Tuning Slide 5.6- Stretching the Boundaries

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The only limits in your life are those that you set yourself.
— Celestine Chua

Reflections from a Concert Band Camp
Last week I ended the post by saying “I would have never believed I could do what I am able to do today just a few years ago.” Some of that is my reaction to being at a different camp in mid-August. I decided to skip the Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop and attend an adult concert band camp at the Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Egg Harbor, WI. My main reason was to move outside of my musical comfort zone of the past few years.

One word explained it all.
Audition.

I have a very difficult history with auditions. I freeze up and get nervous and generally blow it, just as I have done with solos over the years. When I saw that I would have to “audition” at the start of the camp I knew I had to go. The audition was simply to position the musicians and to give the directors an idea of what the band will be able to do. It was to consist of doing a two octave chromatic scale; doing two scales- concert Bb and concert F; bringing a piece along as a good example of ability; and a sight-reading. None of that scared me. My biggest enemy would be Self 1 telling me that I should be nervous and get all worried about it. It is time to exorcise that demon!

Another reason to go to this camp is summed up in the word
Language.

Different styles of music have different languages. One does not play trumpet in a concert band or orchestra the same way one plays in a big band. In fact, even within styles, one plays differently in a concert band than in a brass quintet, even playing the same type of music. The dynamics of the music, the tonguing, articulation, and tonal harmonies, as well as many small but significant details are different from genre to genre. This is language.

My first trumpet language was wind/concert band music. As with most school musicians, that repertoire is my native tongue. We learn what a march sounds like and can almost intuit what is going to come next. We discover what it is like to play waltzes and suites; we fall in love with Percy Grainger and Gustav Holst; we begin to know melodic changes and rhythm styles. We then allow it to sink into the Self 2 so even if the notes are different, the styles and rhythms are familiar.

I wanted to dig back into that native language and discover what my new skills and insights have to offer me in utilizing that language. I have played in wind/concert bands consistently for most of the last 35 years. Here was a chance to intensely work on that language in a camp setting.

Finally, one more reason- I would be
Playing with different people, people who are strangers to me.

This is an extension of the audition piece. These would be people who have never heard me play before and with whom I have no history- good or bad. I am just another trumpet player in the section. It therefore becomes an opportunity to just be who I am- who I have become over the past four years of intense practice and growth. In doing that I will see if all this stuff I've been working on is real!

Yes, that is stretching my own limits- and testing my inner confidence.
◦ Can I do this?
◦ Am I doing as well as I think I am?
◦ Will others judge me?
◦ Can I keep up with them?

The short answer is that I was amazed!

First, the audition.

◦ After four years of Clark #1, two octaves of chromatics is second nature.
◦ After four years of learning and practicing all 12 major keys, concert Bb and C are the basics.
◦ After many years of playing the 2nd trumpet part of Gabrieli’s Canzon #2, it flows from my trumpet without thinking.
◦ There was no sight reading, but I had no fear.
◦ What I did have was some nervousness- the dry mouth was the giveaway on that. But I didn’t let it get in the way.

As far as digging into the language of concert/wind band- that was exciting. One piece we played was Frank Ticheli’s Sun Dance which we had just played in the community band. Like at home I was on 1st trumpet; thanks to the intensity of the rehearsal schedule, we were able to really dig into the music, to listen to what Ticheli was trying to do, to see how the parts work together, and finding ways of listening and blending with the rest of the band- and with the other trumpets sitting next to me. The music became far more internalized than is possible with a once a week rehearsal schedule. I discovered how it is possible to move beyond the notes to feeling the music, intuiting the rhythm, letting the harmony carry it all forward.

What a great experience. We also did that with other pieces that I had never played before as well as a couple others that I have played, but never in that type of setting. What all that did was add a sense of language to what I already knew- and I learned how the improved skills of the past four years can help me learn the musical language. The skills are the same for all kinds of music, but here was the payoff for all those hours of long tones, scales, and the basic Arban’s exercises- music!

This happened partly because we were in a new and different setting. Not just the intensity of the schedule, but the chance to listen to new insights from different directors with different ways of explaining what we were doing allowed me to pick up more nuances of the language of concert band. I have been doing this with a lot of excitement over the past four years through the Shell Lake Adult Big Band Camp. Here I was doing it in my first musical language- the wind band.

When I got home, the community band had a rehearsal and concert. I found myself applying some of the new insights and language skills there. And it was an even better experience for me.

My take-away for all this applies to life as well.

◦ Let yourself be challenged.
◦ Look at what it is I may be afraid of and face it. Most things are not as frightening when I face them and apply what I already know to dealing with them.
◦ Listen to those around you and learn from them what I may not already know. It doesn’t have to be the experts, it can also be the person in the chair next to me who has had different experiences and different insights.

In short, this is what makes being part of a music-performing group so powerful.