Practice- May 9 2009

Warmed up with Rhosymedre and then moved onto Chillers and Thrillers. I focused a lot on the starting Darth Vader theme because getting the right notes at this part is hard. I practiced a little bit of Jaws and then 173 until the end. I then played Carmina Burana the Pesante and Vivace parts of it. I practiced for an hour today.

Youtube Blogger Assignment- Fred Wesley

I chose to do this assigment on the trombonist Fred Wesley. He was born July 4, 1943 in Georgial. As a child he played the piano and the trumpet, until his father gave him a trombone. He has played the trombone since he was 12 years old and is best known for his work with James Brown in the 60's and 70's. He had a very successful 35 year career in teaching and playing.

In this performance on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z9nBQ_sn8Y&feature=related , Wesley plays an extremely difficult solo at rather high notes. I know it is not easy to play that fast and that high. His change of pitch and tone is incredible, he can go from really high to really low extremely fast and with good sound. He finds his slide positions very fast and effectively. His eyes are closed throughout the entire solo because he is focusing so hard. His head often moves in jerky motions but clearly dosent affect his performance negatively. He has good hand position and I think it is amazing he can play that fast and accurate at thea high of a pitch. He is a fantastic trombone player and this video is great proof of it.

Practice April 19 2009

Warmed up with Rhosymedre again and ran through all the Kiwanis pieces again. played through them all pretty smoothly only having to stop a few times through Holst. All other pieces are coming pretty easy now. I feel I am ready for Kiwanis. I practiced again for another 45 minutes.

Practice- Saturday April 18 2009

Warmed up with Rhosymedre focusing on all crescendos and decrescendos, played he whole song. Next, I ran through Rumble especially focusing on the triplets, hitting the higher notes. Also played Light Eternal and that cam fairly easy but played more at bar 156 trying to get the tricky part. Finished with Holst where i spent the most time going from part to part and playing all the areas where i struggled. Practiced for 45 minutes.

Practice Thursday April 2nd

Warmed up on page 17 line 7 in the purple book to make sure I finally have it down for the test. Then practiced Holst, the beginning up to A and part of E for the upcoming test. A needs a little more work but E is coming along nicely. Ran through Rhosymedre for some fun and focused on Crescendos and decrescendos especially at bars 21-24. Ran through Rumble and tried to picture the song being counted as that is clearly what the section struggled with today, but it is hard when its not actually being physically counted for me. Helped my brother out with his band pieces which gave me practice sight reading. Practiced for about a 40 minutes tonight.

Practice April 1, 2009

Played line 7 on page 17 in the purple book over a few times to get breathing right for the test. Got all the notes right and am playing it pretty well. Its not a hard piece. Struggled with seeing both notes as one would be right above the other but practiced and figured it out. After 10 or 15 mintutes of that and warming up, I practiced Holst, from the start to A and from E to 8 bars after E for the test. E is pretty easy, and I feel comfortable playing it, but the start of the piece challenges me a little so I worked on it for about 15 minutes tonight. I plan on practicing more tomorrow to run it over before the test.

Practice, March 24, 09

Practiced for 20 minutes. Focused strongly on 'Second Suite in F', particularly 'Fantasia on the Dargason' from 16 measures after A to C. Struggle with part E, mainly the sight reading, reaching the notes properly is becomming less and less of a problem. Need to practice more on sight reading especially on this part. I plan on practicing this more often as well as 'March' , one section at a time.