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A blog about performing music, teaching music and the business of music.
"Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable."
-Leonard Bernstein
The above quote is a good reminder that we have to get away from worrying about operating our instruments, voices, or batons and instead need to focus on communicating.
That is ultimately our only goal.
Emanuel Ax has been one of my favorite pianists in the world for as long as I can remember. I am spoiled by getting to see him perform every single summer at Tanglewood. He is a phenomenal artist whose musicianship I regularly look to for inspiration.
Here is a performance of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Opus 83 from The BBC Proms in 2011. He is accompanied by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the direction of Bernard Haitink.
Enjoy!
"It is okay to play out of tune. It is not okay to stay out of tune."
-Michael Davis of (Hip-Bone Music and Former Trombone Player for the Rolling Stones)
This also brings to mind one of my favorite phrases: "Intonation is a social skill."
If two people are playing together and are not in tune with each other it doesn't matter what the tuner says. One is not flat and the other sharp. "They" are out of tune.
Whether you are "right" or "wrong", when you notice you are out of tune, fix it.
“If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.” ― John Mayer
Stop procrastinating. Face whatever it is that you fear about your playing or career and make a plan to attack it. Take the first step today or you know where you’ll be two weeks from now.
Performing Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite with the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchesra at Symphony Hall was one of the highlights of my childhood. It is such a powerful piece that will always have a special place in my heart.
Here is Stravinsky himself conducting the Firebird Suite in its entirety. The orchestra and date of the performance are unkown.
Enjoy!
"I think if you figure it out for yourself you'll have taught yourself something better than I could teach you."
-Seth Godin
"Figure it out" is just another way of saying "fail until you get it right."
If you are still a student, take the initiative to figure things out on your own rather than checking the syllabus to see if something is required.
If you are out of school, get curious. Find something you can't do and figure it out.
Want to build a website and don't know how? Figure it out.
Interested in making a podcast and don't know how to start? Figure it out.
Don't know how to get something funded on Kickstarter? Figure it out.
That's all that anybody who knows how to do it ever did.
Listen via
This guy doesn't exactly need an introduction! Joe Alessi is the Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic and one of the world's great players and pedagogues. We caught up with him when he was in Vail with the Philharmonic and talked to him about a lot of stuff. The connection was pretty rough but the stuff he was sharing was gold so we released it anyways.
The times I've gotten to play with Joe have been some of my career highlights. You can learn more from sitting next to this guy for one concert than you can from a four-year college degree. It was great to have him on the show!
Want to help the show? Take a minute to leave us a rating and a review on iTunes.
You can help offset the costs of producing the show by making a small donation at https://www.patreon.com/thebrassjunkies. Your support is greatly appreciated!
Produced by Austin Boyer and Buddy Deshler of FredBrass
I was taught that it is really difficult to think your way into better actions, but it is easy to act your way into better thinking or results.
Action is the keystone to success.
What are you thinking about doing rather than simply doing it?
Last month I was in the Berkshires and just happened to run into one of my mentors, Eric Ruske. (There are so many brilliant artists in the Berkshires during the summer that one wonders how many you pass on the street without even realizing it!)
Eric was the horn player in the Empire Brass when I was a student in their seminar at Tanglewood when I was 14 and 15. His horn playing, and in particular his phrasing and the singing quality to all of his playing, left a mark on me that remains to this day.
Here he is performing the Romance, Op. 36 by Camille Saint-Saëns. Phrases for days...
Enjoy!
When you break it all down, all of us instrumentalists have only one goal: to sound as natural as singers. They are the best example we have of lots of things, including phrasing and vibrato.
Developing a really great vibrato (and identifying when and how to use it) is a very important thing for an instrumentalist.
(Note: This is not to say that any musician should ultimately develop only one vibrato. Variations in vibrato give us way more tools with which to tell our musical stories.)
But where do you start?
My advice would be to find three examples that speak to you of a singer using a vibrato. Then analyze them for the following:
Take one of the examples and try to copy the three above things on just one note in your middle register at a medium dynamic. The key (always!) is to record yourself and immediately listen to it.
Once you have a version that sounds somewhat similar to the example you are trying to mimic, move on to the next example, and finally the third.
This exercise will at least give you a starting point for developing a vibrato that can help you to convey your musical ideas.
Bottom line: Always start with singers.