Bob McChesney - Unreal

OK, so here's something that almost seems un-humanly fast and clean.

I think it's interesting that the video tacks on some audio of him improvising at the end almost as if to say, "Yeah, he can play that fast."

I noticed this in the comment section below the video:

This recording seemed a bit too fast and too perfect even for the doodle master, so I emailed him, and he graciously responded: "Obviously it's been tweaked, but not for speed. I tracked all the parts in real time (no slowing down or speeding up), punching in and out like crazy, of course, to get it really accurate with no errors. ..The result sounded really good without any tweaking, but I couldn't resist so I proceeded to line up notes timewise (when needed) to see how far I could take it."

Yes, Trombone Player's Lung

Well, you probably didn't hear it here first but apparently that lovely green goo that comes out of your horn when you play might actually be bad for you!

Here's the NPR story.

The blog's not dead yet

OK, so my last post was on Feb. 4th and now it is April 23rd.

One former student declared my blog officially dead. In those great words of Monty Python, "I'm not dead yet"

Some explanation...
Much of my inspiration for this blog comes directly from teaching lessons. Often during a lesson I hit on an idea that is "blogworthy."

For 8 weeks in the middle of this semester, I was granted a half sabbatical to work on the Simply Singing Books. During that time, not only was I not teaching (fewer ideas popping up) but I also wanted to devote a lot of time/energy to the books. Like most projects, they take up more time and energy than I thought they would.

I also worked on some other projects including writing a new fanfare, not for trombone week but the UT Austin trombone choir for this summer's ITF. If they like, you'll hear them play it. As requested, it is basically a medley of Texas tunes. I wrote it for solo quartet over trombone octet.

I also invested quite a few afternoons and evenings in one of my non-musical pursuits/obsessions: coaching a FIRST LEGO League robotics team. The kids I worked with (ages 9-13 on our team) won the state championship and recently competed at the FIRST World Festival in Atlanta. Great experience but very consuming. Not much time left over for blogging.

However, I hope to get it moving again.

A Nice Online Music Dictionay

Here's a nice free service from Virginia Tech...

An online music dictionary which includes pronunciations of the terms and, for some examples, sound samples (although I never could get the sound sample page to download...maybe I'm too impatient).

Here's the Link.

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)

Orbits (76 +4 [or more])

A rare piece was performed at NYC's Guggenheim Art Museum on June 21st.
Orbits by Canadian composer Henry Brant (1913 - 2007).

The work is scored for 80 trombones, soprano and organ.

Here's a link to the New York Times article about it.

There are several YouTube videos, of course. I've embedded two that you give you an idea of the event...

Palmetto Posaunen at Spoleto

Last Friday I had a chance to play two performances with the Palmetto Posaunen on the first day of the Piccolo Spoleto festival in Charleston, SC.

We had some guy named Wycliffe Gordon solo with us on two tunes. Here's one of them.
Oh, by the way, the first soloist, Steve Wilson, got his master's at USC. (I can't claim to have imparted any jazz wisdom, however)