TromboneChat

An incredible performance.



Doug Elliott, notice how far to the right the mpc placement is on the second girl in on the right side.

I taught a marching band in Japan for a couple years, and we toured a famous school after hours. Every single music student was still there, practicing in the halls. They also had a small ensemble playing some Gabrieli just like this, with similar sounds.

It's hard to impress how advanced the playing was, in all aspects. Imagine an underclassmen marching band rehearsing, singing their show music while marching, on fixed Do solfege, with no reference pitch.

This isn't to say it's perfect, of course. There are downsides to this kind of music education as well!

Does this mean a Japanese musician can make a living?

Yes that video made the rounds in the early brass specialists circles when it first appeared on YouTube, and everyone was floored. It's not only extremely solid technically and in terms of tone quality from a modern brass perspective and especially given their youth, but they also have a better sense of the playing style this repertoire requires than most modern brass ensembles. Whether by conscious choice to not even try to adopt the style, or by ignorance of what that style even is, none of the many recordings that I've heard of Gabrieli & co. played by modern brass sections come even close to being as good as this in terms of the phrasing, the vocality, the articulations and the overall sound concept.

There aren't many occasions to say "she plays trombone like an angel" but this would be one.

It seems as though the girls schools in Japan have extensive music programs, not so much the boys. They memorize all of their music, which is one aspect of how they get so good.

At least one upstream trumpet player there, maybe two.

Did they win?

Or are there 20 even more amazing performances on top of them?