priorities

[GabrielRice]

Jumping off from Will's fantastic video about his equipment progression, the what, how, and, why he chooses to play the gear he plays...here is Will's response to a question about legato style:

I think that the social conditioning the music industry and classical music traditions have given brass musicians and specifically the trombone world are rather silly.

Very often we're still seen as second class musicians, or not worthy of being soloists in the way that violinists, pianists, and cellists can be soloists. But it's all non-sense. The instrument that we hold does not defined the musician who is holding it, though people are conditioned to think otherwise.

A person walks on stage at Carnegie Hall holding a violin, and an audience member will have an expectation. The same exact person walks out with a tuba, what will the audience be expecting? It has nothing to do with the person.

What do you call a version of Yo-Yo Ma that grew up playing trombone instead of cello? It's still Yo-Yo Ma, and still a musical genius, though they would be a fraction as famous. Why?

I believe that music can be somewhat independent of the instrument, and that some portamento between notes, or vocal flexibility, or just style should be celebrated and understood. The rigidness that we've put on ourselves in the classical industry can be great from a craft standpoint, but from a musicality side it can be constraining.

I will say when I teach people on other instruments, one of the first lesson I can give across the board is to get those musicians to play in time and without vibrato. It's almost 100% effective on every non-brass person I've taught. Reducing the music to the most basic of craft, then adding in conscious choices on top of that, rather than mimicking someone else's style, is a highly effective tool. But it always makes me think of how we teach each other - why not use the best of both worlds?

Last thought - we're often seen as trombonists first and musicians second, when I think we should be musicians first who happen to play trombone.

I love all of this, and I hope we can all think through the implications of what we do day in and day out when we pick up our instruments to practice and perform.

But also...

I have some close friends who are very serious and knowledgeable music-lovers but have very little understanding of brass instruments, how they are played, what the challenges are, etc. What do they want to hear from the brass section when they attend a Boston Symphony concert?

ACCURACY.

That's it. Chipped or missed notes distract them from the music. No matter how exciting the big gesture, a clam will ruin it for them. Given the choice, they would rather the brass be a little less exciting and much more accurate. The Boston Symphony brass these days does a pretty great job at doing both, so they are quite happy at most of the concerts they go to there. But they've also told me they were happy to see a couple of principal players go who missed too many notes for their liking.

I tell my students - and I truly believe it - that perfection is impossible, and that the most productive path to "perfect" outcomes is crystal-clear intentions. Song and Wind, yes, but the song has to be incredibly specific and conceived in finely grained detail.

I also tell my students - and myself - to aspire to play in such a way that the musical intention - the projection of musical imagination - is so strong that a missed note here or there won't matter to the listener. I've been in the room when someone wins an audition even though they missed a note, or even a few notes. I've heard of many more.

Am I being too easy on them? On myself? Maybe I am.

Is any of this mutually exclusive with the kinds of questions Will is asking? I don't think so.

[harrisonreed]

Listen around 2:00. Playing a piece score-perfect is not really what people come to see and hear at a performance.

They want to see the humanity in the endeavor to express an interpretation of music. You gotta go for it. If you can go for it with all your might and have no clams, all the better. Lindberg, if no one else, is a musician first and trombonist second. Or even third or fourth.

You know if Christian is saying he played the Serocki note for note perfectly, he did it. But he probably didn't give "his" performance of that music. So the audience didn't get what they came for.

[hyperbolica]

The reason I asked the question was that I see other instruments make these "non-musical characteristic sounds". Things like fingers dragging a little on guitar strings, and all the sounds violinists/bowed instruments make that we all tolerate that aren't expressly written in the music. There seems to be less tolerance of these sounds from brass players, and classical brass players most particularly. You have to have mastery over your instrument, but you can't prevent a trombone from being a trombone. Do we need it to sound like a keyboard instrument all the time? Probably not. There are intentional glisses in music, even in classical/romantic styles, but we don't get a lot of forgiveness or "isn't that cute" sort of attitude when we don't get things exactly lined up, and there's a little portamento during a big position change. What would you do if you heard Alessi ding his fingernail on the bell as his hand passed through 3-4th position? That's something only a trombone player would do, and not part of the music. How excusable is it?

I studied with a guy who started out on valves, and I think that made him particularly sensitive to little unintentional characteristically trombony sounds here and there, which he in turn passed on to me. Perfection causes a lot of emotional stress, I wonder sometimes if we shouldn't choose what we stress about more carefully. I'm sure I'm not the only person kind of paranoid about making extraneous sounds. I know my breathing gets a bit loud sometimes too.

William just seemed like a guy with opinions who might wax loquacious on a topic like this. Seemed like a topic that could use some open discussion. He kind of branched off in a slightly different direction, but interesting none the less.

[WilliamLang]

There's also being a soloist and being a team player in the orchestra - and what those differences are is a key to a lot of the questions. Gabe is right that you can't really miss notes in the orchestra and leave the audience happy. As a soloist you have some more liberty to take risks. Yo-Yo Ma actually has a very similar story to Christian's about playing a piece note perfect but feeling soulless at the same time.

I wonder about the state of music education - we have a current generation of students and young solo leaning people (Peter Moore comes to mind in particular) who can play fairly note perfect. But considering that Lindberg has never taken a full time teaching gig, there's no one from the solo world who is really teaching those particular skills - how to take the appropriate risks for the appropriate job.

There's got to be a way to combine the excitement of a fully thought out, emotionally mature and complex musical phrase with the demands of craft that are expected of us.

I love these questions, and I think maybe we have been a little easy on ourselves in some ways in the past, but that's the past, it's a foreign country and all - we can always continue to look forward to a bigger and brighter future.

Btw Gabe - love this: "I tell my students - and I truly believe it - that perfection is impossible, and that the most productive path to "perfect" outcomes is crystal-clear intentions.", and definitely going to steal it for my students!

Also it's funny to mention Alessi and fingers on the bell at the same time - I think he in particular hates that sound more than anyone! But I do wish we had slightly more latitude to do what the trombone does well as an expressive tool (used within reason, and for a reason of course!)

[GabrielRice]

Yes, h, thanks for the question. I love it when conversations like this go off in unexpected directions.

Specific to your question (sort of)...I teach at Boston University with Don Lucas and Toby Oft. We have three different ways of teaching legato, and they are all valid. I think the students benefit from hearing the different ideas and then experimenting to make their own choices. Ultimately it's about how each person can best make the music come across.

Don and I have spent time experimenting for each other, trying out each other's methods. He is a "by all means practice your lip slurs, but use a light legato tongue to cover up the bumps as you cross partials" player. I am a player who uses natural slurs almost as much as possible. I like what he sounds like best when he does it his way, and he likes what I sound like best when I do it my way.

All three of us are adamant about the timing of the slide, so that any portamento is a conscious choice and not something that sounds unintentionally sloppy.

[GabrielRice]

The same friend I was referring to sent me this:

In 2013, the Instrumentalist magazine reprinted an interview from the 1990s with veterans of the world-famous Chicago Symphony brass section. You might enjoy a recollection of horn-player Philip Farkas, who left the orchestra in 1960:

Q: What concerts do you particularly remember?

A: I remember once in Boston we played a Berlioz overture, “Corsair,” then the Brahms Third, and finally “Ein Heldenleben.” Everything went perfectly on the first half. Then in “Heldenleben,” things were still going well. Pretty soon it went through the orchestra like a wave: “We’ve got a no-hitter going. God help the guy who misses anything.” Reiner’s eyes were getting bigger. I sweated through those last 10 measures. We got through it; it was about as close to a flawless concert as I’ve ever seen. Reiner would always conduct a concert, take his bows, and go to his dressing room. That night when we came off stage, there was Reiner, tears running down his cheeks, shaking hands with the orchestra members. He said, “All my life I have dreamed of a perfect concert; tonight we had one.”

Interesting that the audience is not mentioned in that recollection at all. Did they know? Did they care? Was it exciting? It probably was, if the Reiner CSO recordings are any indication.

But I can say I've been in orchestras where the conductors were in the habit of glaring or making faces when notes were missed. It does not give performers a sense of freedom to play expressively.

[harrisonreed]

FWIW, Alessi would probably never ding his nail on the bell -- that's a big pet peeve of his, using the bell as a guidepost.

Of course, you can't miss notes in the orchestra, but that doesn't mean a section can't go for it at the risk of potentially cracking something. Or go 90% and "guarantee" it will be perfect. On the Trombone Excerpts page there are many example recordings of each excerpt, all from high level orchestras and Mahler 3 is a great example. There are examples of sections really going for it and actually taking it too far and actually playing poorly, examples of sections that are so boring that it doesn't even sound like it's a moment for the trombones, and then even my favorite, where Joe goes for it at the risk of breaking up but pulls it off (he even adds some good vibrato even though he is adamant about not using vibrato for Mahler).

It's interesting about Hyperbolica's question though -- I'm working on the electric bass part to "Close to the Edge" by Yes right now, trying to get my bass trombone chops up and test my new bass mouthpiece, and I don't think that it's wrong to put the slides and rips in like a bassist does. You would never do that if the part was for Trombone, but why don't we do that? Glisses sound bad when they are unintentional, and trombonists don't practice them very much. But I've found that in ballad playing on tenor, imitating the glisses that a human voice naturally does, even highly trained singers, when landing on a note -- that actually sounds great. Intentional pitch "inaccuracies", resolved or augmented with a gliss, I guess. The human voice does it perfectly and we love it.

Why don't we play, especially in Jazz, closer to what the human voice does on melodies? Why don't we play bass lines with slides, rips, and glissed grace notes like an electric bassist would? For that matter, why are we so set on a warm and open bass trombone sound, rather than a grumbly laser beam sound like a bass guitar? Both are nice!

[Doug Elliott]

My pet peeve is players who play "unintentionally sloppy" and don't even realize it. I have no problem with portamentos between notes when they are intentional and contribute something. But slop is slop.

William's term "conscious choices" is something I say in lessons too.

[CheeseTray]

I think that the social conditioning the music industry and classical music traditions have given brass musicians and specifically the trombone world are rather silly.

Very often we're still seen as second class musicians, or not worthy of being soloists in the way that violinists, pianists, and cellists can be soloists. But it's all non-sense. The instrument that we hold does not defined the musician who is holding it, though people are conditioned to think otherwise.

A person walks on stage at Carnegie Hall holding a violin, and an audience member will have an expectation. The same exact person walks out with a tuba, what will the audience be expecting? It has nothing to do with the person.

What do you call a version of Yo-Yo Ma that grew up playing trombone instead of cello? It's still Yo-Yo Ma, and still a musical genius, though they would be a fraction as famous. Why?

I believe that music can be somewhat independent of the instrument, and that some portamento between notes, or vocal flexibility, or just style should be celebrated and understood. The rigidness that we've put on ourselves in the classical industry can be great from a craft standpoint, but from a musicality side it can be constraining.

I will say when I teach people on other instruments, one of the first lesson I can give across the board is to get those musicians to play in time and without vibrato. It's almost 100% effective on every non-brass person I've taught. Reducing the music to the most basic of craft, then adding in conscious choices on top of that, rather than mimicking someone else's style, is a highly effective tool. But it always makes me think of how we teach each other - why not use the best of both worlds?

Last thought - we're often seen as trombonists first and musicians second, when I think we should be musicians first who happen to play trombone.

William, I really enjoyed your post. The ideas you offer are interesting and thought provoking. I do think however that adding a little wider context to the discussion is worth consideration. I would suggest that the instruments you mention (strings, piano) are more readily accepted as "solo" instruments not because they (or their players) are intrinsically more musical, but rather because the are more easily exploitable for very visible displays of sustained virtuosity. A violinist or pianist can sail though sustained, virtuoso displays of highly flashy and technical passage work without the level of physicality necessary to push a brass instrument to its extremes. (This relative physical ease also permits a greater number of aspiring players to attain a high degree of technical perfection because of the long hours of practice that they can invest without injury, versus the demands of practicing a brass instrument, thus creating a larger pool of capable solo performers.)

This technical brilliance is universally accessible to listeners of every level of sophistication, from the most casual to the most serious - and the vast majority of lay listeners equate technical flash with musicality. Serious listeners know better, but I don't believe that they make up the majority of the concert going public. You, as a trained musician, have the multiple advantages of a more sophisticated ear, a wider musical foundation to appreciate various styles/genres, and the first hand knowledge to appreciate the subtleties (and challenges) of a truly musical performance.

While we know that true musicianship can be expressed via any "vehicle," most listeners simply don't invest deeply enough to get to that listening level. I'm not looking down my nose at them; just simply noting the fact that most people listen more casually than experienced musicians. Average listeners want to be "wowed" by a soloist - technical proficiency and flash meets the bar with ease. Basically, the technical advantages of the piano, violin, etc., creates a virtuosity that will always meet the average audience "where they're at."

Secondarily, the "solo" instruments have the distinct advantage of having a long-established repertoire written by history's greatest composers. As much as I enjoy the trombone solo rep, there's no equivalent to a Brahms, Tchaikovsky, or Rachmaninoff concerto out there (IMHO) for us and there are no works familiar enough to lay audiences to be in the "canon."

Just some food (or fodder) for thought.

[WilliamLang]

There have always been virtuoso's who can play at a super high technical level across any instrument. You can even look at the Arthur Pryor as an early example. Then the Sergei Nakariakov/Oystein Baadsvik/Christian Lindberg/*french horn citation needed* level of artist should make up that gap.

It also might be as simple as: can you make a sad/pained/artistic face while playing the instrument? Though the original repertoire is a pretty good argument as well.

[CheeseTray]

True, and fair enough, but the rep for the Sousa, Goldman, Fillmore bands. etc. (and the Theme and Variations style solos performed by Pryor and the other band era virtuosos) was aimed directly at the common man and based on widely known, popular tunes of the day; even when they were derived from the classical repertoire. Solo-wise, certainly not "art music"...even if the playing was supremely artistic.

Trombone life: champagne tastes, beer presentation.

Cheers!

[hyperbolica]

I've been thinking about two things, part relates to what DougE said above. That part is just that some people are sloppy between notes, which (like the finger on the bell thing) are just considered bad trombone habits, not so much an endearing quirk. When there is a long position change, sometimes you hear the front or end of the slide motion more than would be ideal. I try to avoid that by limiting slide motion for connected notes with alternate positions and, like Dr. Rice, natural breaks. Getting too fast and jerky is the wrong response to the issue. "Play smarter not harder" as they say.

And sometimes it's the chops that fall or rise between notes, not the slide. You'll often hear a yyyawww when somebody lipslurs between partials, just because they're allowing the pitch to bend instead of change. So it's often as Doug says, just sloppy.

But the second is something that has kind of fascinated me recently. Sometimes when you're listening to the greats, you hear them play with the slide in ways that add a lot of soul to the music. Singers do it all the time (especially blues), guitar players bend pitches, other brass players do it by bending notes with their chops, but for trombone, it's kind of native territory, and I love to hear people do it well. It's easy to get carried away with scooping every other note, and you have to learn to avoid that. My favorite example that comes most to mind is Harry Watters. It's not just scoops, rips, glisses and falls, and I'm not sure it exactly falls into the microtonal area. Sometimes it's subtle, not comical like Lassus. It comes out like a sigh or a moan, and can be very emotional.

We had a local guy who played a slow blues solo with my quartet (bye bye bones), and it was the low-down-dirtiest pitch-bendingest-plunger-waving thing I've ever heard. He was an old timer dixieland guy from Chicago, so I guess he came by it naturally. I can't duplicate that feel, but I try to learn from it. That kind of slide play is a native trombone capability that's mostly limited to jazz and pop styles. You don't notice great slide technique in classical solos so much because perfection is just expected.

Here's Watters with great slide technique, and a bit of the oven door slammin' kid style.

[GabrielRice]

On the classical side, Jay Friedman has said that he stopped using legato tongue on melodic half steps years ago. You can hear that here. I think it's very beautiful and sounds very characteristic of trombone without being at all comic or sloppy.

[GabrielRice]

For contrast, here is Jonathan Randazzo, who has just started his new job as principal trombone of the St. Louis Symphony. Just as beautiful in my opinion, with a somewhat more mainstream approach to legato.



There are moments here where my choice would be to stay on the same partial rather than cross, but it's beautiful playing for sure.

Incidentally, Jonathan's college teacher (and mine in grad school) was Norman Bolter, who like Jay Friedman does not shy away from portamento. You can hear some of it here.

[Kbiggs]

I’m sure we’ve all heard note-perfect performances that felt lifeless, just as we’ve all heard performances that were beautiful, exciting, moving, that stimulated emotions within us, and that were technically flawed. I’d rather hear—and play—the latter; and I can still be amazed at flawless technique.

“Conscious choices” is an excellent phrase. For example, portamento is a choice, just like the different degrees and kinds of legato (literally “bound,” as in “bound together”) playing. String players use portamento. Depending on the school of playing, the era, the conductor, solo vs. ensemble, etc., it can be too much. It can become an affectation rather than an ornament, or a manner of highlighting a note or a phrase.

I think most would agree that some mistakes indicate the need to develop technique, others indicate a of lapse of focus or attention, while some indicate the need for more experience with musical/expressive ability… I’m sure there are lots of other categories of “musical mistakes.” But at what point does a conscious musical choice—say, Friedman’s decision to stop using legato on melodic half-steps—become non-musical or a distraction? Or the decision to use portamento, rather than a clean slur with legato tongue?

(I agree with Gabe: Friedman’s melodic half-steps sans tongue are not comic or sloppy. To me, they sound expressive, and don’t interfere with or distract from the music. I’ve heard this recording before, and if I weren’t listening closely and I didn’t know what to listen for, I doubt I would have heard it.)

[harrisonreed]

Hmmm I must be an outlier. I love Jay's tone in that recording, but that recording sounds sloppy in places to me. Half step gliss where a singer would probably have a consonant? Makes no sense unless you articulate and then shift the pitch, like singers sometimes do. In the recording it sometimes works, and it sometimes doesn't.

Some connection and gliss or slide on large jumps? Absolutely. Those leaps sound fantastic. So there are moments in that recording that are quite lyrical and others that sound kind of mushy. He is absolutely making deliberate choices on everything, and that is what I'm commenting on, not his execution of those choices.

[Doug Elliott]

De gustibus non disputandum est

[harrisonreed]

Veritas dat-ius

[hyperbolica]

: Friedman’s melodic half-steps sans tongue are not not comic or sloppy. To me, they sound expressive, and don’t interfere with or distract from the music. I’ve heard this recording before, and if I weren’t listening closely and I didn’t know what to listen for, I doubt I would have heard it.)

This is a little unfair. You're talking about Jay Friedman. Less than a dozen people in the world have his kind of credentials. In the hands of your average college trombone player, the same idea goes from something that's potentially workable to a slippery-slidey slope.

John Swallow taught to lightly tongue a full or half step slur, but over that use a partial break (or a trigger) . All of these methods are aspirational - nothing is absolute. A combination of air attack can eliminate or decrease reliance on the tongue and the cross-partial slur. And I don't have to tell you guys that you don't teach your beginners the same thing you teach advanced students. Swallow taught the hard rules first, then once you could play under those conditions, he showed you how to break rules to keep getting better results.

With Friedman I'm sure there's more to the story than just glissing half steps.

[WilliamLang]

I love hearing about everyone's different tonguing/glissando techniques - very often they work well in different setting. Jay's lack of tongue works beautifully in a concert hall with an orchestra playing, or with an orchestral section, and is very intriguing on the solo Rochut - John Swallow's works well for chamber music settings, some other techniques work better on bass, some on tenor and so on and so on. I've always found it aspirational to have as many tools and techniques possible to pick the best feeling one for the situation.

[Kbiggs]

: Friedman’s melodic half-steps sans tongue are not not comic or sloppy. To me, they sound expressive, and don’t interfere with or distract from the music. I’ve heard this recording before, and if I weren’t listening closely and I didn’t know what to listen for, I doubt I would have heard it.)

This is a little unfair. You're talking about Jay Friedman. Less than a dozen people in the world have his kind of credentials. In the hands of your average college trombone player, the same idea goes from something that's potentially workable to a slippery-slidey slope.

I’m confused by your comment. I’m not criticizing Friedman’s playing. I like it. There are few musicians who happen to be brass players who are as expressive, and who have his longevity, experience—you name it. The man’s an icon.

Perhaps the accidental double-negative confused things. I’ll remove it.

With Friedman I'm sure there's more to the story than just glissing half steps.

Of course.

[harrisonreed]

Maybe he meant that it's difficult to criticize Friedman, knowing his history and reputation, the things he's done in the past, and even the fact that he is still doing it to such a high level at his age. He could push things quite a lot, and with his creds most people would go along with it, because you know, it's Jay Friedman! If a college kid did the same thing, it's easy to put them down.

Like Doug said in Latin, in this case it's a matter of style (and not execution) and you can't really have an objective debate on style that is intentional and well executed.

[hyperbolica]

No, I don't mean to say anyone is criticizing Friedman. Just that you can't expect your average trombone player to do what he does. Imagine a studio of freshman tbone players glissing half steps without the rest of the story.

[Doug Elliott]

I think you actually CAN expect younger players to learn to play that way
It takes some work but it's not that hard. The consistency that Jay has is what's hard.

Different subject, but I was thinking about Latin regarding the thread about reading. Nobody, outside of the Catholic church, learns Latin aurally. You learn it strictly by reading.

[GabrielRice]

I think most would agree that some mistakes indicate the need to develop technique, others indicate a of lapse of focus or attention, while some indicate the need for more experience with musical/expressive ability…

I'd love to get the conversation back to this broad question rather than the specifics of trombone legato.

What's the balance of technical/mechanical in your own practice? In your teaching? How is the musical integrated with the technical? Do they always need to be? How do we develop both consistency and expression? How can those seemingly distantly related goals be integrated?

[harrisonreed]

Different subject, but I was thinking about Latin regarding the thread about reading. Nobody, outside of the Catholic church, learns Latin aurally. You learn it strictly by reading.

Doug, that would be the nail in the coffin on the subject if you want to think about it that way -- because of that fact, nobody is able to speak Latin properly. We no longer know exactly how to pronounce it. There are many colloquialisms that were not written down or preserved, so those things are now gone forever. There is a lot of debate on how to just say "yes" and "no" in classical Latin. An ancient Roman would be extremely confused if a modern scholar tried speaking their language to them by reading it. They would probably recognize what was being said, and certainly would be able to read the text themselves, but it might be like the story about the lion speaking English. You hear the words, but it's all wrong.



People can get really good at reading jazz because there are still fluent, native "speakers". And lots of recordings of native speakers reading authentic "texts".

[WilliamLang]

For me, the warm up and maintenance are dedicated towards craft with an eye for raw sound quality. In my second session of the day it at rehearsals/gigs I like to trust the work I've done to make the technique secondary and focus almost totally on artistic music making.

As a teacher, each student has different needs, and I really enjoy teaching to the person. Often I try to recommend playing somewhat dry and consistent before adding in musical influence, with the idea being that one you can play clean, every timbral choice afterwards will be one that's done with intention rather than mimicry and guesswork.

I think most would agree that some mistakes indicate the need to develop technique, others indicate a of lapse of focus or attention, while some indicate the need for more experience with musical/expressive ability…

I'd love to get the conversation back to this broad question rather than the specifics of trombone legato.

What's the balance of technical/mechanical in your own practice? In your teaching? How is the musical integrated with the technical? Do they always need to be? How do we develop both consistency and expression? How can those seemingly distantly related goals be integrated?

[AndrewMeronek]

Why don't we play, especially in Jazz, closer to what the human voice does on melodies? Why don't we play bass lines with slides, rips, and glissed grace notes like an electric bassist would? For that matter, why are we so set on a warm and open bass trombone sound, rather than a grumbly laser beam sound like a bass guitar? Both are nice!

As someone who is fairly competent with playing jazz, I can say that I definitely do add ornamental colors the way a human voice does. Plenty of jazz trombonists have - just listen to Tommy Dorsey, Dick Shearer, Lawrence Brown, etc.

I can say that when I'm playing section lead, an easy way to approach it is to get rid of all the ornaments and to play with clear pitch, time, articulation, and dynamics; which often leads to a pretty boring performance. But it does ensure that the rest of the section can follow. But the trick to playing lead well is to be able to add those ornamental elements (portamentos, vibrato, etc.) in a way that is consistent and predictable so that the section can still follow, and does not violate the underlying requirements for pitch, time, dynamics, articulation. It's hard to do and takes a lot of practice and risk-taking.

And know when to pick the spots. Never, ever do something that conflicts with the lead trumpet or lead sax.