The Baylor Trombone Studio Mission
Our studio mission is to provide a select group of talented students an engaging and rigorous schedule of trombone choir, chamber music, solo work, orchestral experience, and wind ensemble study. Baylor trombone students become prepared for professional playing opportunities and teaching careers alike. The studio is a close knit group of focused individuals from diverse backgrounds who seek to be competitive in the music business. Time is spent on orchestral section playing, audition preparation, listening sessions, score study, quartet, and choir performance in various musical styles.
Our studio mission is to provide a select group of talented students an engaging and rigorous schedule of trombone choir, chamber music, solo work, orchestral experience, and wind ensemble study. Baylor trombone students become prepared for professional playing opportunities and teaching careers alike. The studio is a close knit group of focused individuals from diverse backgrounds who seek to be competitive in the music business. Time is spent on orchestral section playing, audition preparation, listening sessions, score study, quartet, and choir performance in various musical styles.
Dispensation Project - this project will include 7 substantive works for trombone and piano. Each work reflects periods of musical and artistic growth throughout my personal development. I will release these recordings over time and hope to blog more specifically about the context, preparation, performance, and meaning of each work.
Dispensation - a certain order, system, or arrangement; administration or management. Theology. the divine ordering of the affairs of the world. an appointment, arrangement, or favor, as by God.
Dispensation - a certain order, system, or arrangement; administration or management. Theology. the divine ordering of the affairs of the world. an appointment, arrangement, or favor, as by God.
Thank you again Yu-Chien Huang for collaborating on this project. This is the second video in a project involving "treasures" from the repertory that have been significant to me. These works cultivated my musical growth, honed my technique and challenged me to grow spiritually. Revisiting my significant performances of these works in a video project has been incredibly rewarding.
I am grateful for the opportunity to perform and teach at Baylor and work with many of my students on these major works. The artist practice room is a peculiar and sacred space. We "work through" many areas of our musicality, spirituality, mental toughness, and seek to perform from a place of honest transparency and authenticity. There is a school of playing and a necessary body of fundamentals, routine, and life cycle that is embedded in our craft. So many things are symbiotic to our musical development. Pending internal and external funding, I look forward to writing more about each of these substantial works, their impact and reason, and discussing my path to performance.
Stories:
Each work has a detailed story for me. Below is an excerpt from a future blog containing stories of each piece, their significance, the journey involved, and how my approach to life, music, and trombone has changed.
There was a file cabinet in the studio at Rice that contained original scores to each of these works owned by David. Remember, this was decades before internet and online libraries. I remember seeing for the first time a parchment like original of the Martin Ballade in the Rice University studio with my teacher David Waters carefully guarding the studio threshold as these works were never to leave the studio. The nearest copy machine was at Kinkos in the Rice Village. I had to sneak the part out and make a "practice copy" if I was to get a head start. Otherwise, I was relegated to plowing through the thousand page catalog of Brass Wind to find the catalog number, tear off the order form, write a check, find a stamp, and place my order in the mail.. This took both time and offered a certain feeling of commitment and you never really knew until weeks later if it would be in stock. This is in stark contrast to my daily work on the "ForScore" app on my iPad.
These yellowed originals of ancient trombone works even had a distinctive worn and well aged smell to them. You could see markings from all of those who came before me and attempted the Martin Ballade. Many of the markings were conflicting and you could tell there were multiple iterations of each phrase - positions were marked, erased, re-marked, and breath marks had been tirelessly worked out. At first glance, the Martin Ballade seemed stark and to be frank, a bit boring. It was not a piece I chose to play - it was assigned. Curriculum and mentoring by a teacher is incredibly important. It is entirely likely that I would have abandoned this work after a short time of practice. Because that was NOT an option, I learned to work through the many struggles, weaknesses and holes in my playing that otherwise would have been postponed.
I soon learned that the Ballade is an extremely difficult "ask." There are pages of long, high, sustained powerful passages that evoke epic desperation, followed by nuanced against the grain natural slurs and perfect slide technique. The piano score is an entirely different dilemma.
My first performance of this work as an undergraduate by most standards was not a success. I remember hanging on to the high D, top of the second page, in a jury/performance and thinking, "if this is what I feel like now, there is no possible way I will get through the last measure." This piece has come full circle for me, as I now have performed it dozens of times, and on four recitals for Collaborative Piano searches, and Yu-Chien's master's recital. The opening solo phrase contains the seed of an overarching structure that germinates based on perfectly thought out decisions. If you make a choice in the first phrase to linger on the lowest F in the phrase then that should cary forward to each subsequent phrase, and ultimately through to the culminating climax where the phrase is augmented in form. One choice leads to another, which leads to another and so on - if you make a change later, then you need to revisit what you did in the second measure. I learned quickly that I was not the first to explore this work. I was forced to recognize that many had come before and my responsibility to Frank Martin is to carefully balance the directions in the score with those performance practices that had come before me the last 50 years (now 100 years) ago.
I walked off the Duncan Recital Hall stage to the sound of my professors tapping their pencils on the desk in the back, apparently acknowledging my heroic attempt. The jury comments were much less affirming. There were so many deficiencies and began to realize that I was defining "success" by the authority and command on the high D at rehearsal 5 on the second page. If that note didn't happen, the performance was a failure! How many times do we do this in life? How many pieces have we shelved out of fear of two measures? Also, playing for a jury of professors and playing for an audience are different - right? Or not.... This is a subject I have given so much thought. More to come on this later......
Next up - Paul Creston, Fantasy for Trombone and (Orchestra/Piano).
I am grateful for the opportunity to perform and teach at Baylor and work with many of my students on these major works. The artist practice room is a peculiar and sacred space. We "work through" many areas of our musicality, spirituality, mental toughness, and seek to perform from a place of honest transparency and authenticity. There is a school of playing and a necessary body of fundamentals, routine, and life cycle that is embedded in our craft. So many things are symbiotic to our musical development. Pending internal and external funding, I look forward to writing more about each of these substantial works, their impact and reason, and discussing my path to performance.
Stories:
Each work has a detailed story for me. Below is an excerpt from a future blog containing stories of each piece, their significance, the journey involved, and how my approach to life, music, and trombone has changed.
There was a file cabinet in the studio at Rice that contained original scores to each of these works owned by David. Remember, this was decades before internet and online libraries. I remember seeing for the first time a parchment like original of the Martin Ballade in the Rice University studio with my teacher David Waters carefully guarding the studio threshold as these works were never to leave the studio. The nearest copy machine was at Kinkos in the Rice Village. I had to sneak the part out and make a "practice copy" if I was to get a head start. Otherwise, I was relegated to plowing through the thousand page catalog of Brass Wind to find the catalog number, tear off the order form, write a check, find a stamp, and place my order in the mail.. This took both time and offered a certain feeling of commitment and you never really knew until weeks later if it would be in stock. This is in stark contrast to my daily work on the "ForScore" app on my iPad.
These yellowed originals of ancient trombone works even had a distinctive worn and well aged smell to them. You could see markings from all of those who came before me and attempted the Martin Ballade. Many of the markings were conflicting and you could tell there were multiple iterations of each phrase - positions were marked, erased, re-marked, and breath marks had been tirelessly worked out. At first glance, the Martin Ballade seemed stark and to be frank, a bit boring. It was not a piece I chose to play - it was assigned. Curriculum and mentoring by a teacher is incredibly important. It is entirely likely that I would have abandoned this work after a short time of practice. Because that was NOT an option, I learned to work through the many struggles, weaknesses and holes in my playing that otherwise would have been postponed.
I soon learned that the Ballade is an extremely difficult "ask." There are pages of long, high, sustained powerful passages that evoke epic desperation, followed by nuanced against the grain natural slurs and perfect slide technique. The piano score is an entirely different dilemma.
My first performance of this work as an undergraduate by most standards was not a success. I remember hanging on to the high D, top of the second page, in a jury/performance and thinking, "if this is what I feel like now, there is no possible way I will get through the last measure." This piece has come full circle for me, as I now have performed it dozens of times, and on four recitals for Collaborative Piano searches, and Yu-Chien's master's recital. The opening solo phrase contains the seed of an overarching structure that germinates based on perfectly thought out decisions. If you make a choice in the first phrase to linger on the lowest F in the phrase then that should cary forward to each subsequent phrase, and ultimately through to the culminating climax where the phrase is augmented in form. One choice leads to another, which leads to another and so on - if you make a change later, then you need to revisit what you did in the second measure. I learned quickly that I was not the first to explore this work. I was forced to recognize that many had come before and my responsibility to Frank Martin is to carefully balance the directions in the score with those performance practices that had come before me the last 50 years (now 100 years) ago.
I walked off the Duncan Recital Hall stage to the sound of my professors tapping their pencils on the desk in the back, apparently acknowledging my heroic attempt. The jury comments were much less affirming. There were so many deficiencies and began to realize that I was defining "success" by the authority and command on the high D at rehearsal 5 on the second page. If that note didn't happen, the performance was a failure! How many times do we do this in life? How many pieces have we shelved out of fear of two measures? Also, playing for a jury of professors and playing for an audience are different - right? Or not.... This is a subject I have given so much thought. More to come on this later......
Next up - Paul Creston, Fantasy for Trombone and (Orchestra/Piano).
"Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men."
Proverbs 22:29
Proverbs 22:29