The surfer dude and the salesman

Here's a simple analogy that came up in a lesson.

On the inside, be a cool surfer dude.
On the outside, be a salesman.

OK, so what does this mean?

Basically, it means: keep your cool on the inside while presenting exciting, charismatic music on the outside.

I know I've done some blog posts about this before. We want our playing to be exciting but we can't let ourselves fall into that trap of getting too carried away with the music that we tense up and start forcing the sound.

Some upcoming events...

Three things coming up...

Wed. Oct 7th
United States Air Force Band Concert...Koger Center for the Arts
(they will also be in Charlotte and Sumter)
Here's a link to their calendar.

Fri. and Sat. Oct 9th and 10th
The Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition
Koger Center for the Arts.
Here's a link.

Mon. Oct 12th
My Faculty Recital
(program forthcoming)

The Bad Middle

Here's a new idea has cropped up in lessons. When you're working on some technical etude, there's a range of tempos (tempi) that I refer to as the "bad middle."

What's the bad middle? Not slow enough for things to sink in and not fast enough to really stretch your technique.

I've started suggesting to students when they are working up something like a Kopprasch or a Tyrell that they should think of practicing either at a really slow, deliberate speed or lock those seat belts and go for it.

Why do we practice technical etudes? Well, to build our technique. If that's the case, think of using the etude as a tool to make you a better player.

You can learn a lot from playing a Kopprasch very slowly and sweating the details. You can also learn a lot from really challenging your personal speed limit.

When thinking of your practice tempo choices, think about that "bad middle."

A Great Online Trombone History

Congrats to Will Kimball who has posted a very nice timeline of trombone history complete with many pictures and a bibliography.

This is the nicest such history I have seen. It appears that a lot of hard work went into this project.