in response to...

This post is in response to 2 things, a review by my friend Chris Robinson on David Gibson's latest CD (read here) and the resulting discussion on tromboneforum.org, read here

An open letter to Chris Robinson:

You got some names going on that forum man. When Doug Elliott chimes in, you know things got real. Man, i was gonna buy a Doug Elliott mouthpiece...

Anyway, I couldn't agree more. Like i said before, one of my grump points is trombone players attempting to sound like J.J. Johnson. Smooth beyond all smooth, thin and bright tone. part of it is the instrument itself. straight horns tend to be a bit brighter, and it's easy to get a laser tone when trying to play out on them. on my horn, when i play loudly, it has a huge amount of edge to it (actually, mine is too far the opposite direction. anything above about a mf starts getting nasty...a little TOO soon. lol). On straight horns played in the higher registers, it just bets bright and thin to the point of being like a wailing baby. That's one of the biggest problems with the instrument- in a solo situation trying to play over everyone, we'll push it and we've killed 7 people in the crowd with a laser shooting from our horn.

It's one reason i have recently shied away from using my straight horn. i HAVE a jazz straight horn. It sits in the corner, comes out at least once a year, gets cleaned, then put back. I HATE my orchestral horn for various reasons, but one thing i like about it, is i can't get a laser tone out of it. Even in the high registers, it leans towards nasty and gritty. I might keep it around just to play jazz, just because of that nasty quality...and i can pump out mid to mid-low and make it sound like a bass trombones tone when they're really pumping the low stuff.

The best compliment i've gotten on my playing actually happened yesterday. I was just trying to play some high stuff while everyone was chatting, and Stanton Kessler stopped and said "what was that?" and i turned and said "me." his answer "that sounded like a French Horn." that, to me, is a great compliment. It means I was able to, in the high range where on all instruments it can get a little thin, keep a nice full, round, dark tone...the sort of tone that when you push it gets that brassy edge a French Horn has, not a baby killing laser beam.

I also completely agree with Doug Elliott when he says "What "we" are missing is quality, in a lot of ways. I'll probably get flamed for this, but as I see it, trombonists in general have accepted mediocrity as the norm."

couldn't agree more. We're a lazy bunch. Seriously. I am NO exception, either. My practice habits this summer went to 2-3 hours daily to an hour daily to an hour every few days. and that's me concentrating on practicing! i dunno how many trombone friends i've had who would rather get drunk, sit at a piano, and sing Billy Joel than practice trombone. and we've accepted it.

We've got this complex. We'll listen to (for classical) Alessi, Christian Lindberg, Mark Lawrence and say "eh, i'll never play like that. why bother?" We'll hear those classic jazz solos, J.J., Curtis Fuller, Slide Hampton, Jiggs Wigham, and Kai Winding and say "we'll never solo like that, why bother." I'll admit that i don't spend my time learning changes or practicing my soloing like i spend my time learning avant-garde modern trombone solos...and that means it gets little to no time.

It's a double-edged sword. i complain, as a trombone player, that there isn't much good music being written for the trombone. the parts are lame, the solos are few and far between (in classical lit and jazz improv), and no one is even asking if i would like a piece written for me these days...why?

We don't put ourselves out there. I think partly the greats got overshadowed- J.J.'s biggest years of success were in the Bop era, and then into the Time of Miles (as i like to call it...). even though he was playing actively, put out records, and had great press...We all remember Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, we remember Miles and Trane...the giants lived on, and the ogres just got overshadowed (same reason we remember Wagner over Meyerbeer...even though Meyerbeer had much more play time during his lifetime.).

The only answer is to get out there and change the perception. So, yeah, I agree with you in a million ways. And believe, as Doug Elliott inferred, the stigma is our own creation. Somehow, as trombone players, we get lazy. We reach a certain level of proficiency and call it good. we get a gig and call it a day. there are obvious exceptions, Ryan Heinlein and myself are both at least trying to break the mold a bit, i'd say...he's more active than me in the Jazz scene, but i'm trying to do the same type of thing in the classical scene (where the same problems exist...). Maybe our generation will fix it. maybe, maybe not. Who knows, but it is a problem that needs addressed. And, maybe, now that I'm older, i can do my part to break the cycle, rather than perpetuate it.

getting stuck again

So, as has become a general theme in my compositional life, i am, again, full of commas.

wait, no, that's not it

OMG, THE COMMAS HAVE INVADE, ummm...MY HOUSE!

I'm stuck. Got about halfway through a movement, thought it was pretty good. Took it into the Dragon, and was shown various errors. Mostly pacing errors, a little bit of weak orchestration and rhythmic development. Nothing major. Since showing the piece (a fledgling little trombone concerto) at the beginning of the semester, I've done a fairly good job re-orchestrating portions, changing up the pacing a bit (basically giving a lot more room to breathe, longer calms with short high paced moments of action.), and did a little re-orchestrating. at last, i reached the point where i had finished the previous semester.

and stopped.

Confused, bewildered, full of "wtf." every day, i'd look at the score, go over all my past work, take copious notes. I drew form pictures, picked out developed themes i like, pushed around the notes of the different collections, inverted, retrograded, mirrored, made fun shapes...hell, i even toyed with making a tonnetz of the three pitch derivatives i used at the beginning.

And i'm still stuck. Usually running through all this sort of busy-work, breaking things down, moving things around, analyzing what i've done, tossing tons of material on paper and sorting through things...usually this pops me outta my funk. I redid my formal plan based on what has already happened (compared to the original plan. those never last.). I did some Theory of Maxima. (which i thought i had blogged about, and appears i have not. hmmmm....well...later...)

I took these things to the Dragon. His suggestion: write differently. Ok ok, that is really glib. What was suggested was to work out the solo line and work in short score. Then, move onto orchestration.

We all work differently. For some, melody is king and most important. for others it is the rhythm or the form. Me, it's all about timbre.

I come up with basic melodic ideas and themes at the onset. These usually remain pretty set, no matter what. From there, it's about developing those couple ideas extensively. When i come up with a variation, i almost always have an instrument in mind. working in short score has never made sense to me. The one time i've done it was with my opera, written as a piano score first with the idea to orchestrate later.

too bad i wrote it for piano at that point. whoops. turned into a pretty crazy hard piano part, but it's definitely piano-centered. i orchestrated one movement for the original intended orchestration (string quartet, flute, piano, percussion...and i think a brass of some kind. i don't remember). It's alright. but the piano is better.

Still, I am stuck. Quite stuck. So, even though it is pretty much counter to how i normally work, i will try it. I will work on it hard this week. Because i need as many tools as possible when i'm no longer in a place where i can take a piece into a lesson. Need every single different trick possible to get outta funks and write the best music i can.

And, who knows, maybe i'll do it better this time.

Confession time

I always wanted to be a rockstar

I was so damn jealous of my brothers' band. I'd go to the shows, and even if there were only a handful of people, there was so much energy in those rooms.

The last band they had was "hardcore." That nice line between metal and punk. their demo CD kicked ass.

man, i was jealous. This was when i was in undergrad.

Previously my brothers had separate projects. and i was jealous of those. I was learning classical music, a big band geek, went into music ed. Thought conducting a HS band would be the closest to being a rockstar i'd ever get.

I was always so jealous. They both have much better ears than me. all the training i've had and my ears just don't get better. I can't play in that style. can't write in it either. lol.

but i've decided to. once i finish this overly serious Pierrot piece, and the trombone and wind ensemble concerto, i'm writing a hardcore piece

for voice, bass clarinet, guitar, percussion, and electronics.

and it will be badass.

There's still time to be a rockstar, even if it's with a trombone in hand...

a change in program

Ah, seems it has been far too long. I apologize. since my last post i struggled through borrowing money to pay bills, had an amazing birthday which included my bff Chris flying out for the weekend (always great to see her), getting offered a couple classes at KCKCC (one is set, one might not reach the minimum, and the third, well, i haven't heard from that area coordinator as of yet. so, i'll teach between 1-3 classes. heh), getting a scoring gig for a civil war musical (which the guy paid his deposit immediately. a very pleasant surprise), and, finally, got my website up and running.

visit www.johnchittum.com

have i written any music? well...no. and that's a large problem. a gigantic problem.

I'm way behind. One piece, tentatively titled Black Paper Moon (I am doing a series of pieces named using English lyrics from J-Rock songs) for Trombone and Organ, is due ASAP. i have several parts sketched, the overall idea, energy, form (poor word), and style figured out. it's just notes...but the notes won't come...

Dance of Disillusionment and Despair for Pierrot ensemble, has one movement finished and a second nearly finished. that seems good, except that's only 2 minutes of music. I am thinking of adding a couple instrumental movements...either as singer reading the line and then the instruments playing, or people just reading the lyrics. prolly just having them read the lyrics but not having anything sung. that trick only works once though...maybe twice.

my webpage was all consuming for a couple days. not sure i mentioned it on here before, but i spent a large chunk of the summer trying to learn Drupal. CMS seems like a system that i should really learn, as more and more developers head that direction. But, i had three months of Drupal, and while i learned the terminology (i get that it's based on nodes, and you can have different types of nodes. you can specify different content types beyond what it comes with, blah blah blah), I still don't understand how to get a page up and running. I was able to do some rudimentary work, got a link in place, moved some things around. but, yeah, i gave up.

The main reasons was for the final hiring interview with the Dean of Arts and Humanities at KCKCC, they wanted a full portfolio of anything i would be teaching. One class i may teach is Music and Multimedia which includes rudimentary web-design. Well, since i hadn't made a webpage since, oh, '03 or so, i decided i better do it.

The web has changed so much, but putting together a basic site that at least looks clean is still the same. that sort of surprised me. as did my ability to go in and edit the CSS without screwing it up, edit various html bits as needed (mainly things like meta-tags and sizes).

I have decided to leave this blog here rather than migrate it. I will change how it's pointed (right now it's just a link on the "links" page) but this is staying put. Might as well. Anyway, maybe i'll get cross-talk between the sites. that would be nice..

oh yeah

music.

I should write some

today.

That requires coffee...and possibly, a scone