New Name, New Look, New Attitude!

So....I'm back!!! Just in case you couldn't tell by the fact that I'm actually posting here again. First of all there is a new website address because the old one made no sense with the new name/ direction of the blog. So update your feed readers to the new address: www.musician-guide.blogspot.com. The reason I'm taking the blog in a different direction was because I wanted to go in a more general direction as far as music is concerned and not such a philosophical one. That doesn't mean my posts are going to get any more interesting so don't get too excited..



I thought that "The Start of Something Big" as played by the Count Basie Big Band was appropriate given my mindset towards my future as a musician. I feel inspired like I haven't been in a long time to improve and have fun doing it. I've rejoined the trombone studio at the University of Arizona and got thrown back into the mix like not a day had passed. It feels really good to be playing again after such a long hiatus and I feel like I've already made a great deal of progress in getting back to where I was in February. I actually think I've made some great strides in my practice schedule and am playing every day for at least an hour which is more than I can say about last semester. This is still not where I should be but it's getting closer and I'm definitely on the right path. The moral of the story is that I'm feeling very excited about playing and am looking forward to a complete semester of uninterrupted lessons. More to come on the subject of lessons and music in general in future posts!

Break!

I decided a few weeks ago to take a one semester hiatus from the trombone studio at U of A because my life was getting far too complicated for me to handle. I don't want to go about the study of music half-assed and the only way I could do that was to take a break from it completely. I will be back in the studio next semester continuing my musical education and improving my performance. Its funny how quickly something that usually acts as a stress reliever/reducer can become the main source of stress in one's life. Another lesson learned.

Jazz

My brother in-law asked me for some Jazz recommendations so here are a few spanning different jazz periods and styles (albums in parenthesis).

Trumpet:
Louis Armstrong (Hot 5's and 7's)
Miles Davis (Birth of Cool, and Kind of Blue)

Trombone:
JJ Johnson (Live at the Village Vanguard)
Wycliffe Gordon (BloozBluzeBlues)

Sax:
Charlie Parker (The Essential Charlie Parker)
John Coltrane (Giant Steps)

Piano:
Thelonious Monk (Blue Monk)
Art Tatum (Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces)

Big Band:
Count Basie (Complete Decca Recordings)
Artie Shaw (The Essential Artie Shaw)
Stan Kenton (New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm)

Look Ma,Two Hands!

It's truly a sign of musical genius when an artist becomes so good at what they do that they simultaneously bring a genre of music to it's highest point and end it completely. Art Tatum, the famous stride piano player, was one of those artists. When Art was just a child he suffered from cataracts that left him blind in one eye and with limited vision from his other. To some this would be a stepping stone but with Art is ended up causing him to be one of the best piano players to ever sit on the bench. Some of the stride music that was being played as Art was coming up in the world was played by two people or "four handed". He would listen to these players and have no idea that it was actually two people playing. When he tried to learn those songs he was forced to become extremely quick and creative on the keys to be able to play the songs like the professionals he was listening to. His music was played so quickly and accurately that it mystified other piano players of the time and it seemed to them that he was "playing the impossible". He played stride piano so well and took the genre to such a high point that he actually ended the musical movement. Nobody else could even come close to playing the stuff he was laying down on a daily basis. It's amazing that the road we take to get to where we are going can effect the destination more than the skills we obtain before beginning that journey. Art Tatum is a perfect example of going at things from a different angle and getting different and better results.

Dude is That a Strad?

It's amusing to walk in to a room of horn players and they all "check out" what kind of horn you are playing. Sometimes who made your horn is enough to get respect among certain players. It's the musical equivalent of what kind of car you drove in high school. The Edwards and Shire's horns are the Porsches and the jaguars while the Strads and Pro-Yamahas are the classic Camaros and shiny new Corvettes. The intermediate Bach and Yamaha horns are the economical sedans and the Blessing and Olds (most of them) are the beater Festivas and Gremlins of the trombone world. I remember when I bought my Edwards in high school: I was a freaking rock star that day among the brass players. All the girls were asking for my number and all the dudes were asking if they could play it. It was all I could do to fend them off! I'm only one man! OK..maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit..OK OK a lot but still everybody was really impressed and it was the talk of the section for the next week. OK fine, the rest of the day...and marching band practice too though! My point is that my stock automatically went up just by buying a new horn. Its both amusing and amazing to me that there is a direct correlation in some people's mind between the brand of the horn and how well the owner can play it.

Music as Energy

People of the Earth seem to have very different views of how and why we are here. There are people that say that the Earth was created for us by a higher power and we are meant to live our lives in a way that respects this higher power's authority. There are also people that believe that the Earth is a fluke, an infinitely small probability in a Universe that accounts for every possibility. Everybody else seems to fall in the middle somewhere or have no idea and like it that way! My personal belief is that energy is what binds everybody and everything. Positive and negative energy flux and flow in a constant struggle for supremacy. When people think positive thoughts and perform positive acts they introduce positive energy into the cosmos making everything better because of it. Of course the opposite is true as well and therein lies the struggle. People that think the world is more bad than good might be right at that particular moment in time but by just thinking that negative thought they are only helping to make it fact. You might be asking yourself "Where does music come into play??" "Isn't this a blog about music?!". The answer is simple: music is a source and outlet for emotional energy. Music on the whole is a source of positive energy. When people express their feelings in an artistic fashion it helps them resolve those feelings in a positive way. This in turn releases positive energy into the cosmos and everything is better because of it. Music is a way of spreading love and understanding throughout the world in a universal fashion. There are no better forms of communication than series of rhythmic and melodic progressions. Music can also be a constant recycling of negative energy into positive energy. People create music about the things that have hurt them in the past and by doing so they take those negative feelings and create something that is positive with them. Have you ever found yourself listening to the same song over and over because it really hits home with you and the way you are feeling at that moment? That's because the person was feeling the same thing as you at one point and is trying to share their experience with you in a positive manor. Music is a great examples of this theory because all music has an emotional foundation which makes it one of the best outlets for that energy.

A Rant About Notes

Notes piss me off sometimes... As a musician who plays music primarily from the classical genre I get overwhelmed at times with the amount of notes I have to deal with. To be proficient in classical music, or western music in general, one must understand that character, purpose and tendency of every note contained in the piece they are playing. This can be frustrating to say the least.. I'm actually starting to question the validity of this mode of thinking. Playing in this manor is equivalent to coloring inside the lines in a coloring book. Actually if you think about it, it's more like coloring inside the lines using the same color as everybody else who has ever colored that page. Shouldn't we be able to decide for ourselves how notes are interpreted? Call me crazy but I think so! Another thing that I think is interesting while I'm on the subject of notes is that there are notes in western music that are considered "unusable" because of their harmonic relationship to other notes in the harmonic series. The reason these notes are considered unusable is because we made them that way. The equal tempered series, the collection of tones that western music is based on, is modified into 12 equal semitones. This is what causes certain notes in the natural series to be out of tune within this modified harmonic series. I believe this was done partly so that they could make the tuning on the piano more feasible which is why the piano sounds so good! Here is a good article from wikipedia that explains the mathematics of the harmonic series and if you scroll down to the "Harmonics and Tuning" section it talks about the 12 tone equal-tempered scale that most, if not all, western instruments are tuned to. Despite all my bickering, notes are the building blocks for music and without them we wouldn't be able to convey our musical ideas as easily. You cant live with em and you cant live without em..