practicize! lift that lower jaw! lower it! lift! exhale!

While practicing today, I thought it might be a good idea to compile all of the stuff I've learned/been taught/discovered in this particular stage of my musical career.

*warning! Extremely boring for non-musicians. Proceed with caution*

I've discussed aspects of this with some people, but the big challenge for my trombone playing during my year-off (of what? private lessons I guess) has been the crazy noises coming out my horn when I wanted the noises to be less crazy and more like solid, perfect, beautiful notes. Preferably the note I intended it be, but I'll take any note over *bzzzzfartwhzzzzplop* (if you're curious, that sound has indeed from my bell and it was not pretty). Any sort of "zzzz" sound, I feel, is not recommended for classical audition training. To combat this problem I have been doing a fair amount of reading (mostly on the Online Trombone Journal, an excellent reference and a good way to get advice from all ages and levels of trombonist), practicing with different embouchure and breathing techniques, trying vainly to get Sean to meet with me and listen, and buying stuff. With t-minus two weeks to my first audition (ASU), things are finally starting to fall into place. My new-found love of practice and improvement has helped, but I'd like to give props to a few things I feel are doing me the most amount of good. I think that some of these are instrument-transferable; thus I hope I can lend a hand to any musician who wants some advice.

1. Breathe, breathe, breathe. For a long time this winter when I was struggling with weird noise issues, I was also sniffly and in between colds. I've always recognized the importance of breath control, but how easy it is to forget when you're sick! Post-sick, I still wasn't breathing, and I couldn't understand why playing still made me feel woozy like a Chris McGann 21st birthday. I started doing some exercises (my favorite: breathe in 8, hold 8, out 8, hold 8, increase value until room spins) and dusted off my BERP, Voldyne, and the ever popularly phallic Breathe-right. Presto! Not only did I feel less dizzy, some of my embouchure issues righted themselves.

2. Posture. I get nailed for this all the time, but it took Chris Houlding to drive it home and have it make sense for me. People are always telling me, stop moving so much, it's distracting, you're not making any more music, etc., but it was Chris saying how on top of all of this, excessive movement is hard on the chops and just wears out your muscles faster. Thus, more frack, more weird noises, less music.

Well, why didn't they say so before?

I'm like the crazy Mullins lady: if you want me to fix your apartment, tell me there's a water leak damaging the house foundations. Except substitute "fix my cracked notes" for "fix your apartment" and "tell me I'm making cracked notes worse by moving around a lot" for "tell me there's a water leak damaging the house foundations." So, I keep still and hold my horn comfortably in front of me, like Mark Fisher told me to (now he'll like me better at my DePaul audition :).

3. Open your throat. With posture and breathing fixed, those crackly low weird not-notes were rare, but not non-existent. Chris helped me with this as well. With my tight neck and throat, I was unable to play lower notes. Singing as low as I could and thinking "o" is a tremendous improvement over *bzzzfartwhzzzplop*. In fact, using it for every register has expanded my high range as well, helping me relax and not tense up for Bolero. Ugh. *moment of distaste for bolero*

4. Get a mini-disc player. Or something! Jerry was kind enough to give me his minidisc, and I purchased a mic. I have a tape recorder, but damn it sounds like ass, and it's not you, I promise. The minidisc, while sounding better and helping you to identify all aspects of playing up for improvement, is also extremely fun to play with. Also, you can make CDs from it and do all sorts of fun stuff (I have yet to get the proper programming, but someday, my son, someday...). The other night I went through my Ralph Sauer excerpts tape (highly recommended for trombonists), listened carefully, practiced, and then recorded the same excerpts. I learned a ton about my playing, and I wasn't freaked out like I thought I would be. There's a lot of work to do, but it's at least doable.

5. The tuning CD. Lorn-tested, Buddha-approved. I found a free, legal one for download here. One of the things my minidisc told me to fix was intonation. Fine tune it. For the most part my intonation is good but as a graduate student, I want to rock the trombone without having to worry about intonation. I got other shit to learn, yo. Each track on the CD is a note droned for two minutes or so, and you can repeat the track indefinitely listening for beats, tuning other pitches to the note, etc. Basically do whatever you want. Already I can hear some major differences in my intonation, and from better intonation comes better tone and clearer sound quality.

If you don't have burning capabilities, or just can't figure it out, let me know and I'll burn you a copy. Spread the intonation goodness!

6. The finger position mentality. For trombonists, because we are stupid and forget these things while the rest of you with keys are like, yeah, duh?!?!
While reading up on tuning CDs, I found the following advice:
"you've got to hold the slide with your fingertips."
why? because:
"The nerve-rich finger tips are closely connected with the brain and therefore the ear."
He goes on to say that Joe Alessi will get you on this, if you're not holding the slide correctly. Audience members can clearly hear how intonation slips when the player gets lazy and changes grip.
Hey, if my hero Joe Alessi says so, I'll do it.
So I'm working on remembering that aspect of posture along with the others. When working with the tuning CD, it's really apparent how much it helps.

I'm pretty jazzed about all my new toys, techniques, and advice. Worrying about grad school auditions has been driving me up the wall; not knowing what to expect and not having anyone to help me out is Stress City. The minidisc player has taught me I can just as effectively be my own feedback, and the more I experiment, the more I feel not just like a better player, but a full-fledged trombonist as well.

After saying all this I'll probably come back next week and tell you I've chucked my horn out the window. Just another week in the life of a musician.