18. Review and Plan for a Happy New Year

Don't practice quickly and hope it gets better;
practice excellence and hope it gets faster.
--Frank Campos

It is an old and trite idea to take the end of the year as a time to look back and reflect on what has been happening in one's life. But what makes something "old and trite" is that there is truth in it. Most of the time we don't stop to review and see where we have come. Why not take the end of the year as such a time?

Which is where the importance of the journal comes in. Remember a few weeks ago or so when I reminded us of the importance of keeping a journal of our practicing? Seems like busy work. But here is when you will appreciate it- and maybe get back into the habit since if you are like me you have not kept the journal for a few weeks or more.

I went back and looked at my journal from right after trumpet camp last summer. At camp we were given ideas on a regular practice routine. In addition I was given the idea to do the Arban's exercises from page 13 - 22 and 25-28. These are good, basic exercises that have been proven to be so fundamental it might be valuable to practice them on a regular basis.

So starting in mid-August I did that. For six weeks or so I made sure that I went through those on a regular basis. Now anyone who has played trumpet for more than a few months knows how to play these. There's nothing particularly difficult in them. For years I mostly ignored them since, well, I can play that.

But could I play them well? Could I play them at speed? Did I take the time to play them slowly enough to develop excellence? Often I would practice it quickly so I could say, "Did that. What's next?" Over these last five months I have discovered that there is an amazing depth in those exercises. They start easy; some are more difficult than others; they introduce us to key signatures and chord structures.

Last week, aware of reflection time for this week, I went back to page 13 and started playing through them. I hadn't done them all in about 2 months. I had worked on other things and had continued to notice my progression as a trumpet player. What would these sound like now?

I started with a medium tempo and found they fell into place smoothly. They moved along and felt right. Can I play them as the upper suggested tempo? Surprise. Yes, I can, at least many of them. I looked at my notes in the journal (minimal though they are) and saw that it took me a lot longer to play them in August and September because I a) couldn't play to tempo and b) missed a lot of notes.

I can talk about other reflections, but this is a good introduction to it. What I discovered was

• if I hadn't kept a journal I would have had to rely on imperfect memory for comparison
• if I hadn't taken time for reflection I wouldn't have been as aware of my progress
• if I hadn't slowed down when first working on these back in August I wouldn't have gone beyond "just good enough"

The natural question then is "So what? What do I do with this?" As I was working through these sections of Arban's with a little better insight I discovered the ones that were still causing me difficulty. I was reminded that there are always (!!) the basics that need to be worked on. It may be "easy" to breeze through and play some of these. But there is always the opportunity to strengthen the foundation.

That brought me to the result of review and reflection- planning. I have already talked about goal-setting, etc. but that will often return as a theme. In short, for this particular review, I came up with a specific plan to refine my daily routine. I have taken the sections between pages 13 and 36, some of the very basics, and divided them into three sections. At first I will play through each section every third day. I will be going through each section twice each week for the next 3-5 weeks. My goal- reinforce these basics and add a bit of "excellence" beyond "good enough." This will take about 10 - 15 minutes of each day's routine.

With all that aside, the biggest reflection for me is what has occurred in my trumpet playing since June when I attended the Big Band Camp at Shell Lake. The quintet I am part of then had a "peak experience" at the Vintage Band Mini Fest in Northfield, MN. I then headed back to Shell Lake for trumpet camp where my whole view of my trumpet playing took a huge positive jump. I have continued to play in two Big Bands, two concert bands and the quintet and have practiced 8 out of 10 days.

I am humbled and amazed at what has happened. I am grateful to all who helped, encouraged, challenged, instructed and allowed me to play along with you this past year.

There is more to come.

Happy New Year to all!

17. It's a Gift

Music is God's gift to man,

the only art of Heaven given to earth,

the only art of earth we take to Heaven.

-- Walter Savage Landor (16th C. English poet)

Gifts are on our mind today. It is the day before the day before Christmas. Any last minute gifts to buy? Any gifts I hope I get? What is a gift, though? The word comes from a word that means "give." Not a big surprise there. We know what a gift is, of course. The definitions come as no surprise:

1. a thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present.

synonyms: present, donation, offering, bestowal, bonus, award, endowment; 

2. a natural ability or talent.

synonyms: talent, flair, aptitude, facility, knack, bent, ability, expertise, capacity, capability, faculty; endowment, strength, genius, brilliance, skill, artistry

But the gift of heaven? Music? The only "art of heaven" that we can experience? I think I can agree with that, both as a listener and performer.

No great insights on that. Just a reminder that we as musicians at whatever stage of development we may be are gifted and givers of gifts. Be serious about your gift but enjoy it. The gift is useless if it isn't opened and used. The greatest gifts are shared.

Listen to music this week.

Make music this week.

Celebrate the "art of heaven."

The earth has grown old with its burden of care,

but at Christmas it always is young,

the heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair,

and its soul full of music breaks the air,

when the song of angels is sung.

--Phillips Brooks

16. Making It a Story

Where words fail, music speaks.

― Hans Christian Andersen

Who knows what Frank Foster had in mind when he wrote the wonderful Blues in Hoss' Flat or what Count Basie thought as he put together the band playing the number? It is a fine tune with lots of style, flair and pure joy. Most of us don't think much about the meaning behind the songs we hear or play, especially if they are instrumental. It is just a song.

But don't say that too loud. Music has probably been telling stories since the first cave dweller pounded in some sort of primitive time. Last year at the Big Band Camp at Shell Lake we did the Blues in Hoss' Flat. But first we watched this video- a classic by Jerry Lewis from his movie, The Errand Boy. Take a couple minutes and enjoy it.

Lewis is, of course, pantomiming a "chairman of the board" leading a meeting. Does it help to know that the original Basie album was titled Chairman of the Board? Even if it doesn't, Lewis' interpretation is a wonder to watch. I can never hear the number without this pantomime playing in my head as well.

My first real introduction to "serious" music appreciation was back in junior high (dates me, huh?) when the music teacher dropped the needle at the start of an instrumental piece. She gave us the simple instruction, "What do you hear?" No name, no introduction, just that question. Through the speaker came the opening bars of one of the great works of American music of the 20th Century, An American in Paris. It didn't take me long, even with my 7th grade ears, to hear a street scene, car horns and soon I saw people scurrying to and fro. After a few minutes, she stopped and asked what we heard. I don't remember what anyone else said. I'm not sure I even said anything myself. But when she told us the name and what Gershwin was doing I was blown away.

I had heard the story in the music. I had heard what the composer was trying to tell me without having words get in the way. That one day in class 55 years ago changed my life. I don't always hear stories in the music I listen to. Sometimes I look at the name a composer gave to a song and try to put it to the music. For example, I don't know what Miles had in mind when he titled one of his numbers, Solar. But I hear the sun and energy, light and bright skies when I listen. But then Bruce Hornsby, Christian McBride, and Jack Dejohnette put a different arrangement of the same song on their album, Camp Meeting. Now the sun and light and energy are placed in a different context. I still see the power and light, but now it's in the spiritual context of a tent or camp meeting. Same notes, same basic song - but now a whole new story is being told.

Isn't that what we try to do when we play? More on this sometime in the new year. For the next few weeks spend some quality time listening to instrumentals, stories without words, and find the stories they tell you.

15. Sky Thinking

Hard work beats talent 

when talent doesn't work hard.

-Tim Notke

I'm actually not going to write about "hard work" but about what I may need in order to do the "hard work." That happens to be having "goals." In essence goals are the ways we know where we are going. Over the years I have been taught at many workshops that goals have to be SMART:

• Specific – target a specific area for improvement.
• Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
• Attainable – assuring that an end can be achieved.
• Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
• Time-related – specify when the result(s) can be achieved.
-Wikipedia

Which means that my goal

to be an excellent trumpet player

doesn't really fit the criteria. But

to be able to play at speed the first section (12 measures) of Arban's 1st Characteristic Study by January 15

does fit. (And now that I mention it, might be a goal to work on over the next month!) I have a few goals related to next summer's Big Band and Trumpet Camps, including

to be able to comfortably extend my range to that elusive (to me) high C or D

as well as

to be more comfortable with dealing with changes in songs and do an improvised solo.

That goal of comfort in changes is a little too vague to really fit the criteria. If I have some specific activities and exercises that I am using to get in that direction such a long-range goal can tend to be okay.

The Edge of Unachievable is one way we learned at camp to find goals. Maybe we could use the phrase Sky Thinking. Even though that phrase is often used to mean things that are out of touch with reality, why do our goals have to be that way? How about, instead, may be on the edge of unachievable but not quite out of reach. With hard work informing and forming whatever talent we may have, who says we can't get there?

Hoping your Sky Thinking plans have been

Written Down, and traced back to exactly

what to Act on today.

-Bob Baca

Expanding on Bob Baca's wish for us at the end of camp, there are three things necessary for us to move forward.

• Do your sky thinking. Brainstorm. Take some time to think about where you want to be in a month, six months. I was talking to a young trumpet player the other week who has been working on the Carnival of Venice from Arbans. He has already played it for Solo/Ensemble but hasn't reached where he wants to go with it. He is still pushing his sky thinking.

• Write them down. Start a journal where you note your sky thinking goals and can see your progress. If they aren't written down, they are less likely to happen. The further out you go, of course, the less specific you can be. You also have to be ready to go with whatever life may throw at you. Don't be so rigid that you will break if something gets in your way. Writing them down may also be a way to share them with others- teachers, family, friends, band directors- who can help you.

• Translate into action. Ah, here's the work. I am great at spinning ideas and plans into thin air (the "sky" of sky thinking.) I can easily get side-tracked by those pesky squirrels that are everywhere. I can lose focus and direction if I don't have some form of plan of action. It doesn't have to be fully outlined with footnotes and explanations. I'm not that structured. But I need a flow-chart that keeps me on the ball. I need to have some way of knowing what I need to do today in order to get closer to my goal tomorrow.

Put this all together and I end up with a far better set of goals than I had when I started. I also feel better about what I am doing. I know I am going somewhere that I can regularly test by my own criteria.

Try some of these for yourself if you are having trouble in some area of your life. Where are you going? What do you want for you? Get out of the rut by going off into that almost unachievable place.

[By the way- since I listed some achievable goals above, I promise to let you know how I'm doing.]

14. No Wandering

On those long notes behind the trumpet solo,

if anyone lets his mind wander for a minute

he is dead.

-Don Ellis

Things are moving along nicely. You are in "the groove." You are feeling what the rest of the group is doing. It can be a concert band piece or a trio. You know the music is working its magic on you and you couldn't feel better.

Then for  moment you get distracted. It could be something out of the corner of your eye or a note that didn't land just right from you or someone else. Maybe you just remembered something you forgot to do before you left home. Perhaps a memory of another performance was triggered by a note or just a random thought drifted up from the unconscious.

Suddenly the whole mood and feel changes. You aren't lost- you know right where you are, but the groove is gone. You are not in sync with what's happening.  If you are in a concert band you may get away with it. If you are in the midst of a solo, as great trumpet player Don Ellis so bluntly put it- you're dead.

Now, I know Robert Baca said the same thing about "panic" that I quoted a few weeks ago. The truth is, though, it's true. It took me years to realize the truth of it- and why my performances were often riddled with moments when I "died." No one noticed most of them except perhaps the director and the person sitting next to me. But distraction is for me the worst of.....

Squirrel.

Just kidding. Another way of describing this result of distraction is that obstacles appear when we take our mind away from the sound, the music, or the goal. Obstacles are things that get in the way of doing what we want to or are usually able to do. When I have listened to recordings of some of my solos in the big band or concert band I have often noticed one thing in particular- the sound. Perhaps it is better to say that I notice when my "sound" goes flat or isn't alive. The obstacle is not that I can't keep a clearer sound, the obstacle is maintaining it when I am distracted.

Sometimes I get distracted by the fact that I just did the previous line or phrase better than usual. I take that moment to congratulate myself- and I am distracted. Sometimes I get distracted by paying too much attention to the audience and I get flustered. Sometimes in life I get distracted by "the small stuff" and miss the goals and hopes I have for myself.

Even good things can be distractions, of course. If it takes me away from my goals, it is a distraction.

High-wire artist, acrobat, and daredevil Nik Wallenda of the famous Flying Wallendas has this to say:

I've trained all my life not to be distracted by distractions.
Nik Wallenda

Perhaps the word for what Wallenda does is maintain focus and being mindful. Staying in the moment is essential. Notice that he says he has had to "train" all his life to do it. I do not think it comes naturally. We are easily distracted because that is how our brain is constructed. It is part of the ancient survival system. To learn how to do this takes time and energy.

We learn in the practice room when we work on our pieces so that we know them more than just technically. We learn focus as we become familiar with the rhythms and flow that make the music alive. We learn mindfulness as we take the time to sing the parts out loud to feel the movement. We discover awareness as we listen to ourselves play and how what we are playing fits into the greater picture of the music.

But we also improve our musical focus ability when we take five or ten minutes on a daily basis to meditate or focus on our breathing as a way of bringing ourselves back into the moment. What we do in the hours of the day when we are not playing music can have a huge impact on how we learn to avoid distractions. Our music is not a box we can separate from the rest of our lives. Nor is our life a separate box from the music.

As we learn to integrate who we are and what we do, we find that our music will flow from us.

And we can flow from our music.

Practice mindfulness. Stay in the moment. Pay attention to your breath. Feel the pulse of the music as you play. Remember the sound you want and play it. Don't think about it; don't analyze it. In your practice - just play it so it is yours.