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.