One week from today I have TA orientation here at the University of Iowa. What does this mean to me? It means the beginning of the end! I have actually thought about it in this way for a while. Pursuing graduate degrees is a long, hard road (granted, I only understand that statement in the singular at this point). When all is said and done I will have been in some kind of school for twenty two years, ten of that being various universities (five years at the University of Northern Colorado, two years at the University of Utah, and three years at the University of Iowa). As I start down this path of the doctorate, I realize that many of my life goals have shifted from several years ago. They are no longer the idol worship of my youth: I want to BE Joseph Alessi or Christian Lindberg has shifted to: I want to be the best trombonist and musician that I can be. I am amazed at and honor many great trombonists and musicians including the two previously listed. This paradigm shift for me has opened up new worlds to me as a musician and performer. This can be illustrated in an example from my youth:
When I was younger I loved baseball (I still do, I am just no longer directly involved with it). I grew up in San Jose, California back when the San Francisco Giants were actually good. I was there when they went to the 1989 World Series, in fact I was watching when the earthquake hit! But I digress.... I loved to watch Will Clark. He has been nearly forgotten by now, but at the time, I thought he was the greatest. He was left handed and I right handed, but I did my best to mimic his batting stance, even down to his famous frown while batting! I never hit particularly well with this approach, but he was my hero! Later, I found a stance in the batters box that was comfortable for me and allowed me the best access to see the pitcher and have the best bat speed - for me.
When I was a freshman at the University of Northern Colorado I was really quite naive to the trombone world. I didn't know that there were professional trombone soloists or recordings (incidentally, my parents had purchased Christian Lindberg's "Romantic Trombone Concerto's" for my sixteenth birthday and I exchanged it for a punk-rock cd since I thought it was going to be something like Kenny G playing love songs. I now love that recording - which I had to pay nearly $20 for....). In one lesson I asked my teacher, Buddy Baker, who or what I should listen to. His response was to get the Joseph Alessi recording called Slide Area - another amazing cd. Buddy said that I should listen to his sound and try to sound like him. I completely misunderstood him. I took this to mean (again, as a naive 16 year old) that I should try to sound just like him. I started working on solo rep that he had recorded so that I could be just like him. I would listen closely to where Alessi breathed or what he would do with a phrase. Sometimes I would just listen so much that I would actually transcribe the pieces like you would with a jazz solo. This was good for my development because I grew in many was through this process, but it hindered me in the fact that I was not making my own decisions. In a lesson with Dr. Nat Wickham, he once told me that he doesn't listen to a recording of a piece until he has already prepared it. I didn't understand how someone could do that at that time, but I think I do now.
I have developed my own sound (which of course I am always trying to refine), and my own style of playing which has been influenced by my many experiences and teachers. I approach things with an attitude of "how would the composer want this performed" verses "how would Alessi play this?". I still feel you can't get a better recording of an orchestral work to study (for trombonists) than a New York Philharmonic recording - i.e. Mahler 3 - Holy Cow!, but a more musicological approach can be much more rewarding for me. That being said, I am still planning on taking some lessons with Alessi at some point.
There it is. The beginning of the end. A beginning of a new era! Or something like that. Another stop on the journey of life. Or whatever hippy mumbo jumbo you want to call it. It's exciting and invigorating! Wish me luck!
