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zncuaccretion · 6 years

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2/05/18 – 2/11/18

Like clockwise 6:45 a.m. came early on Monday as another week of my training began. I collected myself, although, wit not intact and headed for Altgeld to begin with music theory. Shortly afterwards I trekked across the main drag and headed to the bazaar where I could purchase the aromatic dark liquid that familiarizes myself with the functioning world…

Monday has turned into one of my heaviest practice days of the week. I really enjoy how much I can accomplish on Mondays. I like being able to start the week off productive. I took my normal post on the second floor of the castle and began my typical practice habits with ear training for an hour. My rigorous ear training has started to kick in and I believe that ear training is becoming a hallmark in my routine. I am really excited to see how much progress I will make by the end of the semester.

Once I finished my ear training for the day I grabbed my time card and began punching in for the day. I have been really incorporating strangeness into my practice routine. I spent my normal warm-up routine really handicapping myself with balancing act and blackout debuffs. I have noticed also that my eye brow problem has somewhat diminished. Eventually, I believe I will be able to eradicate this problem adding less stress and tension into my playing.

What made this Monday particularly interesting was I decided to jump on the bench and play with the ebonies and ivories which I had been neglecting for sometime now. However, I must say that it was really enjoyable to start noodling around on the piano again because of the amazing visual resource it provides. The trombone itself is such and abstract concept with many subtle nuances, such as sharp positions.

Although, I have been having an exponentially better time this semester than last this week I was met with some conflict in one of my ensembles. I am not a good solo player by any stretch of the imagination, but I appreciate that my instructor gives me solos in order better to develop that skill. When I see a solo written on my music I get extremely nervous and usually this results in a failed attempt at playing the music correctly. Next, the ensemble stops and I feel awful for wasting everyone’s rehearsal time. However, on top of playing the solo out of time I have not been matching certain articulation in specifically the solo sections of the piece. One of the hardest challenges I face as a musician is erasing what is set in my brain because once something is in there it is in there for a while. Hopefully, I can recalibrate these solo sections with the proper time and articulation because it frustrates my instructor, ensemble, and myself.

After my ensemble I usually reflect a bit on my way back to the bazaar for my second cup of the siren’s liquid. I needed to cool off a bit because I was a bit upset with my how my battle went. I then concluded my days practice with some sword sparring studies, including, major scales with high slurs, octave studies, etude practice, and some sight reading.

Although I had a lousy rehearsal yesterday. Tuesday brought some really new and exciting opportunities. I warmed up before pedagogy class and was pleased with how my tone and intonation sounded. I particularly did not feel too awesome about how my lesson ended up going. Much of my time was spent on this jazz exercise that was clearly out of my vocabulary. Perhaps in the future I will revisit this particular exercise with the deftness that is required to meet the demands. Although, my lesson may have not been as great as other lessons I have had this semester I was given a manuscript that acts as a rite of passage in the trombone world. I was handed the Bitsch rhythm etudes and was excited to delve into these challenging works which focus on rhythms, note groupings, and articulations.

However, once I had a moment of down time after my other ensembles I purchased my solo for the semester which I am extremely excited about. I chose a work from Danish composer Launy Grondahl. “Grondahl composed a number of chamber works including two sting quartets, several orchestral works, and three solo concerti, among which the trombone concert of 1924 has constantly remained in the repertory (Koncert for Trombone of Orkester).” Personally, I think this challenging piece has some of the most beautiful and powerful statements in the trombone arsenal. I have been wanting to tackle this since I heard it in undergrad, but I needed to do some serious practicing in order to spar on par with this behemoth. A new set of challenges have emerged for this semester and I cannot wait to navigate through a sword fighting rite of passage and slay a behemoth.

Wednesday was pretty standard I completed my hour of ear training and had music theory tutoring. All in all, I am becoming much faster at identifying and analyzing music. I mentioned earlier that I thought that I had made good progress on my ear training I am also making some excellent headway on music theory too. I have noticed I have gotten a lot better at identifying certain chords and how they function in certain exercises. Compared to where I was last semester I believe that I will be in good shape by the end of the semester as long as I keep reviewing theory. Interestingly, my brother refers to music theory/ composition as the way of the warrior where I chose to pursue the way of the sword. Often times he tells me that if he had chosen to pursue music seriously he would have gone for composition as opposed to performance. I still inquire about this from time to time because of the enormous talent my brother possesses when wielding his axe. However, the ultimate irony is that he has a better ear than I do and he is hearing impaired. Anyway, sometimes I get lost on anecdotal analogy tangents, but I thought it was worth mentioning…

While doing my buzzing routine I love stumbling across songs that I have not listened to in some time. I happened to find one of my favorite Watrous tunes, “Smooth Talk, which features him whistling over a few choruses too. I complete my normal warm up routine focusing on alternate positions which I am starting to enjoy knowing that I can utilize them in my playing. However, one thing I have noticed when incorporating alternate positions into my routine is that because of how long the pipe of the horn gets. The horn requires more air to be put through in order to get a great sound. Not only is learning my alternate positions getting me to A to B faster, but it also helps with breathing too. Once I made it to a good stopping point I headed down stairs for my wind ensemble rehearsal. I hoped that I could redeem myself today because of how poorly I played on Monday.

Whenever I play janky in an ensemble I try my best to remedy what went wrong, but sure enough lightning struck twice in the same spot, things went awry, and I started to slip into the darker shades of my mind. Rehearsal went poorly again and I nearly blew a fuse post rehearsal, but managed to keep my cool. Interestingly, having two bad rehearsals is pretty rare for myself, but on the brighter side it keeps me modest and in a practice room. Sometimes it is awesome to be able to see the good out of something bad.

One of the big buzzwords that has been circulating around the castle this semester is articulation. Most of my teachers have been harbingers of articulation because of all of the Bernstein we are playing. Not only that, but I feel as though some of my teachers were pretty impressed with last semester and it is time to take certain ensembles to the next levels, so after my rehearsal I went back into the practice room to got through minor scales at 120 focusing on every other note being articulated with an accent.

After going through my other technical exercises of the day I dug right into the first Bitsch etude which is challenging, but sounds impressive when the fragments of the etude all connect. The big challenge of the piece though is once again articulation most of the first etude focuses on an accent of the three eighth note patterns and it is usually followed by staccato notes. The etude is in 2/4 it focuses on weird rhythmic groups to get the player familiar with odd note groupings and rhythm.

Friday happened to be another day of revisiting an artist that has released new content. I learned that Elliot Mason had recently released a new solo album and someone had already transcribed one of his solos which some of his lines sound reminiscent of Rosolino. Before, Now and After features some of veterans of the NYC music scene including Sofija Knezevic, Tim Hagans, Brad Mason, and Joe Lavano.

Elliot also plays with his brother and the two released an album a few years ago titled Two Sides, One Story. These English brothers grew up in a musical family where they were constantly playing jazz from a young age and sat in with some of the higher end English jazz bands. “By 16, Mason left England to join his brother Brad Mason at the Berklee College of Music… He moved to New York City after graduation and now resides on Northwestern University’s faculty… Mason currently plays with the Jazz at Lincoln center orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (jazz.org).”

One of the coolest things about Mason is his custom-made horn which looks like something out of the steam punk subculture. His horn has a ornate pattern around the parabolic curve and it also contains a really unique bell flair. I guess every epic swordsman needs a trademark swift foe faller. One day I may set out on my own journey to claim my own legendary sword once I obtain my M.M.

Saturday concluded my musical week with me developing some content for ZnCU. I wish to keep making content for my blog, including, basic practice tips and ideas that I have regularly utilized throughout my practice routines/ sessions. Hopefully, I can keep creating content and education resources for ZnCu and eventually I would like to produce more audio and video content. Anyway, despite having a week of some ups and downs with my ensembles I still managed to finish the week with some fun and interesting practice exercises.

One thing that I really enjoy doing when I have to opportunity to practice piano is work on transposing basic melodies in different keys. I do this on trombone, but it is nice to see how these tunes are laid out on piano too. I experiment with really cool jazz voicings in harmonies. Eventually, I would really like to re-harmonize these transposition tunes with unconventional vertical accompaniment. However, I still need to get more of the unique harmonies under my fingers. Once I become more familiar with the voicings I can easily transfer said harmonies onto my horn to open up some really interesting note choices for solos.

… As the days press forward my skills become sharpened through hours of sparring mentally and physically. However, in the feint echoes of the distance a lumbering monster slowly encroaches on your position. The only opportunity to survive the inevitable confrontation is to pick up your sword and slay the monster outright… Ghrondhal killing foresight….

#training #trombone #jazz #elliotmason #monster #dragon slayer #articulation #failure #audio

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