Son of the Curse of the Revenge of the Return of the Trumpet Meta Strikes Back 2: Trumpet Meta-er

OH MY BACH. IT'S HAPPENING. IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING.

HE'S WRITING A NEW POST.

Hello internet! Long time, no see! That's right, I'm back, I'm ready to go, I'm a new person. Kind of. And... wow, I've had a hell of a couple months. I'm gonna be back to the regular minimum-one-post-per-month-and-maybe-more-if-I-feel-adventurous way of doing things, STARTING TODAY. So, sorry for the hiatus, but considering how many page views I got over approximately three months of not posting, there might even be some pretty good traffic coming in over the next little revival.

July. July was... well... July was quite the month. July changed me, for the better. What happened, you ask? I attended two different summer music programmes: a brass seminar with world-renowned international faculty members, and an orchestra camp that, though less well known, taught me a surprising amount more than I was expecting at the beginning. And my approach to practicing is completely different from what it was before.

First, the brass conference. And where I usually keep things anonymous, I figure the bigger the event, the less relevant keeping it anonymous is. I attended the Domaine Forget brass seminar in Saint-Irénée, Québec. In particular, the trumpet masterclass-givers were Thomas Rolfs, principal of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Eric Aubier, considered one of Maurice André's most successful students. And both were amazing for different reasons. Aubier is one of the most musical players I've ever heard, without a doubt. Everything he played, no matter how angular or modern, sounded like a dance. And he seemed to have every single piece of music memorized, whether Tomasi or Jolivet or Bohme, and demonstrated pretty much everything he talked about, always wowing the students. Rolfs, on the other hand, is probably the most powerful player I've ever heard live. I've never heard one of the "great" orchestras live, but I've heard countless recordings, and thought I had a pretty good idea of what a principal trumpet sounds like. Then Rolfs played the opening of Mahler 5, while sitting less than three feet away from me, and my presuppositions were completely shattered. It was a sound unlike anything I had expected. Rolfs' classes were almost entirely focused on breathing, as he's a Cichowicz (YEAH SPELLED IT RIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY) student, and that was kind of Cichowicz's thing.

Throughout the masterclasses, I quickly realized that being the principal trumpet in my little town meant nothing. Out of twenty-six trumpet majors, I was easily in the bottom five. Part of the curse of living in the out-of-the-way cities that I have for more or less my entire life is that I lose a proper sense of scale, and now I have a much better idea of what trumpet students who take their art seriously are supposed to sound like. If there's one thing I "knew," and definitely should have known, but learned for the first time, it's to never let yourself get away with anything. As Rolfs said more than once in masterclass, "You just proved you can play with a good sound, why would you chose to play with anything less?" There really isn't a reason, especially when practicing, to let any note that comes out of the bell sound worse than the absolute best note you can produce, and that's a philosophy that I'm trying to implement absolutely every time I pick up the horn.

The event also came with a student gala, where we were put in chamber groups based off of our placement auditions. Most of the top-tier students got quintets, and I ended up being put in trumpet ensemble. I hesitate to call it a lower level ensemble, since all of us are top students in our respective schools, but if I'm being honest, I'll call it a mid-range ensemble, for the musicians present. But you know what, I really enjoyed it. The fact that we had all traveled to this explicitly to make brass music meant we were all much more dedicated than a random pile of university students of various music-related majors that many smaller schools have for ensembles. We all learned from each other, we all gave it everything we had, and we sounded pretty solid come the concert. Oh, and though I usually don't like trumpet ensembles, we played the one piece written for them that I love forever, which blogger isn't letting me embed for some reason: Ewazen's Fantasia for Seven Trumpets.

The faculty concert. THE FACULTY CONCERT. Sounds that I didn't think were possible happened. Two sounds in particular. First, Jesper Sørensen, second trombone in Berlin, played excerpts from a Schumann song cycle (I forget which, but really want to say it was Dichterliebe (YEAH TWO FOR TWO IN SPELLING WEIRD THINGS RIGHT)), as well as a Schumann Romance, and... I don't think I've ever heard a sound that beautiful. Not from a trombone, not from a brass instrument, not from any instrument... no natural sound. But man, he did it. And second... this thing:

Next up, the orchestra camp, PRISMA. Actually, I think I might leave a lot of my discussion about this for a separate post, since I have a lot I want to say about the trumpet sound that I've thought about because of that, and since then. But I will say that the third movement of Tchaik 6 sounds amazing in full brass sectional, and we can probably just forget about the rest of the orchestra.

But yeah. I guess the coolest thing about these programmes is... you meet people who are GOING places. The trumpet students I met at Domaine aren't barely passing undergrads who are falling through the cracks. These players are the future of the orchestral trumpet scene. I'm confident that over half of these players will have established themselves in performance careers in the next five to ten years, and some of them may even make the major orchestras.

That brings me to one moment from PRISMA that I do want to address now. One of the scarier moments was when we had a discussion, full students and faculty, about auditions. When people asked the faculty about their audition experience, it turns out many of the string faculty members were offered big-names jobs almost freely, or won concertmaster/principal positions on their first audition, or were active orchestral musicians before they hit twenty. And that had me (and probably several other students in the room) scared... how could we ever hope to do THAT?!

Thankfully, the next day, the brass faculty asked if we wanted to veto sectional in exchange for a brass-specific audition discussion, which all us students agreed to. And hearing their stories was... a relief. These players, all fantastic musicians, had to go through our struggle. They (and their students, colleagues, and mentors) played dozens of auditions before getting their first gig, had to go through the brutal audition circuit, and face orchestra politics. They told us stories of people in our situation, with our level of skill, who made their careers happen through determination, motivational drive, and enthusiastic, disciplined practice. They made us realize that people out there were once just like us, and that if we care and apply ourselves to our MAXIMUM potential, we can do the same. And that's something everyone needs to hear.

So yeah, I think that's enough for today. I have one or two more related posts I'm planning on making based on my summer adventures, and then back to the old norm of alternating stuff about my playing life with random continued featurettes that I do. Thank you for your patience, dear internet, and I'm glad to have you back! And I hope you continue to follow my little pointless drivels as I keep writing them! I'm going to send you off with this, a lovely concert that I know more than one person would refer to as "brass porn" (not NSFW at all):

Until next time!

Take that! Triple Concert Finish!

Because vague-but-not-actually-vague nerdy jokes are a super effective way to title these monthly updates!

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HI.

So, the three biggest concerts of the term just finished up as of last weekend: solo recital, orchestra, and quintet recital. And y'know what... I'm okay with how each of them went. None of them were perfect, of course, and I can't say I truly feel that any of them were ideal, but... I can't say I'm disappointed in any of them. I'll give y'all a recap of what I actually thought. About me, I mean. Not saying anything about the other players, positive or negative, because I don't want to offend anyone, either directly, or indirectly by omitting for them what I praised someone else for.

First off, the recital. In order: Bach Cantata 51 (first movement), Arnold Quintet (first movement), Ewald Quintet no. 3 (third movement), Clarke Side Partners, and Horowitz Concerto, with Scheidt Galliard Battaglia as an encore. First thing I noticed is, I managed to draw a really nice crowd. It *might* have been the biggest crowd to a first-year grad recital this year, it was hard to tell with all the spotlights pointing at me. But I'm pretty sure I won out, in terms of attendees. Opening a show on picc is terrifying, and it took me a couple lines to get settled, but once I did (about halfway through the first A section), the rest kinda just went. It felt really natural, but part of that may have been because I was thinking more about the ensemble than what I was doing, myself. Maybe that's why I like playing in orchestras so much, if I let all my concern wash on to other people, I just play and my autopilot does a better job than I would have. The quintet stuff was a preview for our concert, and both of those went really well. The duet was also really well-received, as was the Scheidt, with the same trumpet player (it started with just us, and the quintet walked on stage before the first big tutti, making that opening super awesome).

As awesome as that recording is, I'm afraid that playing the Scheidt in the original mixolydian mode has forever ruined the major/ionian version for me. The lowered sevenths just sound so much... BETTER. Anyways, the Horovitz was the biggest piece, and I think it perfectly summed up the good (and bad) things about my playing. My articulate playing has improved significantly from where it was a year ago, but still isn't where I need it to be to be a competitive trumpet player. My sustained, lyrical playing still needs a LOT of work. And... endurance. Endurance is always a factor. The last page, before the couple bars off on the third-last line, was INCREDIBLY rough. I felt like I was throwing mostly airballs those last two lines of that section (so I guess fourth- and fifth-last of the page). But, y'know what, it's done, and the audience loved it.

Next was the orchestra concert. We opened with a Mozart mass thing that only had us in the first and last movements, and I played second. It was pretty brainless. Next, I was lead for the Bernstein Chichester Psalms, which was actually a really nice one to do. I was afraid it'd be hard, as there's a lot of high things, but Bernstein always sets you up so that you can't fail... meaning of course I missed the second concert C. Which I didn't miss in any of the rehearsals the week leading up to it. I hit the first one, but there was a scratch in it, so... I still have some work to do. The infamous last note might have been the best thing I did all show. Don't tell anyone, but the secret was... get a really soft mute, and let yourself play just a HAIR louder in the show than in the rehearsals, it'll sound gorgeous.

The second half was Pictures, and if you haven't watched that video yet, do it NOW. The first half is like a mini-documentary, and Solti's insights are really cool. The second half might be the best recording of that piece, like, period. I don't think I'll ever get over their sound in Great Gate, especially the syncopated chords leading up to the last melody.

How did I do? Well, I'm still yet to play the opening in a way I'm satisfied with. The first half of Schmuyle went really well, but the second was quite rough, and I had to drop a beat when it went up. Usually, if I absolutely need to drop a beat, it'd be the repeated C#s, but... life'll throw you curve balls sometimes, you just make do. Great Gate, with the exception of the third and fourth bars, felt really good. HOLY BACH THE FIRST BAR WAS LOUD. Like... we were totally planning on saving some so that the end would be louder than the beginning. We didn't. Communally didn't. It was kind of immature. It was very awesome. I enjoyed that.

And last, but definitely not least, and possibly the one I was more excited for than my solo recital, was the quintet concert. Ewald 3, Cousins, Largo al Factotum, West Side (arr. Gale), and Arnold. Holy Mahler, that was a long programme. I played first for Ewald, Largo, and Arnold, and the breaks were super-appreciated. And y'know what... we did a damn good job. The Ewald in particular went stellar. Cousins was (in my opinion) the best the soloists had done it. Largo was... much faster than me or the soloist wanted to go, but actually really solid, and we got a couple laughs out (he managed to sneak some of the Vaughan Williams into the cadenza, which caused the tuba prof to chuckle). West Side was hella fun, though it made me wish people clapped between movements, so many of them had really boisterous, huge endings. And... I could have played Arnold much worse. I DO have to realize that I put one of the most prolific quintet pieces ever written at the end (I REALLY didn't want to play anything after that), so considering that... which I shouldn't even be considering, because real musicians have to do that all the time. Gahh. Pieces like that make me feel so conflicted... do I feel proud for what I accomplished, because few other students here could have done the same? Or do I admit that, in a couple years, I'll be competing with people who totally could have finished it much better than I did, and I'll be expected to be able to do that as well, so I need to up my game? I don't know. The quintet as a whole did really well, though, and I think we showed the audience that we're pretty legit, for a bunch of brass students.

Oh, and I transcribed this for our encore. Actually.

L8er boiz!

Remember the days when this used to update more than once a month? Didn't think so.

Haiiiiiii.

It's been a while, but I suppose that's what grad school does to you. I've come to the realization that us musicians are clinically insane: we lock ourselves up alone in small rooms and repeat the same thing over and over, hoping for different results. Well, the smart ones don't repeat it exactly the same each time, but I'd like to think no one is 100% smart, because I feel like I have a chance that way.

It's almost high time, guys. My first-year recital is coming up in just over two weeks. On one hand, it's kind of nerve-racking. Though I've known all the tunes for a while, getting them together with the other players has been very last-minute. The worst offender by a mile is the Horovitz concerto, my big piece and highlight. I don't know if any of you have ever looked at the commercially available piano reduction, but it is literally unplayable. In that it is not a reduction, but merely every note of the orchestra score condensed into two lines, with no editing. There are moments with more notes than fingers in the human hand, moments with two contrapuntal lines in one hand almost two octaves apart, moments with a melody occurring in the same range as the chords accompanying it... it's a mess. Twenty-five gruelling hours of Finale later, I made a playable version, and the pianist I'm hiring to play it has been pretty solid in getting it ready. I just need to make sure I don't blink for the last two pages, or else we're sunk.

The last school orchestra concert featured Mendelssohn 5 and Capriccio Espagnol. The Mendelssohn is actually a really sweet piece, the outer movements in particular. I don't know what it is with Symphony no. 5s, but they usually seem to be right on the mark (Except Tchaik 5. It just seems so... overshadowed by 4 and 6). The Capriccio is one of those pieces I just keep loving. Like, I could listen to it on a loop for hours, it's so good. So campy, but so fun. Just... don't ask me about that cadenza. I had a long day... WHO CARES, NO EXCUSES. I've been pulling the "long day, stressful week, bad start to the morning" cards way too much recently, and I need to STOP IT. As I keep telling other people, and should really follow myself, the audience doesn't care what your day/week/life was like. The audience only cares if you can deliver. SO GO DELIVER ALREADY.

Being a musician is one of those funny things. I know for a fact that my playing now is the Vegeta to the Nappa that was my playing when I started this blog (what is it with those two popping up in here? Look out, I sense a running gag coming on), but little things are bugging me more and more. Obviously, the big things are annoying, but, as Yoda's pointed out to me on many an occasion, your ear will improve in big leaps, while your abilities have to progress at their slow, hopefully steady pace. So you start to hear more and more details, while your abilities aren't catching up at the same speed.

Because I'm insane, I've actually started to think about what I want to put on my recital next year. I was originally going to open with Ewazen's Fantasia for Seven Trumpets, but I've since scratched that in favour of his Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, and I think I'd like to open with Gabrieli's (I think I have this right) Sonata XX a 22. Yeah, you heard that right, 22 parts. Except I'd like to double specific parts such that (wait for it) the ENTIRE brass studio is involved. Then my baroque piece, which is still undecided, but it'd be nice to do the Leopold Mozart, or maybe that one Vivaldi violin piece that brass players seem to love doing. Hopefully I can get my same string players back. I've booked our kickass violist over a year in advance, and the cellist is being forced to play against her will if need be, so that's two of the five right there.

Other than that, I'd need a quintet piece, probably one more big solo work, and maybe time for a smaller solo or duet. Our quintet's thinking about Bozza for next year, so that's a possibility (I don't actually know how it goes, I should probably go listen to it). I've been toying with the idea of the Jacques Hetu Concerto, it'd be great for some Canadian content. And then just one more thing, possibly super-left field and modern. Oh dear Bach, do I really have this planned over a year in advance?

I have one more audition recording to do tomorrow... OH. This wouldn't have made the blog yet, since it was February. I had a moment, while recording the opening solo from Mahler 5 for a summer audition. I started to play, and as I began the first line, I just got this huge feeling of... understanding. Like, I GOT it. The piece made so much more sense than it ever had. Sadly, it wasn't a flawless run (cracked the first top line F#), but there was so much more vibrancy and emotion in the sound than I've ever heard myself produce before. My second take wasn't as enlightening as the first, but I can almost re-capture that same feeling now.

Jeez, I really do tend to ramble here. I'm gonna leave it at that for now, you don't need to hear me balk on for hours about things. Once April rolls around, I'll likely be posting more frequently, in that I'm a relatively anti-social person and don't do much when school's out, so it keeps me occupied. Until next time, peace out, and seriously go back and click on that Vivaldi video you skipped. I'm pretty sure "brass porn" is an appropriate label for that kind of performance. Until next time, fellow internetters!

International Hector Berlioz Awareness Day 2013!

(This is part of an ongoing series about Hector Berlioz. Catch up on all the Fantastique details here, here, and here!)

Hey folks! Sorry I've been so silent recently, it's been hella busy, and pretty stressful these past two weeks especially. I'll go into more detail next week, which is reading break. But for now...

INTERNATIONAL HECTOR BERLIOZ AWARENESS DAY IS UPON US!

Ah yes, today is the day we think about that special someone we all know. That someone for which we dearly yearn, but know we can never have. The someone who makes us feel happy in our melancholy, but is simply an idea, a concept of perfection. The someone whose face we see in a crowded ball. The someone whose laugh we hear in an empty, peaceful field. The someone who is the last thought we have before our hallucinated execution. And the someone who mocks us from the middle of a demonic orgy in the same hallucination, while an E-flat clarinetist plays the only solo that could ever hope to beat the first movement of Sacre du Printemps for "most obnoxious E-flat clarinet line ever." And in honour of this noble day, I present you... today's top twenty Hector Berlioz facts!


Hector Berlioz performed Steve Reich's Piano Phase on an elastic band wrapped around a tissue box. Both parts.

Hector Berlioz is the answer to Charles Ives' question.

Antonio Vivaldi has the second-largest output of any A-list composer because every sound Hector Berlioz ever made is considered part of his magnum opus.

Eric Whitacre refuses to refer to his compositional style as anything but "aspiring Berliozian."

Hector Berlioz once had a period where he was afraid his composition wasn't up to par, so he went by the pen name "Gustav Mahler."

Tchaikovsky is to melody what Hector Berlioz is to melody.

The Second Viennese School only existed because Arnold Schoenberg was fed up over how Hector Berlioz was the maximum attainable level of tonality.

Historical records show that the victor of every war in history is the side which had more performances of Symphonie Fantastique during the duration of the bout.

Hector Berlioz is your father. Actually.

Each string on Hector Berlioz's guitar is made of a strand of pure sound willed into solid form.

The ring in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen was made out of a lock of Hector Berlioz's hair that happened to fall into the Rhine and solidify.

Camille Pleyel was cut from the final scene of Inferno because Dante was afraid of angering Hector Berlioz with the sight of the name.

Playing Un Bal while courting your significant other has a 200% success rate, in that both the target person and the second-on-the-list will instantly become infatuated with the performer.

Hector Berlioz rarely plays the flute anymore, due to the strain it puts on weather patterns to move an entire atmosphere's worth of air.

Chopin, Liszt, Sibelius, the Mighty Five, and other nationalist composers wrote in their country's style because it meant they wouldn't be compared to (and fail to match) Hector Berlioz.

Frederick Chopin once re-gifted a copy of Treatise on Instrumentation. That's really all I need to say.

The average person is 400% more likely to leave their significant other for someone named "Harriet Smithson" than someone with any other name.

If you play Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 backwards, it sounds like someone saying "Hector Berlioz ist der Übermensch" ad nauseum.

The Ronde du Sabbat has topped every positively-inclined top 10 list ever written, regardless of the requirements of being on the list.

And finally...

Felix Baumgartner's famous space dive failed to break the record distance of the last time Hector Berlioz fell in love.


Happy International Hector Berlioz Awareness Day, everyone!

Happy New Year, People of the Internet!

Ohai!

Off to the start of a brand new arbitrary division of the planet's orbit with reference the tilt in its axis and direction relative to the sun!  Or year.  I guess that's a little bit easier to say.  And this year, I'm going to try and make things AWESOME.  Why, as some of my friends have openly asked the everybody-but-really-nobody that is Facebook, do we need such an arbitrary date to begin something, and would we have had the motivation to otherwise?  Well, I can't answer for everybody, but I'm a kind of odd person in that, if I need motivation, I can just kind of... MAKE motivation happen for myself.  I don't like to, but when I do, it really gets the ball rolling.

Anyways, what's the point of this?  Do my posts ever REALLY have a point?  Probably not, but that's besides the non-point.  Basically, I just want to get my life resolutions (not New Year's resolutions, because it's not just this year that's making me do it... it's LIFE) down on the cold, hard, unforgiving internet, so that I can say I wrote it, and I have something to follow.  Plus, paper is destructible, but once something is on the internet, it's there for life (YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED).

THE BIG RESOLUTION - stop being so damn depressing, both on this blog and in real life!  My last several posts were about me whining that I'm not good enough to play this piece, or that this audition is really hard, or that I end up spending a lot more time alone than I would like to.  In person, I'll complain about things like life being expensive, or deadlines for auditions being early, or wanting more sleep, or not wanting to write papers because of the year I took off between degrees.  Well... stop it!  I'm not going to stop complaining, I mean, I'm just going to stop letting it bum me out.

"But dude," you say, "that's pretty much impossible, unless you're a robot and can re-wire your brain!"  "Well, dear reader," I respond, "I'm not a robot, but you're thinking about this the wrong way."  I can't stop depressing things from happening.  And I can't stop myself from feeling annoyed or bad about things.  And I KNOW I'm not going to stop complaining.  But what I can do, is force myself to see the good in things, to not let details get me down, to see deadlines as a challenge rather than as a sentence.  Piece really hard?  Find individual challenges that are parallel to etudes, Arbans drills, Irons drills, Clarke studies, and isolate them like that.  Challenging audition?  No worries, everyone else probably thinks the same thing.  You'll sound better pretending to be a showoff than feeling insignificant.  Spending the night alone?  Write a story, draw a picture, listen to a new symphony, learn some basic programming.  Life's expensive?  Go out to music events, introduce yourself to other players, see if you can get set up with a gig or two.  Go out to schools, see if you can get some students set up.  Audition deadlines coming up?  Recording's super easy, I have a lot of rep on the backburner.  And don't forget about Neruda, that thing has saved my life more than once!  Don't want to write papers?  Deal with it. B/

There's a great line in a fantastic recent article on Cracked, where a hypothetical reader asks the author how he can get girls to like him.  The author's response?
"... it's always 'How can I get a job?' and not 'How can I become the type of person employers want?' It's 'How can I get pretty girls to like me?' instead of 'How can I become the type of person that pretty girls like?'"
This is great in its own right, but to me, it made me realize something on a much simpler level.  It made me realize that, if I'm depressed with how things are going, I really shouldn't be asking "how can I stop being depressed with my current life state?"  The real question is "How can I change my life to one that I like?"  And this, folks, is what I'm working on now.  No more being sad that music just keeps getting more and more challenging, more finding creative and efficient ways to improve and becoming a better player because of it.  No more "gotta go play this concert, groan" and more "Man, I'm actually learning to PLAY MUSIC FOR A LIVING.  How is that not awesome?!"

SMALL RESOLUTION #1 - I'm going to learn to cook.  I'm not a BAD cook, per se, I'm just an incredibly boring one.  I don't know a lot of meals offhand, is my main problem, though I've never had a disaster following a recipe.  So, the obvious fix to this is... amass a whole lot of recipes!  If I know that I have the POTENTIAL to make awesome food, just not the KNOWLEDGE, I'm going to (watch what I do here) find a creative and efficient way (see what I did there?) to fix that, which is to fill in the missing gap.  Which is the knowledge.  In case you missed that part.  In a more concrete way of putting things, I'm going to, at least once every two weeks (but more is totally okay!), cook something I've never made before.  Or, cook in a style I never have before.  A new meal, minimum twice per month.  Seems reasonable to me, and I usually have the time on weekends that I can spend a little longer than throwing rice in a pot or pizza in the oven or veggies in a frying pan or whatever.

SMALL RESOLUTION #2 - I'm going to learn to write music.  Not well, mind you.  I'm going to learn to be comfortable composing.  What kind of music, you ask?  Well... I'm not sure yet.  I might write a small piano piece.  I might write for brass quintet.  I might write for rock band.  It might be jazzy.  It might sound like Luciano Berio.  It might sound like a bad attempt at Mahler.  It might sound like Elton John.  It might sound like Jun Senoue.  It might sound like a bad attempt at Koji Kondo. The important thing is, I won't know until I give it a shot.  The point of this is to learn what I like to write, and what I don't like to write.  To learn how to just let ideas come to me, and to learn how to take little ideas and make big things out of them.  Again, to be more concrete, I'll give myself a goal: one new, finished piece, no matter how small, per month.  And it can be anything.  Hell, it could be this and it'd count, since that is, in fact, one finished piece of music that was written by someone.  Except it can't ACTUALLY be that because it has to be new.  But you know.

So that's my goals, and that's what's going to happen.  I'm also going to try and keep this blog fairly well updated, and especially with content!  Some things to look forward to in the near future, in likely the wrong order:

*New MAHL WARS, moving on to Episode Three
*Two new Video Game Musicology columns planned: an analysis of the use of leitmotif in Kid Icarus: Uprising, and a compositional critique of the music in EarthBound (which is REALLY DAMN GOOD, if you didn't know)
*Launching a new section called Hidden Musicological Masters, which satirically deconstructs works by artists "Classical" musicians generally frown upon (Ke$ha, Bieber, etc), and finding little bits of "genius" in a begging-the-question fashion, starting likely with Toxic by Brittney Spears; requests welcome
*Continuing that series on composers I said I'd start but didn't
*Of course, the International Hector Berlioz Appreciation Day special in February!
*General thoughts on music topics as they occur to me, and updates on life in general

Hope you guys occasionally read something here that piques your interest, and though I mostly just do this blog for my own sake, as a means of collecting thoughts, ranting about things I don't think anyone would want to sit through me talking about in person, and the like.  This website really is for my own benefit, and if I end up getting a hit count of zero after a new post goes up some day, I doubt I'll shut it down, since I actually DO get super stoked about some of the things that go up here, and need an outlet.  But, fans, don't think I'm ignoring you, because it's those moments people come up to me and say "So I read your blog post about..." that really just make me super-high-on-life for the rest of the day.  So I really do appreciate those of you who take the time out of your days to sit through this nonsense I throw at you.  See y'all next time!



(I hope no one missed the fact that this was linked up there.  This movement is, in my opinion, the most beautiful piece of music ever written.  But that's just my opinion.)

The Nonsensical Christmas Special

SWEET STORM OF OSTROVSKY LOOK AT THIS BAMF RIGHT HERE

DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS GUY IS

THAT'S PYOTR ILYICH GODDAMN TCHAIKOVSKY

AND HE IS BETTER THAN YOU IN EVERY WAY IMAGINABLE


You thought you were happy celebrating Christmas?

WRONG.  TIME FOR TCHAIKOVSKYMAS.

Look at some of the things he's done:

Well, first off, he only wrote EVERY GODDAMN BEAUTIFUL MELODY EVER.

He wrote the love theme to EVERY MOVIE WITH A LOVE THEME, and then MADE IT SUPER BADASS.

He wrote a piano concerto that YOU CAN PLAY IN A GODDAMN STRAIGHTJACKET.

He wrote THE MOST PERFORMED PIECE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC OF ALL TIME... oh, and HE HATED IT.  IT WAS TOO MAINSTREAM.

I mean, can you REALLY stand up to someone SO GODDAMN MANLY?

Even DANIEL BARENBOIM IS FROZEN IN AWE AT HIS MAJESTY.

Get this.  He married this chick, then DUMPED HER ASS BECAUSE HE'S NOT INTO CHICKS.

YEP, HE IS MORE SUCCESSFUL AS A STRAIGHT GUY AND AS A GAY GUY THAN YOU.

How does that make any logical sense?  SCREW YOUR LOGIC TCHAIK HAS AN AWESOME BEARD.

So you know how the French lost to Russia in the war of 1812?  It's because they fought against Tchaikovsky's orchestra... WHICH HAD CANNONS IN IT.

You know how everyone dreams to play Carnegie Hall?  Tchaikovsky INAUGURATED THE GODDAMN THING.  FOR REAL.  WIKIPEDIA SAYS SO.

So you know how the Five didn't really like Tchaik that much.  That's because HE COULD TAKE THEM ALL ON AT ONCE, HE'S PYOTR GODDAMN TCHAIKOVSKY.

His last symphony ends with a super-triumphant third movement... WAIT NOPE THERE'S A FOURTH AND NOW YOU WANT TO CUT YOURSELF IT'S SO GODDAMN EMOTIONAL.

Other composers need to write transitions between their themes in sonata forms.  SCREW TRANSITIONS, ALL TCHAIKOVSKY NEEDS IS TWO BARS OF HORN.

So forget about Christmas...

...AND GET YO ASS READY FOR TCHAIKOVSKYMAS.

(...sorry guys, I have no idea why I thought this would be a good idea at all. XD Merry Tchaikovskymas!)

Reflections on Loudness: Perspective of a Trumpet Player who Takes Dynamics Seriously

As a trumpet player, a lot of people know I'm a pretty chill guy.  I like to crack jokes in rehearsals, make fun of the usual trumpet stereotypes of "blastissimo," and generally get giddy when things are big and brassy and loud.  Sometimes, I begin to worry that people only recognize that side of me.  I'm also super-serious when it comes to music, and while I like to make jokes because I'm honestly having fun with the music, when shit needs to go down, I make sure that I, my section, and if need be, the entire ensemble is sounding its absolute best.  You don't see that side of me outside of rehearsal that often, but when it comes out, watch out, someone's not doing it right and gonna get told.

That being said, a lot of people I know would think "How can you be serious but also constantly want things to be louder?  That's like the key sign of an immature trumpet player."  Well, I've thought a lot about that, and I've come to the following conclusion:

Most music students don't actually understand how dynamics work

As a graduate-level trumpet student (and I've only allowed myself to refer to myself as such recently; I've been feeling a lot more comfortable with my playing ever since having a lesson with Yoda, and taking a day off to fly back to Hyrule), it's really important that I understand dynamics, since on one hand, I could bury the orchestra (save perhaps a few low brassers I know) if I wanted to, and on the other, being told to play louder is a matter of the greatest shame for a non-horn brass player.  Now, before I continue, I'm gonna protect myself here:  I stand by what I said above, most music students don't actually understand how dynamics work.  I have complete confidence in that statement.  I am, also, a music student.  Therefore, I'm going to give you my understanding of the topic, but I'll let you know that it could very well be subject to the music student clause above.  Odds are I might change my mind after a few more years of experience, and if this blog is still up and running, I'll do another post like this where we can laugh at how silly and immature I was back now.  I'm also not saying I get what I preach right every time.  I am, after all, still a student, and the difference between a student and professional can often be nothing more than consistency (though I still have a ways to go on way more fronts than that).  I just aim to follow this approach as closely as I can in my playing.

Now, I've heard a lot of advice on dynamic from different brass professors, and interestingly enough, my favourite advice has always come from horn players.  This is probably due to the fact that the horn points backwards, and therefore horn players need to play with more power relative to the rest of the brass section.   Brass students know that, if you stand directly next to the bell of a professional horn player, they often sound like a steamroller, in a non-flattering way.  However, stand in the middle of a concert hall while they play the same thing, and it's as if the heavens opened up and the most beautiful sound in the world echoes through the building.  Same guy, doing the same thing, but that's the nature of the horn, and what really matters is what the audience hears, not what the guy beside you hears.

So now, I'm going to give you my two "rules" of dynamics, and explain how each one makes sense to me, as a trumpet player (I'm thinking from a brass perspective, but I'm sure other instruments can make it apply to them as well).  And they are:

Rule #1: "Piano" means "soft," and "soft" means "not prickly."

Rule #2: "Forte" means "strong." Vegeta is strong, Nappa is not.

These might sound odd right off the bat, so let's go into more detail.

First, consider piano.  What's the mistake you expect a beginning brass student to make when they play a passage softly?  Easy, not enough air, support, or "body" to the sound, and it fizzles and dies.  I've even heard this happen to string students, they try so hard to be soft that the sound crackles like a bad microphone.  The horn professor back in Hyrule had my favourite way of getting students to get over this: have them play it mezzo-forte or louder, and then play it "the same intensity and direction and support, just less volume."  And it worked.  Here in Termina, Obi-Wan had an idea that "piano is a colour," which was essentially a way to get his students to use a "forte" amount of air, but sweeten the sound out so that it comes across to the listener as being softer than it is.

Both of these approaches are true, and both are very good ways to conceptualize "softness."  My way of conceptualizing it is to think of soft as a texture, as opposed to prickly.  When the player isn't adequately supporting, their sound becomes full of bubbles and holes and burrs and shit... basically, it becomes "prickly."  Playing with a soft, velvety texture allows a full use of air.  Look at freshly-dyed velvet; it's not faded, it's full of vibrant, solid, pure ink.  That is soft.  Of course, the decibel level IS physically lower, but that ends up being a by-product of having the proper texture of tone.  It will have less volume, but more importantly, it will actually be a softer note.

Now, for the controversial one... forte.  What does forte mean to a trumpet player... the bane of strings and woodwinds everywhere.  Well, it's along the same lines, but it's actually quite a bit deeper than piano.

Take a look at these two fine gentlemen.  For those of you who missed the 1990s, the one on the left is Nappa, and the one on the right is Vegeta, the primary antagonists (and in Vegeta's case, eventual triagonist) of the first story arc of Dragon Ball Z.  And they also present an excellent example of what inexperienced players think loud is, versus what I believe a correct loud to actually be.

When these two Saiyans land on Earth, the heroes instantly single out Nappa as their primary concern, and he actually fights them by himself for the first little while, with Vegeta throwing in comments and barking out orders on occasion.  What the Earth's finest didn't realize is that size ≠ strength.  So, inexperienced players, with their often shrill or bland tone, play louder by filling the room with MORE of a shrill or bland tone, and this really does nothing but hurt peoples' ears.

Vegeta is the real strength of this operation.  Sure, he may look smaller, but to Saiyans, size really means nothing.  Size is secondary.  Vegeta has a higher level of chi, or power/energy, depending on whether you go by the manga or the anime.

And that's really what it's about.  Forte, strong, loudness, is about filling the room with a FULL, VIBRANT, BRILLIANT sound, not just a "loud and no other quality but loud" tone.  Nappa is big, and just big, and he was easily dispatched by Goku.  Vegeta was powerful, and gave the Earth's heroes a huge run for their money.  From this, we discover that there are two errors often made by inexperienced trumpet players.  The first, of course, is what I said before:  making more of a sub-par tone colour, and calling that loud.  True, the decibel level goes up, but it's not STRONG, which is the literal translation of the Italian word forte.  It's like, having a whole keg of a weak beer, rather than just a pint, doesn't make the beer stronger.

The second mistake, and this is an odd but common one (especially for players who were often told "you're too loud, stop smacking the audience in the face!"), is to attempt to bring up the volume, but do so with a soft, piano tone.  Even a mezzo-forte tone.  Notice what I said above: "forte is filling the room with a full, vibrant, brilliant tone."  The trumpet is a naturally brilliant instrument.  That's why we play it, rather than cornet, or some odd kind of soprano Bb or C horn that probably exists but I'm too lazy to look it up (or a descant horn, I guess).  Players who have fallen to the trap of the first error, loud in an unpleasant way, often try to remedy it with this.  The answer is not to take anything away from what the player was doing, it's to FILL THE TONE until it matches the dynamic level.  If your playing is crass and therefore incorrectly loud, the answer isn't necessarily to play softer, it's to add beauty until your volume makes sense.  And as a bonus, this will actually sound easier on the ear, and BLENDS!  A proper, full sound will fit in an ensemble, even when the player is nearing the top of their dynamic register (though, this probably never happens in actual orchestra playing).

I should just throw in: THIS DOES NOT GIVE YOU LICENSE TO PLAY YOUR LOUDEST AT EVERY FORTISSIMO.  There's still the matter of being tasteful.  This does, however, give you the license to not be AFRAID to play the trumpet in a full way.  A real orchestral trumpet player rarely needs to strain for a dynamic, no matter how many f's are on the page, because they can ride the wave of the rest of the brass section.  And when they do need to put more power behind it, keeping it beautiful, vibrant, colourful, and brilliant will also keep it pleasant to the ear, and balance better with the rest of the ensemble, meaning you won't APPEAR to be "loud for the sake of being loud" like so many non-brassers assume us trumpets are (especially those, like me, who like to goof around and play up the stereotype in a non-serious way outside of rehearsals).

Here's a case study for you: go out and listen to Bud Herseth.  Listen to basically anything the CSO released between 1948-2001.  It's my firm belief that, from what I've heard of them so far, Bud has never played an incorrect dynamic caught on tape.  In fact, let me give you a recording.

I'll even help you out more, here's the first trumpet part.  Don't mind the minor blip at nine after rehearsal 10, it gets back on track.  Listen to the pianissimo at rehearsal 13 in the first movement.  Sure, it's actually fairly high in decibels, but he plays with such a velvet, "precious" tone colour, that we hear it as having a "solo soft" quality.  Same thing at six before 19.  Then, compare that to the fortissimo back at rehearsal 9.  He's not overtly trying to blast, because he's filling the room with his radiating, vibrant, colourful sound.  This man knows how to make a dynamic happen.  It's worth listening to him in their Solti recording of Beethoven 5, the fourth movement is balanced wonderfully, I would say even better than the Mahler above.  It's not that he's not doing extremes in dynamics, it's that the WAY he does them is by using tone colour to his advantage, and that makes it happen SO MUCH more effectively than mindless blasting or holding back to the point of not properly sustaining the tone.  That's part of why this guy is my trumpet idol, he knows just what to do to get the job done in an orchestra.


So, that's my rant, and I hope you guys either learned something, or at the very least, don't think I'm a delusional, misguided fool who'll never succeed with that attitude.  Next time... well, maybe a little Christmas surprise if I remember/have time, but if I don't... MOAR MUSIC.

One term down, three to go...

Hey internet.  I'm listening to Berlin play Tchaik 4 as I write this.  Since you totally were wondering.  It was actually in my top three symphonies for a little while, though that was before I knew Mahlers 1 and 3, and its younger brother Tchaik 2, which I enjoy more due to the personal connection (in that I've actually played it, and it was one of my strongest concerts to date, plus the ending is just so comically triumphant and it makes me very happy).

I'm gonna try to not sound too bummed out, because I really shouldn't be.  Jeez, this whole blog's been a real downer for the past couple life-related posts, hasn't it?  First term's over, I somehow got my Biblio paper "written," and I'm generally doing successful in school and classes and ensembles sometimes and stuff.

I had a bad concert last week.  We performed Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes and Handel's Dettingen Te Deum, as I may have mentioned last time.  And... wow... that lineup was really hard on me. >.< I was playing Trumpet 3: Director's Cut for the Britten, and I ended up having to drop a lot of the unison parts of the second movement, which was probably noticeable since my picc sound is so different from the other guys' C sounds, but I kind of sort of maybe got some of that nasty run after rehearsal four.  To be honest, I kind of blocked the memory from my mind, so I *think* I got the high concert D, but I can't be sure.

The Handel, on the other hand, was another story.  I actually started the first two movements much stronger than I expected, but the stupid amount of trumpet lines caught up to me.  And then... the worst happened.  I farted all over the introduction to the sixth movement, the trumpet and bass duet.  Kind of the most important movement to get right.  It was definitely the most embarrassing moment of the term for me, and the next concert's so far away that I don't have a way to "redeem myself" before people forget about it.  Which I know sounds unnecessary, but I'd really rather there be a big show sooner rather than later, so instead of people thinking "Oh look, he improved," they'd think "Oh look, he's actually not as bad as Handel led me to believe."  Which is me being immature.  I admit it.  I'm sure eventually I'll be glad I had the experience to do a bad show so that I know mentally how to deal with it, but... that's later and this is now.  So I'm going to be bitter.  So THERE.

(Wrote this paragraph as an afterthought, so I'm almost at the end of the third movement of Tchaik, at the part where it quotes the fourth movement... or... vice-versa, I guess) I guess the thing about this that's the most humbling is the fact that... well... real trumpet players CAN do this.  There are shows out there that are worse.  Apparently Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks is an even MORE tiring trumpet part, and looking at the excerpts, I can tell.  But... real players can pull it off.  And I can't.  Not yet.  So... that's not acceptable.  I NEED to be able to do this.  No getting away with "oh, that was a hard show, you did your best."  NO.  Not allowed.  So it's time to get back to practicing, cuz my best better pick up the pace.

So I'm ditching Termina and heading back to Hyrule for a couple weeks, later this week.  It's going to be nice to see people again.  I mean, I am making some pretty good friends here, but I've generally been less social than I have been in the past (part of this because of not being in a youth orchestra, and part because I'm practicing on average 2-3x as long per day as I did last year).  Damn guys the second movement just started playing, I love this one... sorry, easily distracted.  As I was saying... being less social in general.  I'm actually curious as to whether that'll carry on when I go back home, playing 4-5 hours a day and pissing off the folks (maybe I'll go to the school some days so they don't have to deal with it, maybe not, idk).  I can't imagine why it wouldn't, except that I won't be entirely on my own schedule and have to conform to the family's routine, so there's that.

So I'm applying for like five or six summer programmes, I've decided, which means... audition DVDs!  Totally using the grad degree as a (legitimate) excuse to not be able to travel or spend money on auditions, meaning I have to record a bunch over the next two months (I'll end up making a big graph to see which recordings I could technically do back-to-back without stopping the camera, might make bookings easier).  I want to do a few over the break, back home, though I'd also rather get some done here in January, since I'd have more practice time, and get to have a lesson or two with Yoda first.  There's two in particular I'm hoping for, due to complementary schedules and excellent opportunities/resume lines, though if nothing goes through, there's always the Pallet Town Ping Pong Festival (which I'd love to do, don't get me wrong I really enjoy it, but another programme that I REALLY SHOULD go to overlaps with the end a bit).

Okay, I'm gonna go continue to reorganize my iPhone music library (whyyyyyyy didn't I splurge for a 16GB device?).  I leave you with this awesome masterclass from Tanglewood, it's about an hour, but really worth the watch.  Ohhey, the third movement's starting up, I love this one, too!  K, peace out, y'all.

Eighth notes are short, sixteenth notes are long, it really shouldn't be as hard as it is

Hello fellow internetters, it's that one guy again.  It's been close to a month since my last post, and I've had a long string of feeling like I haven't accomplished much, so I decided to spend another hour not accomplishing things and write a blog post.  Logic!  I know.

Of course, playing's the first thing I have to mention.  I've had three gigs outside school now, so I'm slowly getting to be known, but it's going to take a while to get off the ground, especially in a city with so many strong casual musicians.  Seriously, though, the average instrument owner in Termina seems two or three levels more advanced than the ones in Hyrule, and I've heard that it's because there's a lot of military retirees here... though, a stronger music programme in schools helps, for sure.

Either way, playing's being frustrating, as usual.  Every lesson I hear the same piece of advice, and it's the same I've been hearing for years.  I tried to explain to Obi-Wan what I'm thinking, and he's doing his best to help me, but I've really just got to re-program myself.  When I play, I instinctively feel a need to end the current note before beginning the next one, and so the faster I go, the worse that is for air flow.  It's like, for strings, at a certain speed, playing off the string just doesn't happen.  I've really got to learn to keep fast notes on the string... and then, when I'm getting close to being right, the notes that are allowed to be off the string become uncharacteristically long.  I guess it's just being able to switch back and forth, and being aware of which style to be playing at which moment... and not playing the wrong style out of habit.  It's getting better, but it's still going to take a lot of work.  After all, I'd love to play this some day, and that's just not going to happen the way I'm playing now.

We've got a pretty tank concert coming up next week, playing Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, and Handel's Dettingen Te Deum (and some Mozart I'm not in... and rumours of a Cage).  That Handel part is BEASTLY... the trumpet basically plants itself on A5 for about half an hour.  The thing is, I know I can do it... once.  I just need to make sure I don't have any other playing commitments on concert day, and everything will be fine.  Thankfully, it's written in such a way that you can play tank without destroying the other sections.  Handel knew how to handle brass instruments.  Note the distinct lack of pun.  That was on purpose.

I've been having kind of a hard time getting motivated as of late.  Part of it is probably due to the year off I took last year.  Don't get me wrong, it was super beneficial and I'd recommend it to everyone thinking about grad school, especially in music.  However, I really got used to not doing homework, and though I haven't missed anything yet (I was always really good at knocking off short assignments early), some of the longer projects are really a drag to start.  I just want to get past the course work and to the part where I'm doing nothing but playing, is that too much to ask?  Part of it is also probably that reading week was last week, and though it was nice to have time off and practice, I didn't get a whole lot of human interaction, which is kind of something I thrive on, though something at which I admit I'm terrible.  Cascade never believes me when I claim I'm like the most antisocial person ever, and that's because, living in a house of technically six (though really two tribes of three), I kind of have to force myself to be social, for fear of the others thinking I'm a terrible grinch of a person.  It's not really the same at school, and I'm really not good at getting to know people (I like to stick to two or three really good friends, and am not usually great at branching out past that), and so I end up kind of keeping to myself a lot.  Which is good when I need to practice, but not as good for morale.  I know, I make no sense.  But that's how it is.

As a few of you know, I got really interested in competitive Pokémon back when Heart Gold and Soul Silver came out.  The competitive scene is really not similar to the game, and if you bring in a team from the campaign and expect to play it like you did against computer opponents, you will suffer a swift demise.  But, because musician and therefore have no time to breed and EV train and win all those Life Orbs and Choice Bands and Power Anklets and stuff, most of my battling I do on simulators.  When I went to pick up my copy of White 2, I met a few people that are part of a fan club here, and so I went to a few of the sessions.  There's a really heavy focus on the card game, though, which is something in which I'm really not that interested.  I'll give it a few more sessions, though, see if anything I'm interested in happens, or if I end up getting to know any cool people.  There's even another music student in the group, which is nice.

So yeah, all in all, life is life, and that's that.  I submitted an application for our national youth orchestra today, which would be absolutely fantastic.  Since the local youth orchestra here never emailed me back when I asked if I could do a distance audition from Hyrule, I've been without my weekend rehearsal commitment, and I kind of miss it.  Oh, well, I'm in town now, so I can totally apply for next year.  After all, I keep telling people, don't turn down a gig if you can help it.  It's not really fair, in that I'm graduate and therefore have no courses, and a lot of the others are music undergrad, or music ed, with huge course loads.  But, I'm usually decent at not getting burned out (last two orch rehearsals I'm calling the exception to the rule, it got kinda rough), so hopefully that'll keep up.  We'll see, there's still a couple weeks left, plus all of next term.  Time to kick it up a notch.  Awesome mode, activate!

(Obi-Wan's suggested listening for a particular piece on almost every instrument's excerpt list for this season, check it out:)

The Hero of Winds is Better Than You at Everything

So, time to take a brief break from music to talk about a few nerdy things that come to mind, so it's time to get back to an old favourite: The Legend of Zelda.  The idea for this post came from ScrewAttack.com's list of Top 10 Nintendo GameCube titles, in which The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess claimed the number two spot, beating out The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker due to the only-one-game-per-franchise rule.  The Wind Waker was then dismissed as being "stupid" and "for kids" by this overtly "bro" website.  That sparked a bit of rage in me, and that's because...

The Wind Waker is maybe the best damn thing Nintendo has accomplished in the past ten years

This is the part where you're probably like "what, that silly thing? How so?"  Well, hypothetical reader, I'm glad you asked, so allow me to present you with my own list:


FIVE REASONS WHY THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE WIND WAKER IS SO DAMN GOOD YOU JUST DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE

So, without further ado, let us jump into the awesome of this game that you might just have a higher opinion of by the end of the next ten minutes or so.

(Spoiler Warning:  Obviously, the ending of this game will be ruined, but also several references to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword's religious implications and revelations will be made, complete with a spoiler warning when they do pop up)

#5:  A huge world... that you actually WANT to explore

Obviously, the overworld ocean in this game is the largest of any Zelda game so far, but I suppose you could argue that if you go by just land mass and not the sailing sections, it probably loses out barely to Twilight Princess.  Fun fact: the islands are so far apart so that the GameCube can load them while you're sailing, making the entire overworld seamless, UNLIKE in Twilight Princess.  However, this is where games like Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and even Skyward Sword lose out:  sure, the world is big, but it gives you no incentive to explore it.  The sky in Skyward Sword is the worst perpetrator: you have an entire SKY to explore, complete with islands, but the idiotic Goddess Cube system I mentioned in this article makes traversing it boring and a waste of time.

This is where The Wind Waker got it right:  you start with virtually nothing on your map, and your Sea Chart, even when complete, has minimal information on it.  You collect other charts, but no one chart has everything, you have to piece the information together, even cross-referencing treasure charts with your main Sea Chart.  This sounds like a lot of work if you haven't played the game, but it has a wonderful side-effect: you WANT to see everything there is to see.  Some islands have no plot relevance... so what are they hiding?  What secrets can you get?  You're sailing between islands, and you see... a lookout tower!  A submarine!  A fish!  Sunken treasure!  Let's stop and fight/explore/ask for hints/scavenge.  There's so many things, and this is the secret.  Unlike the other games I mentioned, where the overworld feels frankly mechanical, the ocean here  feels ALIVE.  You can ignore the plot for days on end and just... explore.  There's so much depth, and that's what The Legend of Zelda has been about since 1986.  The original game had so many useless areas, but that's because you didn't care, you just wanted to see everything, to explore.  And that's what almost every 3D Zelda game did wrong, but The Wind Waker did right.

#4:  Finding the Triforce of Courage... without main dungeon-crawling

There comes a point in the plot of the game where the dungeon-crawling comes to a halt, and you are expected to find eight pieces of the Triforce of Courage, which might be the longest stretch outside of a dungeon in a Zelda game to date, depending on how much exploration you've done up until this point in the game.

Again, this is another thing so many Zelda games do one way, but The Wind Waker tries another way... and gets it perfect.  The shards of the Triforce themselves are located under the sea, meaning the player must salvage them manually, but cannot do so without a chart.  Getting the chart, on the other hand, is where the adventure comes in.  For example, one is found on the bottom floor of the Savage Labyrinth, which puts Link's endurance and courage to the test.  One requires you to solve what you thought was a side-quest involving schoolkids and a teacher on Windfall Island in order to get a key to a private villa.  One involves traversing a maze to get the Ghost Ship Chart, which then sends you chasing a vessel that changes location depending on the phase of the moon.

Sounds like an awful lot of work, doesn't it?  But again, this is a game that makes you WANT to explore.  The Triforce Charts really integrate the ocean into the plot of the game, making the overworld feel just as puzzling and exciting as the dungeons, and gives the game a homogenous feeling of exploration throughout, something the other games don't always accomplish.  Sure, you're not finding a dungeon item and beating a boss with it, but this is really what makes it feel less artificial, less like a "game," and more like an adventure.  Because at the heart of it, that's where The Wind Waker really gets it right - it's an adventure.

#3:  Ganon is a total badass

Thanks to Hyrule Historia, we now have the Nintendo-Approved timeline to The Legend of Zelda, so we can make statements on the progression of the one character who exists in the most titles in the series: Ganon (remember, each Link is generally considered a separate person in a line of spiritual successors of the Hero of Time; same goes for Zelda).  At the end of Ocarina of Time, Ganon is sealed in the Sacred Realm by the Seven Sages, and Zelda sends Link seven years into the past so he may live the childhood he missed, due to being sealed in the Temple of Time for seven years.  According to the official timeline, Link and past Zelda reveal Ganon's plot before he can enact it, which leads to the execution scene from the flashback in Twilight Princess.  However, in the future Link just left, his bloodline is permanently removed, thanks to Zelda sending him back.  If we continue among this timeline, Ganon eventually breaks out of the Sacred Realm and amasses an army, and the people of the land pray for the Hero of Time to save them again.

...but the hero did not appear.

Eventually, the Goddesses "answer" the Hylians' prayers by flooding the land, killing basically everyone not living on top of a mountain (except, ironically, Ganon), and resetting everything.  The Wind Waker takes place while Hyrule is still underwater, and Ganon has realized he can once again return Hyrule to its former state through the power of the Triforce.

Eventually, when Link meets Ganon, he learns Ganon's motives, and the player's hatred of this man hits a brick wall.  Ganon just wanted the Gerudo people to be able to experience the fresh world, the feeling of inclusion and acceptance, that the Hylians had.  I mean, granted, he's a proven lying bastard, so the fact that he's [SPOILER] a being manifested out of Demise's pure hatred, making him essentially Hyrule's Anti-Christ, probably has something to do with it, too.

In the final fight, Ganon's true colours emerge.  Once he's deprived of his chance to rule the beautiful lands he coveted, he decides that, since he's about to die under the crushing weight of the ENTIRE OCEAN, he might as well take you down with him.  And this is arguably the most spectacular and fun fight in the entire franchise, with Koloktos from Skyward Sword being the only enemy I can think of to even come CLOSE to the scope of this particular bout with Ganon.

Of course, he must eventually be defeated, but even when he is, he closes with one of the most badass last lines in gaming.

"The wind... it is blowing..."

#2:  Traditional Gender Roles are skewed, then re-established... then upended all over again

I'm not talking much about Aryll here, who serves as our damsel in distress for most of this game.  It's Tetra that's the interesting one.  Tetra starts out the game as a pirate captain, bossing around the boys, and looking several years too young for some of the lewd implications the other pirates make about her.  She's tough, she's confident, she's the girl in charge... and then everything changes when she and Link go to Hyrule Castle, which is held in suspended animation under the sea.

It turns out that, surprise surprise, Tetra is actually this game's princess Zelda, and therefore [SPOILER] the physical manifestation of Hylia, making her this game's Jesus.  This is where the game really rubs me the wrong way, similar to how Pokémopolis claims Togepi ruined the strong female lead of Pokémon by turning her into a one-dimensional maternal figure (couldn't find the link, sorry).  Zelda remains in Hyrule Castle, where the King wants her to be safe from Ganon... of course, she is kidnapped eventually.  She went from ass-kicker to helpless maiden locked away to damsel in distress... way to "feminize" in the worst possible way, Nintendo.

Eventually Link makes it to the final battle with Ganon, and promptly gets his ass handed to him.  Before Ganon is victorious, the King buys Link a couple seconds of time, and guess who shows up... ZELDA.  With the Master Sword.  Link ends up taking the sword, and Zelda the Light Arrows, and they gear up for a two-on-one battle against Ganon.

Here's where things are really shaken up.  Sure, in Ocarina of Time you fight Ganon with Zelda, and she uses magic to pin him down for you to deliver the final blow, but it's pretty damn obvious that you don't need help.  You're the Hero of Time, dammit, you just owned this fight all by yourself, you could keep going for hours.  Yeah... not in this game.  In The Wind Waker, Ganon is more than a match for BOTH of you.  Pay attention to the third phase of the fight, after Zelda re-awakens after being knocked unconscious, but before she gets the idea to reflect light arrows off of your shield.  How many times did you hit Ganon?  Oh, that's right... NONE.  Without breaking into the code to confirm, I feel I can safely say that short of exploiting glitches, you CANNOT hit Ganon in this phase.  He is infinitely better than you, poor player.

This is where Zelda comes in.  You see, she started as being the badass you hoped to be, was then diminished to passive female lead, and then to damsel in distress.  All of a sudden, she's now your only hope of defeating Ganon.  The fight is impossible to win on your own, and she becomes your lifeline.  Partnering with Zelda is the way you overcome, and when you finally do triumph over Ganon, it's because the lead female character opened up a can of whoop-ass on him.  However, don't forget, there's still one more thing even better about this game...

#1:  The Hero of Winds is better than you at everything

Hey, he used the title of the post in the post, how cute.  Anyways, let's jump back to Hyrule Historia for a second, and realize something pretty huge about Link.  You see, at the end of Ocarina of Time, Zelda sends Link back to the past, but in doing so, removes Link's bloodline from this chronology.  When Ganon eventually breaks from the seal holding him in the Sacred Realm, there is no descendant of the Hero.  Ganon's entire purpose, [SPOILER] being the incarnation of Demise's hatred for the Hero of Time, is now lost, and so he's free to go about his slightly-less-mindlessly-evil evil ways.

Enter this Link.  The Hero of Winds.  Link here is treated in the beginning of the game as the butt of almost any joke.  He's smashed against walls, ridiculed by pirates, strapped in barrels and catapulted into evil fortresses, thrown into the sea, chased around by snot-nosed kids and pigs, and all sorts of humiliating things.  He just can't get a break.  Then, of course, in traditional Zelda style, it turns out you're the hero... BUT WAIT.

No, go ahead, watch it again.  I'll wait while it sinks in.

Seriously, this has to be the greatest idea Nintendo had in The Wind Waker.  Previous games use incarnations of the legendary Hero of Time, knight of Skyloft who [SPOILER] vanquished this game's equivalent of the devil, Demise, and whose bloodline is burdened with keeping his malevolent intentions at bay.  The Wind Waker does nothing like that.  Link is not the reincarnation of a legendary hero.  Link is not connected by fate to the Blade of Evil's Bane, the Master Sword.  Link is not destined to wield the Triforce of Courage.

But you know what?  HE DOES IT ANYWAYS.

Seriously, this is brilliant.  It's all because Ganon kidnaps Link's sister, thinking she looks enough like what Zelda is supposed to look like that maybe she is.  Obviously, we find out it's Tetra, but Ganon's not above kidnapping girls until he stumbles across the right one by chance.  And that's his mistake... he messes with this little kid with no destiny, no background, no anything.  Just a whole lot of courage, and a whole lot of determination.  Ganon could have never seen it coming.  He lets Link live at the beginning of the game, because he's not the Hero of Time, he's some worthless kid.

But Ganon KIDNAPPED HIS SISTER.

And for that... he dies.

Link, the Hero of Winds, goes down in the books as one of the biggest badasses in video games.




(Also, this track is amazing)

 
(Next time: probably some trumpet stuff!)

Confessions of a Recovering Trumpetophobe

Hello, Internet!  How are you today?  Looking fine, I see.  Is that a new haircut?  No, wait... new frames.  Yeah, that's it.  Been working on any good Bach lately?

Okay, all introductions aside, I do have the ideas for two nerdy posts I'm probably going to do back-to-back, but first, I thought this might be relevant.  It's something that's come up a lot for me recently, and something I'm also getting really adamant about, mostly because I'm angry with myself that it's something I even have to work on.  This should be instinctive, but... alas.

I've been enjoying my lessons with Obi-Wan, though I've noticed a recurring theme.  It's something that I haven't really thought of as an issue before, though I've heard it said in a few different ways in retrospect, but never in a way that's made it out-prioritize everything else I'm working on until now.  Now, several people in the non-trumpet brass department back in Pallet Town have been on my case for several reasons in the past, and rightly so, I don't consider myself to be that fantastic a player.  As I've said before, I don't think anyone should consider themselves that fantastic a player, since once you do, you risk allowing yourself to not improve, and justify it by saying you've reached your goal.

Random aside, because it seems appropriate in the moment.  I came up with this plan to keep myself motivated throughout my career, and I encourage you to do the same.  It's a very basic plan, and when you'll hear it, you'll think it trivial, but it's necessary.  All you have to do is make sure that, once you achieve a goal, you set a more impossible one.  For example, one of these days, I'm going to perform Brandenburg.  That's my first goal.  Once I do that, don't remain satisfied.  I set a new goal: I'm going to perform Hungarian Schnapsodie.  After that monster is under my belt, I'm not done.  By that point, I'll be considerably more skilled than I am now, so I have to make my goal more impossible... how about this?  If I manage to accomplish that (and before you scoff, I've heard it performed ON THE TRUMPET, so it's possible!  Look up Malcolm McNab, I think he's on iTunes), then I just aim higher.  This way, there is the sad reality that I will never accomplish all of my goals, because I'd have a never-ending stream of goals going.  But, it means that I never stop working to just get better and better.

Anyways, back to business.  I don't consider myself a fantastic player, but I'm trying really damn hard, and I'm getting more legit as time goes on.  Anyways, people have been getting on me for ages about various flaws.  The usual trumpet ones always pop up: your sound is too brassy, your sound is too shrill, your attacks are too harsh, you're too loud (heh, going to rebut that one in a second), your notes are too short, and so on, and so on.  All you trumpets have heard this all before, I'm sure.  So, when I went to Viridian City, I expected the comments to be mostly the same.

Then, Obi-Wan's very first comment in my lesson came as a shock.  I find people here are very nice when they critique... sometimes I wish people would be meaner, I'm certainly used to them being that way!  He told me my sound was too small, too contained, too lacking in colour, too... careful.  Part of it was just an inhale thing, but even when we sorted that out, my sound would start big, then revert during moving lines.  After some experimentation (as O-W so correctly said, we're all essentially learning the instrument on our own, and our teachers only hear us one hour a week, so they give advice, but the other 167 hours, we have to critique ourselves and teach ourselves), I figured it out... I had become so self-conscious of all these little things that I had inadvertently made an introvert out of myself.  I had become afraid to go out there and play.  I had become afraid of my own instrument.

Probably the two most useful pieces of information I have gained in the past month of lessons is this fact, and on just how useful air patterns away from the horn are (seriously, they fix like all the things).  O-W was right in saying that, in a real 60-piece orchestra, I'd be dead tired in no time, I'd conditioned myself to play to myself, and not PLAY the TRUMPET for people.  This has been the main focus of my practice for the past couple weeks, is just getting a relaxed, confident, colourful, free-flowing, full, broad, TRUMPET sound.  So many other issues don't even need fixing when this happens, because they no longer become issues, you're playing the instrument the way it's meant to be played, and so everything works out.

Now don't get me wrong, the advice everyone has given me in the past is valuable, and I'm not going to disregard anything.  I've just learned the most important lesson about the trumpet: don't let anything, and I mean ANYTHING, get in the way of filling the entire room, concert hall, even WORLD (conceptually, of course) with your huge, gorgeous trumpet sound.  And it's not volume, you can still play pianissimo, but a THICK pianissimo.  If you think of the quality and dynamic of your sound as the size and colour of an object (it really doesn't matter which is which, they're interchangeable), changing one shouldn't effect the other, so why let it?  A nice, thick, ringing pianissimo and a nice, thick, ringing fortissimo differ in dynamic, and a little bit in colour (I don't want you to get the wrong idea when I say that), but need the same intensity, the same depth, and the same ringing quality.  Really, the secret is simple: immediate, deliberate, continuous, advancing air.  Never step back, never give up, never surrender.  It's that easy.

So, that's my little rant of the day.  As I said before, I have two nerdy posts to make (maaaaaybe three, given the events happening this and next week), and by that point it'll be after the masterclass and probably after the orchestra concert, so back to the trumpet.  See you then!

I have a bad habit of being interested in, like, the worst possible people

Hey guys, it's two weeks into the new year, and a whole lot of cool stuff has been going down.  Since the internet has made it possible to write arrogantly long rants wreathed with vanity on ones own experiences, I figured I might as well chat about things for a bit, fill y'all in on the first little while of my time here in Termina.

(Termina rather than Viridian City because I've realized that almost everyone I see here looks like someone I've seen before, just edited somewhat... it's kind of freaky, really)

Obviously the biggest thing I've had to worry about was my ensemble placement audition, which was on the first Friday of my being back.  I had to play the last movement of JS Bach's cello Suite #1, a short melody blatantly ripped from the violin line in the first movement of Mahler 5, and another wind ensemble-esque fanfare thing.  And... I thought it went poorly, at first.  I got a huge hit of nerves partway through the Bach excerpt, and had a really hard time breathing for the rest of the page, which isn't exactly the best thing on brass.  I took a bit of extra time to try and catch my breath for the Mahler-esque one, but I still felt like my breathing was really shallow (I played the Mahlery one on C, for that added touch of detail, I think it went over well; can't say for sure as the audition was blind).  Finally, by the concert band one, I had calmed down enough to play normally, and that one actually kind of rocked.

Thankfully, it worked out for me, and I ended up getting into the orchestra rather than the wind symphony, which is exactly what I was hoping for.  I guess, if people would ask me what my advice would be for a stressful situation like that, it's "keep going, no matter what."  I really think my nerves were audible, but at the same time, I didn't let anything stop me.  Even when I was struggling for air, I kept the flow of the piece (I may have sped up a tad >.>) and tanked my way through.  It's kind of the same in rep class / perf class / masterclass / whatever your school calls it: you're trying to emulate a performance, so DON'T STOP.  Tank your way through, and if you do want to stop, have a good, justifiable reason for it.

Firebird was making fun of me because I discovered something I had made fun of her for once: the half-hour practice session.  I used to do the marathon thing when it came to practicing, and I kind of hate my old habits of doing that.  Doing 3-5 half-hour sessions in a day is CLEARLY the superior option, as I've been feeling fresh for each one, having an easier time concentrating, and getting tired less often, not to mention having a better batting average in ensemble rehearsals.  Maurice frickin' André was an advocate of the half-hour session, for crying out loud... how have I not discovered this before?  But, yeah... do it.

We had our first quintet rehearsal today, and it looks like we'll probably be doing two per week, one coached and one independently.  It was good to read through some things, and I think we'll work out to be a pretty solid group, once we start doing some serious woodshedding.

It's a little unusual to me, but ensembles are really early at this school.  Like, the latest I'm usually done is by 6pm, meaning I generally get back home by 7.  This means, being the antisocial hermit that I am, and since I don't have an undergraduate amount of homework to do, I get bored a lot easier at night.  Not that that's interesting to anyone, but as I said, laced with vanity or something.

And so yeah, that was my not-terribly-interesting post of the night.  Not sure what's in store next time, might be another one of these, might be a silly one, might be something completely different.  I do have an idea for a silly one, but it's a very rough plan.  So, instead, I'll leave you with something that's just... also silly.  Peace out!