New video – virtuosic baroque solo

[LeTromboniste]

Please apologise if this seems like shameless self-promo. I guess it is, but it's also something I want to share for the lessons I learned from the process.

For the last two or three years, I've been challenging myself and exploring a repertoire that I had previously thought to be beyond my hopes of what I could achieve as a player, a repertoire which I associated in my mind with great musicians of other instruments who don't have to deal with a slide or move nearly as much air as we do, and can play so fluently that everything seems easy. It's not that the notes on the page were technically beyond my reach, but more that I felt that I could never do justice to the music between the notes the way some of my non-trombone colleagues could. The trombone can sound so clumsy compared to finger-holed instruments, and this music in particular is all about subtlety. But I decided to use this repertoire to explore ways of thinking about air and phrasing that were not intuitive to me as a trombone player, and to try to play in a way where one can't "hear the slide" (I don't mean glissandi, but just the quirks in the phrasing and articulation that come from dealing with the slide and can sometimes be a distraction from the music). At first it was just an exercise but in the process and during lessons I've had with non-trombonists on this material, I've had my mind blown on some aspects of my playing, in particular on how much intention and thought can go into every gesture and every note while still keeping a sense of the longer phrase or larger picture. I hadn't realised how superficial my musicality was. So it became more and more a project to improve my artistry in addition to my technique.

Eventually I committed to try to really bring this to a performable level and not just use it as an exercise. I'm definitely not all the way to where I want to be with this approach. Aside from occasional intonation quirks, there are also still moments here when I can "hear the slide", particularly with some of the dotted rhythms, and I think I could have even more extreme changes of dynamics and airflow between notes to control each gesture. But I'm pretty proud of where I'm at with this, and more importantly, of what I've learned for myself in the process. I want to emphasise the importance of challenging ourselves, whatever our level is, and not only try to improve technique but also confront our very musical ideas.

[BGuttman]

Wow, what a nice performance! Question: are all those "notey" figures divisions (ornaments) or were they actually written into the piece?

[Posaunus]

Maximilien,

This is magnificent. You are well on your way to making the slide "disappear" as an impediment to stylistic playing.
I can only imagine how much time you must have devoted to making this happen.

And your sackbut slide must be superb to enable you to play so rapidly and smoothly.

Congratulations -- and thanks!

[Kdanielsen]

Lovely playing!!

[LeTromboniste]

Wow, what a nice performance! Question: are all those "notey" figures divisions (ornaments) or were they actually written into the piece?

So this is originally a 5-voice madrigal written by Palestrina (without ornaments). The divisions here are from Bovicelli's treatise (in the description), which is divided in two parts, first some written instructions on the art of improvising, writing and/or performing diminutions and graces, then tables of possible ways to ornament various melodic intervals, and finally a bunch of fully-ornamented soprano lines from actual repertoire pieces, to serve as examples, where he presents both the original part and his ornamented version. So here I played Bovicelli's version, although down into the tenor range, with a few added things of my own here and there.

For comparison, whenever I play, the top of the right hand of the organ is doubling the original, unadorned version (usually an octave higher).

[BGuttman]

Thank you. I can see that it is possible to play some seriously "busy" parts on a trombone. I would hope that our ancestors were able to achieve this as well.

[baileyman]

For authentic performance one needs baroque Yamasnot.

I wonder, rendered pork fat rubbed in with a wool rag? Hmmm, best not to get ideas...

[BGuttman]

For authentic performance one needs baroque Yamasnot.

I wonder, rendered pork fat rubbed in with a wool rag? Hmmm, best not to get ideas...

How about extra virgin olive oil?

[Burgerbob]

Awesome work, my dude!

[Doug Elliott]

Outstanding! And all from memory... !?!

[Vegastokc]

Wow, stunning.
I expect sackbuts to sound more pinched off, but your amazing playing sounds more like its a euphonium.
Thank you for sharing.
Cheers

[LeTromboniste]

For authentic performance one needs baroque Yamasnot.

I wonder, rendered pork fat rubbed in with a wool rag? Hmmm, best not to get ideas...

Well my slide is chrome-plated (totally not authentic) so I just use regular Yamasnot

Outstanding! And all from memory... !?!

Thank you! Yes, although I never set out to memorise it, it's just one of those cases of woodshedding something so much that at some point you just notice that you forget to turn pages and aren't looking at the music anymore...I did go back to the score when practicing ahead of this recording, though, because I realised I had the notes and my own phrasing ideas memorised, but not the exact underlay of the lyrics.

I expect sackbuts to sound more pinched off

It's true that some sackbut players have a rather pinched sound, but I don't think it is inherent to the instrument itself. There are a few reasons why that can happen; in my experience the most common one is overblowing – it is very easy to overpower a sackbut if you don't adapt your technique and airflow to it. Some of the worse sackbut sounds I've heard come from actual world-class, amazing trombone players, who just won't change their way of playing (and in some cases, their mouthpieces) or their approach to the music, and so they end up sounding like a blasty, pinchy version of themselves.

[CalgaryTbone]

Beautifully played! Thanks for posting.

Jim Scott

[Bigbasst]

Nice performance, Love it !!!

[imsevimse]

Oh, that was wonderful. I enjoyed every second of your performance.

/Tom