TVBoomer

Robin - I'm sorry that I haven't responded to this thread in so long... like you mentioned earlier, there's only so much that's doable without being able to hear progress and play together. I just want to thank you for the work it took to compile all of the music and Aebersolds into files to transfer for me... they have been a joy to listen to and practice and have (hopefully) laid the groundwork for a significant improvement in my improvisational ability. I'll try and keep this periodically updated with my progress, but with college apps and work and the like I've been really busy of late, and have really only been able to focus on my virtuosic repertoire for the upcoming auditions. I'll try and keep you posted, and maybe throw up a recording or two at a later date, but for now a "thank-you" is all I can offer. Thanks again!

All right Robin, I've been working on these Aebersold exercises as well as listening to these jazz pieces. I'm working mostly on scale memorization at this point... I have most of the majors down to sixteenths at about mm90-100. It's a lot of material to wade through... do you have any suggestions on how to approach it? I feel like I don't know where to start.

I'm becoming really fond of some of these ballads... Polkadots and Moonbeams is really good! How does Fontana do that really soft tonguing style? I must know! :]

This is ridiculously fantastic... thank you very much for all of these. I'll be sure to get on them and have them on loop whenever I have a free minute to listen to music... hopefully I can do some learning by osmosis :P

Hmm... .rar is not a file type I am familiar with, unless it is the RealAudio/RealVideo file type. That seems plausible... if it's not affiliated with RealMedia, then I am unaware of the type... if it is, I can open it fine :]

Thank you for the comments regarding sound. You put it nicely as far as my solo went... it did lose energy, and fast. I never really thought of actually planning out solos... I guess I've always thought of it in terms of short little licks that sound kind of cool, rather than in terms of the shape of the entire solo. I'm excited to give that a shot as soon as possible... I think I will put some money away to buy Band in a Box over the next couple weeks, and hopefully will be improvising along with that for a while. I also purchased a couple of songs via iTunes; of particular note is the album "Kind of Blue", along with Chitlins by Carl Fontana. I'm kind of amazed at some of these solos... I really wish I could do this :]

All right, sorry this took me so long... I have a couple of clips for you to listen to. I apologize in advance if they aren't 100% pleasing to hear... I have solos in both songs, however, and figure this might give you an idea of what I could use help with. The first is a Duke Ellington tune, Blue Ramble. I have three short solos, one improvised at the beginning, and two written in. This is to give an idea of my sound. Blue Ramble - Putfile.com The second is a tune called "Two Seconds to Midnight". I have several solos in this as well, and a very lengthy one in the middle. This one demonstrates my issues... the articulation is sloppy, the ideas juvenile and repetitive, and the sound pinches off because I don't know exactly where I want to go. I basically run out of ideas, and am too limited by scales, I think. I dunno. At any rate, here it is: Two Seconds to Midnight - Putfile.com All right. Tear me a new one... just leave my band alone ;]

Thanks! My teacher is really excellent... he's done a fantastic job. And I'm kinda glad to hear that multi-tonguing is rare in jazz. I've never actually doodle-tongued... to be honest, I don't really know what it is! :blush: If you could explain the concept, I would be most obliged! I'll give this a shot... my instructor has told me to do this sort of thing as well, but I've lost a little of my zeal in maintaining the prescribed warm-up. I'll try to get back in the habit :thumbsup: Can and will do. With the summer coming up, scales will be one of my first priorities to tackle. The structure is working fine for me so far. Eventually I'm hoping to perhaps throw up a couple recordings, but the prerequisite to that would be finding a decent recording device and program. Equipment-wise, I use a Yamaha Xeno Series F-Attachment Trombone... it's large-bore (.547"), with an 8 11/16" bell. My baby :D. Load me up. I really only know of J. J. Johnson, and even then am unaware of what recordings I should be looking for. Name off a couple more artists and I'll be happy to listen.

My sound is pretty symphonic--a singing, mellow sound--at this point... the upper and lower portions of my range are the best sounding, while the middle (G at the bottom of the bass clef staff to about Eb in the middle of the staff) suffers a little bit. I might be able to get you a recording of me playing (a jazz song, even! :] ) sometime soon. My flexibility is decent... I can play from F just below bass clef to double F without an embouchure shift (although not with as nice of a tone as if I could adjust). My lip slurs and lip trills aren't as fast as I would like them to be. Velocity is where I am particularly weak... my articulation is a little sub-par; double and triple-tonguing are still fairly new concepts that I'm working to improve, but at this point it sounds a little dirty. Stamina-wise, I can hold up for quite some time... I can maintain a range up to double-high D having played several hours in the general upper register. (On a side-note, I also perform in my high-school marching band, and every year at homecoming we tour the entire school district and play songs at all of the schools, and then play at the homecoming football game... a good 15 hours out and about playing my instrument). In regards to a warm-up, I don't have a particular prescribed warm-up that I perform. I do about 30 seconds of lip-slurring, give or take, and make an effort to strengthen the high range (ascending and descending from double Bb to double F and back again a couple times through), followed by the low range (lip slur from Bb to trigger F to pedal Bb, all the way down the register). Then I play a set of fast scales and arpeggios, Ionian and Dorian modes of the keys of Eb, Bb, F, C, G (in sixteenth notes at about mm80). I can play all of the scales, but some of the ones with more accidentals definitely slow me down.

Oh my gosh, I know exactly what you mean when you talk about how you need to finish the piece... there are days where I feel sick to my stomach because I am unable to put the emotions and experiences I want to express into lyric or music or art. Regarding writing the piece... perhaps you're worrying about it a little too much :]. Sometimes it is most beneficial not to sit down and write something great, but rather to simply sit down and write. I haven't composed much... so take my words with a grain of salt... but the absolute best stuff that I have ever brought to music came not from me sitting a wracking my brain for brilliant chord progressions, but from humming a tune in the shower or from messing around on my instrument. One light rock song I've composed has a melody that I wrote (not on page, mind you...) as a 5th grader. Just sit down and let the music flow... if you try to grab it and confine it to logic and theory and page, it will always seem a little lifeless.

I really, really like this... granted, I can't say I've ever had this experience... but I'll equate it to something I can understand, that being headaches. And this song just did an amazing job of emulating that feeling with music... there were parts where I was literally squirming in my chair in discomfort. It was difficult to listen to, not because it was bad, but because it did a great job with portraying what it was trying to. And as the ending approaches and the static begins to fade to the simple music, a great feeling of release and the lack of tension is achieved. Well done.

I don't think I can make many technical comments, just one sort of broader comment based on the two pieces as a whole. Both are written very well, and demonstrate obvious skill and knowledge of technique. The Fantasia, however, seemed to have more life to it. The Fugue, in contrast, seemed a little dull in comparison to the brilliance of the first movement; it didn't seem to want to move forward quite like the Fantasia, and thus kind of lost my interest. Both pieces are things to be proud of, and I look forward to perhaps hearing a live version :]

Heh, I apologize... my ineptitude stems primarily from a lack of patience. I suppose I did try to run before I could crawl, per se, and realized shortly into the piece that it was significantly more difficult than I anticipated. Maybe in some time I will reuse the subject and write a real fugue out of it.... but until then, do you have any suggestions regarding improvement at contrapuntal technique?

The conductor is an integral part of a large ensemble, for reasons many have already stated. The conductor provides an individual interpretation of the piece of music as a whole... it is the job of the conductor to scrutinize the piece he or she is conducting and figure out exactly how he or she would like it to be played. Once they interpret the music, it is then the job of the conductor to use visible (and sometimes subconscious) cues in order to procure the desired sound from the ensemble. The shape of the torso, facial expressions, speed of hand gestures, shape of the hands, fluidity/rigidity of movement, all help control the band and shape it into one ensemble rather than 100 individual players. The purpose of the conductor is to show you how to play the notes on the page. Tempo and cues are all secondary at the higher level... any decent ensemble can play in time and come in at the right moments (although it's difficult at fermatas). The conductor, in short, shows all of the music that isn't written on the page.

Thank you kindly for your comments. In regards to breathing... heh, I kinda forgot that people had to be playing this :X. The wonders of computer technology blinded me to the physical limitations of instrumentalists. In regard to the oboe, well, I probably should have done more research involving the instruments range before I wrote for it. It was my mistake ><. I love the sound of the double reed instruments... I'm a trombonist myself, but double reeds just have a very earthy, natural sound that other instruments don't see to produce for me. I've had to play bassoon parts on my instrument before, and I'm always frustrated with how I cannot emulate the same thick sound bassoons are able to produce. As far as the counterpoint goes, what specifically don't you like about it? Is it too similar to the subject, or just not pleasing to the ear?