March 18, 2009
Episode 123a: Getting Your Buzz On (PDF)
This is a PDF file to accompany Video Episode #123b. Self-explanatory, I trust, please just click the PDF icon below. Peace.
This is a PDF file to accompany Video Episode #123b. Self-explanatory, I trust, please just click the PDF icon below. Peace.
(NOTE: click on the title of this episode to see updated comments)
Just an audio clip here, ladies and gents, in mp3 format. A chance for you to really stretch those ears and show your listening prowess:-)
Who IS this trombone artist? A prize for the first one to correctly identify this beautiful sound. (Not sure what the prize is just yet, but it will be radically cool and you’ll want to win it.)
I’ll leave the “Comments” open on this one (God help us all!) so you can readily venture a guess. You can always email me, too, with a guess or comments:
tom@trombonelessons.com
Very soon, this artist will be coming on to sit and chat with us about his adventurous and fun-filled life with the trombone… and lucky for us, he has a lot more tracks to share.
Please Enjoy:
“Hi Dr. Tom,
While I was browsing the web for free Brass Quintet music, I came across your arrangement for ‘America the Beautiful,’ and I thought it could use a bit of beautifying. So I typeset it with Lilypond.
Included in the zipped attachment are the pdfs for parts and score, as well as full Lilypond source.
– Ross” ___________________________________________
Oh, you “thought it could use a bit of beautifying” did you, Ross!? Oh, really. Hmm. Well……..
……thanks! You rock. I really appreciate it. I’ve got lots more if you’re bored:-)
Attached as a .ZIP file to this Episode, friends, is Ross’ work. Beautiful indeed! This is an arrangement for standard Brass Quintet. I’m going to look deeper at Lilypond (check it out HERE). Seems like many of you are using it, eh? Honestly, can I become proficient quickly? I’m curious. I’m a decent Finale user.
PS- I just saw our resident digeredoo expert Jay Evans (and friends) on the “Renaissance Christmas” DVD done in Chicago. It is really wonderful. If you have loved ones asking you about your Santa list, this would be an ideal gift for a good girl or boy:
LOOK! Now you can now download The Piedmont Trombone Society’s debut album “Let’s Get Lost” (winner of the ITA’s 2004 Kai Winding Award). Click the button below for details. We thank you for your support! We will use these profits to start our 2nd album. Thanks, everybody.

*** If you are viewing these Podcasts via iTunes, the following hyper-links may not work. I suggest pointing your browser to: tbonegib.podbean.com***
Nothing but a few links in this Episode ladies and gentlemen. Many thanks to our viewers who have been sending links to trombone-related goodness on the Web. Here are some of my most recent favorites: First is the story of Bernie Clifton, a man from England who uses his trombone to spread good cheer and fun…….can you imagine that?
Check out Bernie’s clip from BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk:80/2/hi/uk_news/england/7570836.stm
You make the trombone community proud, Bernie:-)
Next up are a few clips of perhaps the biggest “rock star” of the trombone…..Jack Teagarden. It might be difficult for us to imagine in this day and age, but Mr. Teagarden’s unrivaled musicality and virtuosity made him a star of “pop” culture. Here are some wonderful examples (both of these clips can be viewed Full Screen):
“The Pied Piper of Basin Street”
“The Slip Horn King of Polaroo”
Seems like every note he played had melodious intentions, eh? If you’d like to hear a LOT more of Jack Teagarden, check this out:
http://www.truveo.com/search.php?query=jack+teagarden&uqs=
Thanks Adam and Jonathan for sending these links. Great stuff!
Snow day in Atlanta, so I invited some friends over to the house to try out the Griego Mouthpieces that were sent to me by Jeff Taylor. Thanks, Jeff! Man, we had fun and I really love the feel and sound of the Deco Silver 5. Bravo. I plan on trying them all and letting folks around here do the same. If you are going to be in the area (Atlanta, GA) and want to try them, contact me via email and LET’S PLAY: tom@trombonelessons.com
I love trying new stuff, especially when it’s of such high quality as these mouthpieces. Jeff can be contacted for more info at this address: jefftaylor@griegomouthpieces.com
The Griego website is here: http://www.griegomouthpieces.com
So, Bill brought his contra, I grabbed an alto, Tom swapped the tuba for a Conn 88H, and Brent held court on his bass trombone…..and we had ourselves a “hang”. A really fun afternoon it was.
Also in this episode, I answer some accumulating Viewer Mails. Thanks for all of those and don’t fret if I haven’t gotten to yours yet. We’ll strive hard to get to them all, promise.
Please enjoy this episode and let us know your thoughts. As always and forever, peace.
Let’s all go practice now. We gotta keep getting better to make more and more Trombone Love for this crazy world of ours, right? Collectively, we can make some noise!
***PARENTAL WARNING: in this Episode, I endorse the consumption of beer. “Sweetwater 420″, as a matter of fact, brewed right here in Atlanta.***
Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you’ve seen Episode 49, you’ll know what this is all about. Today, Colin came to “the lair” and we did a drawing for the upcoming “Viewer’s Choice Recital”. It was one of the most suspenseful and stressful moments of my life:-)
Wait until you see how it all played out…………..enjoy!
I talk about a review of Colin playing the Creston a few years ago with the Atlanta Symphony. Here’s the review:
“Review: ASO plays Creston on trombone By Pierre Ruhe | Friday, October 1, 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution CONCERT REVIEW Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
…..This week, the ASO helped revive a worthy composer from irrelevancy. Paul Creston (1906-1985) didn’t live to see a concert-hall revival of his music, but nowadays you can hear all his important works on CD and, increasingly, experience them live.
Creston’s music is “an embodiment of the affirmative, lyrical, melodic strain that dominated American music in the 1930s and for a time afterward,” wrote critic-conductor Will Crutchfield in an obituary. Creston rightly joins the company of Copland, Piston and Barber.
Creston’s 1947 Fantasy for Trombone, one of his best-known works, served to introduce the ASO’s principal trombonist, Colin Williams, who joined the orchestra three years ago and is now making his official solo debut.
In the jazzy Fantasy, Williams was heard, finally, to his advantage. In the treacherous Symphony Hall acoustic, the orchestral trombones’ warm bass notes get absorbed by the stage walls and the bright high notes get polarized to a blinding glare, like sunlight off a swimming pool. At stage front, we heard Williams au natural: his clean, “white” tone, with very little vibrato and exceptionally pure and lovely soft notes.
And for the ASO, with their committed playing this week and last, they showed that it’s likely the romantic vs. modernist argument will seem quaint in another generation. This would follow the Wagner (progressive) vs. Brahms (retro) debates, which eventually subsided, leaving both men on the winning side. What survives isn’t ideology, it’s good art. As an encore, Williams and the orchestra played “The Blue Bells of Scotland,” an amusing and sentimental work by Arthur Pryor, the trombonist in John Philip Sousa’s band a century ago. Where the Creston was unfailingly polite, Pryor asks the soloist to scale heights, blow elephant calls and raspberries, all accompanied by oom-pah-pahs from the orchestra. Williams breezed through the moto perpetuo variations with mostly machine-drilled aplomb.”