to travel.

If I get the chance, I will do my best to come back with a better idea of Wycliffe’s embouchure type.  Here’s another video of him, this time demonstrating plunger technique.

VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Guess the Embouchure Type: Bob McChesney

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First, sorry for the lack of regular updates lately.  As things so often go, I got slammed with grading and class prepping and then wanted to unplug for a bit.  I hope all the U.S. readers had a pleasant Thanksgiving.

Today I’m going to try to guess Bob McChesney’s embouchure type.  McChesney is a fantastic trombonist (as you’ll hear in these videos) and also the author of a very popular book on the jazz trombone technique of doodle tonguing.  Here is McChesney playing one of the parts for his arrangement on I Love You.  As you watch, see if you can guess which of the three basic embouchure types he is.

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Contemporary Trends in Academia: The Shadow Scholar and Video Killed the Faculty Star

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Technology has been changing academia.  Whether this is for the good or bad is open to debate.  As anyone who reads this blog might guess, I’m a big fan of using technological innovations (internet, video, music software) to enhance and improve my teaching, but I often come across some of the darker underbelly of an over-reliance on the “bells and whistles” that online resources offer.  Recently I’ve seen a couple of articles that offer some interesting food for thought on this topic.  The first concerns plagiarism and the second regarding the use of posting lectures online.

The Chronicle Review, the e-journal of the Chronicle of Higher Education, published a very interesting article by “Ed Dante,” the pseudonym for a professional writer who writes for an essay mill.  In The Shadow Scholar, Dante discusses how he makes his living writing papers for college students.  It’s an extremely interesting read and infuriating for those of us who teach or those students who actually make an effort to learn and pay their dues.  The comments are as interesting to read as the article itself.

In a somewhat related article, Inside Higher Ed discusses how videos of college lectures can go viral on the internet, often after being highly edited to present an incomplete or even intentionally misleading portrayal of the instructor.  Some colleges and instructors are being more selective about policies towards their access of online course content now in response.

The Rocket for Jazz Ensemble

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Many of my compositions have been published by PDF Jazz Music, an online publisher that sells music as downloadable PDF files.  Because they only deal with the PDF format music is really quite cheap (around $20 for big band chart, less for combo charts).  You can also listen to recordings of the music and view a score on the web site, which will allow you to hear whether or not the music will suit your needs before you purchase it.

Recently they got another one of my big band charts published, called The Rocket.  I wrote this tune for the Asheville Jazz Orchestra to play at our old weekly gig at the now-defunct Rocket Club.  I wanted to have a section that could be opened up for different soloists in the band and give some of the band members who might not otherwise get to play solos a chance to stretch out a bit.  In retrospect, there are elements of both Sammy Nestico and Thad Jones in the arranging and the changes are loosely based on Sonny Rollins’s St. Thomas.

You can go listen to this tune (and purchase a copy, if you’re so inclined) at my composer’s page on PDF Jazz Music.  Be sure to check out some of the other composers.  There are some “heavy weights” who have music available there, like Jim Martin, Frank Mantooth (a former teacher of mine) and Don Ellis.

Mirari Brass Quintet On “Performing Fearlessly”

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Last Friday, November 12, I got the opportunity to attend a masterclass given by the Mirari Brass Quintet at Western Carolina University.  They opened with a composition by one of their trumpet players, Alex Noppe, and closed with his arrangement of Charles Mingus’s Goodbye Porkpie Hat.  Alex has made this arrangement available for free on their official web site, so be sure to go grab it!

Although I had to miss their performance later that evening, they played extremely well at the masterclass and I’m sorry I couldn’t attend.  They also had some great things to say about overcoming performance anxiety, which I thought I’d share here.  Each member of the quintet took some time to speak briefly about strategies they’ve personally adopted that help them with feeling nervous.

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The Pencil Trick Exercise

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There are a few away-from-the-horn exercises that brass players have developed over the years to augment practice, such as free buzzing, the P.E.T.E., and the pencil trick exercise.  You might think of these exercises as being analogous to weight training for your chops.  They are an effective way to strengthen specific embouchure muscles away from the horn in such a way that you don’t risk the injury that can come from excessive mouthpiece pressure.  They are also strenuous, when done correctly, so they really work the muscles when done properly.

One of the oldest of these exercises is the the “pencil trick.”  I’ve come across this in many different places, but the original source seems to be from Donald Reinhardt. His instructions are also fairly detailed and really seem to target the precise muscle groups needed when followed.  Reinhardt wrote:

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David Vining on Trombone Slide Technique

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Sorry about the lack of updates here lately.  As sometimes happens, I’ve been caught under an avalanche of grading, rehearsing, performances, and other busy work so that blogging has taken a back seat.  For a quick post, here’s a nice video discussion by David Vining on trombone slide technique.

I really appreciate Vining’s approach, which strives to understand the physical actions we use to play trombone.  He’s got a couple of excellent books that I recommend.  The Breathing Book is good for all brass players (and woodwinds and singers too, I imagine).  He also has a text called What Every Trombonist Needs To Know About the Body that I’ve reviewed here.  Both books are available from Mountain Peak Music, for the curious.

Find the Parallel 5ths in Bach Choral

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Here’s a music theory puzzle for today’s post.  This one comes from J.S. Bach’s setting of Freuet euich, ihr Christen alle.  The workbook assignment I gave my music theory students asked them to write a roman numeral analysis of the harmony (in F minor, not according to the key signature) and spot and label the non-chord-tones.  What tripped me up was finding the parallel 5ths that Bach uses in this excerpt.  It took me quite a while to find them.  See you can can spot them.  The answer after the break.

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Music From Ancient Sumer

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Ensemble de Organographia is a group that specializes in performing music of the ancient world on period instruments.  Recently, with some help from archeologists, they have recreated music from ancient Sumer.  Here are a couple of videos of what Sumerian music might have sounded like.

They have released an album of this music that also includes music from ancient Egypt and Greece as well.  Now perhaps the next time I teach Music Appreciation I should start the historical portion with ancient music, rather than with music from the Middle Ages.  I see they also have an earlier album of music from ancient Greece, so I have no excuse now.