# of Students Taught: 7
Ages: 1 6th grader, 2 frosh, 2 soph, 2 seniors
Instrument: 2 baritones, 4 tenor trombones, 1 bass trombone
Materials: scales, tunes, & ear training; audition repertoire, composition and improvisation, etudes
Fundamentals covered: direction of phrase- ‘ear on the prize’; loud volumes in all registers, making more out of musical ideas, airflow
Memorable moment: Today I had a student ‘make a match’, as Jan would say, in such an immediate and gratifying way that I’m not sure we’ll being going backwards anytime soon. His tune for major scales is Ode to Joy, and I’ve been trying to get him to hear the phrase go all the way through the line, instead of playing every note somewhat vertically and then taking a breath before the last 2 notes. He gets it, but he’s never quite executed it.
Instead of telling him not to take a breath there, I used the example of someone driving in a car and hitting the gas pedal in little bursts. It’s annoying for the passenger and other drivers, and incredibly inefficient for the engine’s gas usage. If the driver instead gently kept even pressure on the gas pedal, the car would run smoothly and reach its destination more efficiently. Our air works the same way: we’ll have more of it utilize and shape the music with if our intention is to keep the line directing forward.
Takeaways: Telling a student simply where to or not to take a breath does not communicate phrase structure to them, it just gives them a technical instruction that becomes all they can focus on. Telling them where the phrase wants to go helps them breathe naturally and in time with the music.
(Coincidentally, during the last phrase of the song he took a breath in the middle of it but his direction and intention were so good it not only occurred in a natural place, but was barely audible and did not interrupt the music at all:
And that’s the magic of a proper focus of attention.)
Lauren Husting, trombone 