Euph lesson 3-29-10

I thought that my lesson went pretty well today. I got caught a little off guard by one of the rubank lessons on pg. 29ish. I had been spending so much time on fundies and on the articulation studies in the back that I neglected to practice the etude type study at the beginning of the book, woops. Oh well, I'll just have to make sure and add it and the next one to my practice list along with my scales and fundies book, as well as the articulation studies. I've been learning a lot this semester, and I am definately finding out that there is a lot more to brass playing than meets the eye. I knew this already, but now I'm getting a better first hand look at everything I guess. The only bad thing about it is that between low brass, percussion, band, choral conducting, and choir, I can't decide yet whether I would rather teach instrumental music or vocal music. Most people focus on just one main area, but I've been learning everything I can about both sides of the music spectrum. Maybe I should start to narrow down my fields a little bit, but there's just so much good music, and when you can sing, play percussion, saxophone, and euphonium, its hard to choose sometimes. I guess its a good thing that I've got another year to figure that out.

Intercolegiate Honor Band and a new trombone

So we went down to Lincoln on thursday morning for intercollegiate honor band. It was probably one of the best concerts that I have ever been a part of. Playing with that many top level college musicians and playing a piece of music to almost complete perfection made me realize what you can really do in band. It also made me realize that while I'm not the worst percussionist there is, I definitely have room to improve. At least I can say that I didn't miss a single note during the concert. It was one of those experiences that you learn a lot from, and if you people think practicing for an hour every day is hard, try rehearsing for almost 15 hours in two days, it will definitely be a wake up call as to how much you can play.
In other news, I bought a trombone. Its an old Bundy Oldes model student level horn that came with a 15 c mouthpiece. I found it in an antique shop in lincoln for $24 dollars. At first I looked at it and thought "there is no way that this thing will even play if its in an antique shop." But I opened the case, took a look at it, and its really not in that bad of shape. There is very very little red rot anywhere and no dents at all that I can find. The bell is a little out of shape and it has some rust issues where laquer has come off, but other than that its pretty good. My one problem is that it looks like the slide is either warping inward or someone sqeezed it or something, because even after I cleaned the slide and put on superslick and water, it still wants to bind in places. But it I put a little bit of presure on the outside of the slide, then the internal moves fine. So does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this without a huge repair bill?

Euphonium Lesson 3-1-10

Its amazing how much better I feel after every euph lesson. And I don't really know why, they just always seem to go really good, even if I'm having trouble with parts of what I have been practicing. Maybe its just because I'm basically still a beginner on euphonium, so I am always learning something new about the horn and about low brass in general. It just really helps to remind me of why I became a music major in the first place, to learn about music. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy for wanting to know everything there is about music, but at least I'll know a little about low brass in the process.