Geez, how many books is this guy going to write?

Sorry I haven't posted in some time. I have a few things I want to hit but haven't posted for two reasons:

1. I'm allowing some passage of time to avoid offending (just in case I launch into a diatribe).

2. I've been in "all hands on deck" mode to finish two new books.

If you're curious, I have put up a description and some free sample pages.

Finishing this book has been very satisfying because some of these materials go back over ten years. Never have I had so many failed attempts to write a book. Basically, I would think I had it figured out, plunge in and then, after way too much time and effort, realize I was on the wrong path. Painful to see it all go down the tubes.

But it doesn't really "go down the tubes." I don't delete any of it away and, so far, I've been good/lucky with data back-ups. So I have one folder one my hard drive which holds all of that source material.

How much?

I just looked: almost 62 megabytes and 558 files in 27 sub-folders.

That's just Finale files leading up to this project and doesn't count *any* finished books. Ouch.

Anyway, this time I hope I've got it (especially since I've already forked over my money to the printing company). By the way, I'm flirting with offering a reduced-price e-version of the book but haven't had the time to look into file security, water-marking, etc.

Some people may wonder, "Geez, how many books is this guy going to write?"

Well, the Trombone Craft series is the last BIG thing but properly finishing it will take roughly two more years (yes, I want to write a "Bass Trombone Craft" set).

Also, I've been meaning to add a feature to the Simply Singing Books: free duet parts for (almost) everything. This is not as easy as it may sound. Because these tunes are for different instruments with different ranges I can't write a one-size-fits-all duet voice because it won't fit in the range for some instruments.

My basic strategy is going to be this: for each tune write an "under" voice and an "over" voice. Then I should be able to cover a variety of ranges. I want to make the voices fit, harmonically so that it may turn out that I'm turning these tunes into little trios.

Also, I want to line up the different instruments so that a trombone player can provide the "under" voice in the keys given to the trumpet player, etc.

I figure that, somewhere, a tuba player with a crush on a cute horn player will rejoice ("hey, let's play duets sometime"). If anything develops, I expect wedding pictures!

All of this is going to take some time because I have a job, a family, gigs and a house in which stuff likes to break (this summer it was, among other things, a sewer line jamming, causing a toilet to overflow....into the air conditioning vent....you get the idea).

There are other creative ideas circling in my head like flights over O'Hare airport waiting for permission to land. Some of them have been waiting for a lonnnnng time.

Some of the ideas are projects I plan to put up on the web for free. Others will be published. Most of them are good enough that I'm keeping my lips sealed.

Now, if some rich Bill Gates type wants to float into my life and say, "Son, I believe in what you're doing. I'll set you up with a lifetime endowment so you can just live in a beautiful house by a lake and fulfill your true vision. And here is your personal assistant.." (and then I wake up)

The thing is, even if that offer arrived (about as likely as a Power Ball win, especially since I almost never buy a ticket), it would hard to walk away from teaching. I really love teaching...

...at least when the student is willing to prepare....

Simply Singing Update

Just a note to let everyone know that I now have in from the printers..
Simply Singing for Winds - medium treble clef.
Simply Singing for Winds - low bass clef

I've been doing some work on low treble clef and hope to have that ready sometime this summer.

Ensemble Publications is working on their version of medium bass clef. Chuck hopes to have it ready by ITF.

Aharoni's New Book (and I continue banging the relaxation/embouchure drum)

I recently got a nice email from Eliezer Aharoni, former bass trombonist of the Jerusalem Symphony. He had a few nice things to say about my new book, Simply Singing for Winds.

Mr Aharoni, if you don't know the name, authored one of the real classic books for bass trombone,
the New Method for the Modern Bass Trombone. A more exhaustive book I have not seen.

He has come out with a new book, The Non-Classic Bass Trombone, which has some nice tunes in a pop style along with a play-along recording.

He has posted some YouTube videos that mostly feature Micha Davis,Bass Trombonist of the Israel Philharmonic.

One nice thing about these video: they show the player(s) from some different camera angles.
I've never heard Micha Davis before but I really like his sound and his relaxed physical approach.

Anytime you watch a great player, be sure to take details of both sound and sight and store them in your memory vault. Four details that jump out at me when I watch Micha Davis play...

• Really nice centering of sound on low notes
• Very relaxed demeanor, especially notice that the slide arm isn't too tense.
• The second uses a variety of camera angles including a brief close-up of Aharoni's embouchure. Notice those firm corners.
• Lastly, notice that Davis is able to play most of these low notes without having to puff out the cheeks. Yes, it can be done.

I'm back (and simply singing)

Summer's over and it's time for me to start posting some entries on the blog again.

The biggest event for me, was a giant family trip West in the mini-van (6,816 miles) to see family and national parks. More than that I'm guessing nobody really cares about.

The biggest event which may actually interest you is that I've finished the second book of my three-book trilogy. This one I've titled "Simply Singing for Winds" (after discovering with consternation that the title "Simply Singing" was already taken).

People who have studied with me know that I like to incorporate simple tunes into my teaching. I can use them to do a lot of effective teaching. I've finally done what I wanted to do for a long time: expand my little packet of 40 Simple Tunes into something just a little bit bigger.

Have you ever noticed how so many teachers/players keep returning to the same few sections of the Arban Method. The one I see used most often is that little section of tonguing tunes. Same thing with Bordogni/Rochut...there are those few etudes that everybody keeps going back to. I remember my first lesson with Arnold Jacobs when I showed up with the nice solo I wanted to work on and, in a short time, he left that and want to #2 in the "Rochut Book." I also remember a fair amount of time devoted to buzzing "Pop Goes the Weasel" on our mouthpieces. It was on that simple material that the real teaching took place.

That's why I wrote this book: to have a lot of simple material available to play.


Suppose you want to get together with a friend and play in octaves...
Suppose you're bored with your warm-up and want to warm up playing tunes...
Suppose you want to work on your high range or low range by transposing tunes...
Suppose you need work on clean tonguing...
Suppose you want music to buzz on your mouthpiece...
Suppose you want to warm down playing simple stuff in the pedal register...
Suppose you need to sing more during your practice sessions (because I'm guessing you aren't singing enough!)...

You get the idea. That's what this book is all about.

Anyway, enough advertising. Ensemble Publication plans to publish it but, in the meantime, I'm just selling them myself.

If you want to see more description, some samples, or even order the book:
here's a link.

5 Kinds of Hard

As summer vacation starts, I'm beginning to tackle some "back burner" kinds of things. One of these has been to revamp the sight-reading I use with juries and ensemble auditions.

The first step: I've been composing half-page sight-reading pieces. My goal is to have 10 such pieces (I've written 6 thus far) and then rotate them.

As I compose these things, I want something that works musically and presents a variety of challenges. This brings me back to my of my doctoral dissertation days.

The title?

(Warning: do not read this title if you are operating heavy machinery)

Pedagogical Materials for the College-Level Trombone Student: The Application of Objective Grading Criteria to a Selected List of Materials as Determined by a National Survey of College-Level Trombone Teachers.

OK, I hope you had a nice nap.

Here's one of the questions I was dealing with in this dissertation:
What makes something challenging?

Pieces receive a difficulty grades but, what makes them tough? We understand intuitively that there are different kinds of challenge. For my dissertation, I identified 5 types of challenge:

1. Melodic/Harmonic
Challenge coming from: awkward intervals, tough key signatures, chromaticism/atonality

2. Rhythmic/Metric
Challenge coming from: strange meters, tricky rhythms

3. Notational
Challenge coming from: clefs, dense accidentals

4. Agility
Challenge coming from: arpeggios, leaps

5. Fluency
Challenge coming from fast runs

So basically, one of the things I did in my dissertation was to go through a standard list of etudes and give each one 5 difficulty grades.

OK, back to the subject of sight-reading....

Sight reading is a tricky thing to practice because you need lots of stuff to sight read.
How to go about it methodically?
Yes, I've looked at the Lafosse series but, as time passes, the need to read manuscript slowly diminishes. Also the speed of clef changes is a little ridiculous as you advance.

If someone wanted to set up a systematic approach to sight-reading, they could organize it around the 5 areas of challenge. Treat them singly and also in combination. For example: one section that has lots of leaps but isn't too tough in other ways.
Later, you might have another section that is rhythmically tough and harmonically weird.

Or, how about rhythmically tough, harmonically weird, with lots of clef changes and strange meters...oh wait, that's the Blazhevich Clef Studies.

Who knows, maybe this summer I'll get motivated and churn out lots of sight reading....

(don't hold your breath)

Oh yes, one other thing: I plan to sign up for the online service Sight Read This. Hey, it's only $4.95/year. Maybe I'll blog about my opinions once I use it a bit.

Lip Slur Errata

I have a "comment copy" of my lip slur book. Whenever I find something that is a mistake, I scribble the page number on the front cover.

It occurred to me that, if I lose that book, I'll lose all those notes.
Soooooooo...

Here are mistakes/corrections in the book as I've noticed them thus far:
p.18 #26, the 7th position mark should be placed at the beginning of the bar and, one line 2 the sharp 5th valve indication should be over the A, not the D
p.58 #38b. the 3/2 measures...not sure what I was thinking here. Best to leave them out, they don't serve a purpose, really
p.60 #39 a. 4th line. 6th position is a better choice than 4th for the last rip to a high F
p.65 #2a. 2nd line should be mezzo forte
p.76 #12 5th line should have a decrescendo following the forte, not a crescendo

Summer's Coming

Things at USC are drawing to a close. Since I get a lot of my blogging ideas from things that pop up while I'm teaching, I may not make as many entries over the summer months.

Of course, I will be heading out to New Mexico as a participant for the Alessi Seminar. I hope that I will have time and energy to post quite a few entries from the seminar.

Summer is a time when I can slow down a bit and work on those projects that take more time. Some of you may be familiar with my lip slurs book. It has always been my plan that this book would be part of a series. There are a number of other books (at least 3!) that are in various stages of development.

Of course, most summers I begin with grand plans and end frustrated that I didn't accomplish more. My only "grand" plan for this summer is to get a bit closer to finishing these books.

We'll see.

Me and Gilderoy

First of all, for anyone who's actually reading this, sorry that my posts have come to a standstill. There's a reason which I'll get to in a moment.

I had an interesting chat at the end of a private student's lesson Wednesday. She had bought my clef studies book and I was thinking about recommending the lip slurs book as well. She related her mother's comment, "Oh those professors just want you to go out and buy all their books so that can get their name out there." She meant it in good humor but it brought up a valid point.

Thus far I have two books and am working on at least two more. If I succeed, this could create a situation where a student coming to study with me would need to buy 4 (count them, "four") of my books.

This reminds me of Gilderoy Lockhart from the Harry Potter series. Gilderoy was on a blatant ego trip about himself and his books. Am I?

I hope not. So, why do I write these things?

Some of it comes from years of frustration: I've been teaching quite a few private students since about 1990 and I'm always looking for the right tool for the job. I tried the Blazhevich clef studies (and the Fink and the Uber and the Sauer). Maybe I'm just too picky but none of these quite did the trick so I wrote my own.

Some of it comes from creative drive. You know, when a little kid is proud of a picture he has drawn and wants mom and dad to like it. I'm proud of these two books and want other people to like them. I love being creative and I love teaching. These books combine the two and are extremely satisfying to write.

Some of it comes from wanting to build a better mousetrap. Just like the satisfaction in solving a crossword puzzle, I find it intriguing to look at a problem (the flawed materials we end up using) and see if I can come up with a better solution. I just can't help tinkering.

Ultimately, I feel like the stuff I write is "out there" waiting to come in for a landing. I look at the etudes I've written and I don't feel like I was the one who wrote them.

Oh yes, why no posts lately? I'm trying to write a new set of pieces for either bass or low tenor trombone: 4 Impromptus for Low Bone Alone. I'm performing them in two weeks so I guess I'd better finish. Here's the kicker: I have already submitted the program info complete with movement titles even the music isn't finished. The second through 4th impromptus are done but the first one is still giving me fits. I can see how it starts and how it ends but haven't connected the dots yet. So, that is eating up brain power and time later at night when I might normally do a blog entry.