1/21/18 – 1/28/18
I have not written of my personal narrative and have shared it for quite some time not since I have returned from Los Angeles already two and a half years ago. However, I must say plenty has happened since. My journey has gone from manifest westiny to the mid-westiny. A whirlwind swept me off my feet and dropped me into the middle of Little Egypt, Carbondale Illinois. For the past 18 weeks I have undergone intense sparring sessions for hours at a time honing my swordsmanship in the desert castle of Altgeld.
In addition to honing my swords skills, my mind must also stay sharpened by the whetstone of academia. Interestingly, Sīfu Butler has prescribed supplemental reading in regards to habits via Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. Essentially, Rubin’s book starts with the idea of self-knowledge, or knowing ourselves so we can successfully shape our habits because they vary from person to person (Rubin, 13). Every human being is different and therefore we must first become acquainted with ourselves in order to cultivate habits. Under the Rubin lens, humans fall under four unique categories the rebel, the obligers, the questioner, and the rare upholder which I fall under.
“Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations… we often think what is on the schedule for today. As a collective group we avoid making mistakes and letting people down—including ourselves (Rubin, 18). Upholders are self-directed and driven individuals. Often times I compare the upholder as a daemon. In computer terms a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process as opposed to being controlled by an interactive user waiting to be activated by a specific event or condition which would be my classes. Additionally, upholders tend to be inexorable, or an uncompromising unstoppable energy entity. Upholders stop at nothing to complete the outer and inner expectations they have of themselves and with tag of self-preservation attached to being an upholder. We are truly a unique combination of arcane alchemy.
Rubin then explores dichotomous avenues of how best to form our habits and set ourselves up for success. Ideally, I would consider myself an owl. A wise observant raptor who enjoys the night. In regards to habits, it takes me a couple hours before I can become acquainted with my world and usually a large cup of unadulterated java. Only then I can stretch my feathers and open my wide eyes ready to observe and absorb the world with an introspective hoot, but more often a slidey toot.
Gretchen then pitches the idea of being a marathoner, sprinter or a procrastinator (Rubin, 33). I am a marathoner when it comes to practicing my swordsmanship I work consistently at a slow pace planning for longevity. I cannot recall the amount of times I have heard things like “art takes time.” I find that in art fields one must learn to craft patience and then see where the art takes us. Under the banner of an Upholder and specifically being a marathoner, I find myself often planning for my longevity which is only helped by Upholders self-perseverance quality. The rationale behind being a marathoner is simple. I was taught to “yearn for the vast and endless sea (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)”, so I will do my best to preserve myself and analyze the bountiful body of musical water.
I do not credit my marathon habits to this book because my practice habits have been in place for quite some time. Personally, I learned my practice habits from online role-playing games. For instance, in the early stages of leveling a character often times a grind is expected. Grinding is essentially a repetitive task usually slaying monsters in order to gain experience to level up. Being a musician requires grinding countless hours in the practice room hitting certain levels to populate your reality with opportunity. Once a certain level is reached you can band together with other individuals in order to accomplish a greater goal. This would be the equivalent of playing in a group. Furthermore, once you have achieved max level online role-playing games do not end. De facto the game really only begins once you hit maximum level. I would equate this as obtaining your undergraduate degree and if you choose to return to academia you purchase the expansion pack do you get to continue your character’s adventures. However, one must be cautious about online gaming because of how addictive it is. I was able to detach myself and apply these habits from online gaming to real life.
The next question Rubin poses is “are you an underbuyer or an overbuyer (Rubin, 34)?” I will be honest I am an underbuyer, buying what is only necessary. Often times I see myself as frugal, but as a music student I realize that the bigger and finer things in life will take much more time to accumulate. I like being an underbuyer, living modestly, within my means, and unmaterialistic. With that in mind, I favor simplicity much like Buddhism less is more. The less choices I have the easier things tend to flow from A->B Sometimes simplicity makes life clairvoyant and the path obvious.
Two more contrasting questions exist in Rubin’s Better Than Before. She asks “are you promotion or prevention focused and do you take small steps or big steps (38-40).” Typically, I fall in the middle of these categories often falling somewhere in the middle depending on what choice I make. For instance, I eagerly and optimistically pursue my goals, however, I will wait at a stop sign for three seconds before hitting the acceleration of my vehicle out of fear that I may get pulled over for California rolling through the intersection. Finally, when it comes to big or small steps I like to dive right in when it comes to music. In other instances, I took small steps to get where I am now. I remember drinking my coffee like a scrub with all the fixings and spending upwards of several dollars on coffee from a retailer. Over a few years I slowly weened myself off of milk, cream, and sugar and have been ritualistically drinking my coffee black for about four years.
Better Than Before introduces ourselves to the concept of self-knowledge or mastering ourselves first in order to create better habits and better lives. The path that I am on today is filled with serenity, catharsis, and harmony thanks to the habits I have implemented into my life. However, I will say that not every day is your best and we all get the blues sometimes, but overall, the climate of my life is serene and if all it takes to continue this climate is to keep doing what I am doing so be it. Living this serious musical lifestyle has allowed me to circumvent some of the problems that my friends and family has faced.
There is no better buzz that I get than the satisfaction of meeting both the inner and outer expectations of an upholder. Typically, on nights when I walk home late my eyes with an intense glow of vibrancy because I am habitually doing what I love, getting better at it, and rest fulfilled knowing that my horn will be there tomorrow to resume course.
I would argue that my days are a bit more ritualistic than habitual. I start Monday morning with music theory. This week is all about reviewing counterpoint, something I have not touched on since Dr. Kaioken Osowski’s music theory class circa 2013, so the review is welcoming, but a tad bit too early in the morning for this owl. Afterwards, my typical routine starts where I make a B line from the desert castle of Altgeld to the twin-tailed green siren with the black liquid in the bazaar … speaking of which it is time to visit the fickle mistress herself (3:45 p.m.) … It takes me from Dougey Jones to Dale Cooper in an instant without having to stick a fork in an electrical socket.
Once I return from the mistress this is where my training begins. Typically, I work ear training on the tech slate for an hour in order to make a weakness into a strength. I take a 15-min. break afterwards to let my ears and mind recoup, grab my blade, and head into the practice room for a solid extended warmup/ technical studies practice session. I start this session with buzzing for five-ten minutes. I usually throw on a few cool jams to get my session started which is followed by buzzing over a few scales. Next, I do one of the most beneficial brass playing exercises long tones. I have three staple extended warm-up exercises which has evolved into multiple sets playing in all registers, alternate slide positions, and working with different dynamics. These exercises mainly focus on getting a decent sound and improving on alternate slide positions and intonation.
Lip slurs are such a crucial component in the development of any brass player. I spend ten minutes every session working on my flexibility to help my embouchure in certain partials and to simply overall better navigate the nuances of my horn. Recently, I have become frustrated in with lip slurs because of a mysterious whisp I get through my horn when I tend to navigate through lower partials. I still have not yet figured out what has caused this phenomena in my practice routine. I wish I could be practicing my slurs at faster rates, but incorporating the good habit slow/ steady is far superior than fast and wrong.
This semester I wanted to start learning the syntax of jazz. I have been working through some of the exercises in J.J. Johnson’s Exercises and Etudes for the Jazz Instrumentalist. In a few weeks of doing some of the exercises from this book I have noticed that my ability to recognize certain musical scaling patterns has gotten better. Overall, I am excited to continue working through this method book because the challenging patterns are helping me develop areas of musicianship that need fertilized. I was initially drawn back into sword fighting because of J.J. Johnson’s Eminent Volume 2 specifically a bebop track called “Viscosity.” Any chance to learn the syntax of jazz from virtuoso Johnson is an opportunity that one should not hesitate to jump on. I spend approximately 5 mins. learning new scale patters and getting acquainted with unfamiliar accidentals.
I conclude my first routine with practicing scales in various intervals around the circle of fifths. I will also rotate which scales I work on. Once I get through the scales in my wheel house I will challenge myself to keep adding news scales into the mix. Eventually, I would like to have my diminished scales thrown into the cycle. On certain days I will focus on running through scales in all alternate positions and different patterns for 2 mins. Once I conclude with my extended warm-up/ technical studies I can move onto my second practice session which consists of more technique, practicing rep, and sight-reading. However, before I delve into my second practice session of the day I usually get some listening done.
I really enjoy revisiting musicians that I forget about especially when they release new material. Last week I had the please of revisiting HBE, or Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. HBE recently released their second album on the Honest Jon’s Records. This label was started conjunction with Damon Albarn who is responsible for acts such as Blur and Gorillaz. HBE was featured on Plastic Beach and often referred to as the horn contingent. This eight-piece Chicago based brass band consists of the late great jazz trumpeter Phil Cohran. Book of Sound functions more like meditative ambience as opposed to the upbeat groove inspired genre amalgam that I typically associate with their sound. What I really enjoy about this group is their range and versatility which spans from jazz, hip-hop, rock and roll, reggae, and afro-beat. HBE never fails to expand into different territories and try new things.
Coming to Illinois was a fantastic way to expand my knowledge of mid-west/ Chicago based trombone players. Interestingly, over the past week I was exposed to Jim Pugh native of NJ and graduate of Eastman. Jim spent much of his career in NY playing lead trombone with the Woody Herman’s Thundering Heard, Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, and a laundry list of other commercial performance gigs. Pugh resides at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am no extensive expert on Pugh, but I greatly enjoy listening to 747 a duet for tenor and bass trombone with Pugh and David Taylor that involves playing over a drum machine. I really enjoy veering off into a new trombone rabbit hole and ever expanding my knowledge of incredible trombone players.
My second practice session starts after my ensembles Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Since I got through my technical fundamentals/ warm-up session I move on to the fun stuff. Here I will spend time working on two additional technical exercises and then I will work through a book called The Well-Tempered Trombonist: A Guide to Tonal/ Aural Mastery. Recently I have moved on in the book where a simple tune is in the key of C major and you are expected to take a simple tune and then transpose it in all keys, but as of right now I am sticking to major keys which provides some great ear-training hurdles to navigate. Next, I work on repertoire for ensembles or lessons and conclude with sight-reading. I really enjoy working with Sight-reading Factory an app that allows me to adjust many parameters, but allows me to generate an infinitesimal amount of sight reading material on my phone for $35 a year. In addition, it allows for me to do sight reading in different clefs.
Once I finish my second practice session on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I retreat to the dining hall for a bite to eat and then to back you my room where I spend time working on homework and dabbling in producing music which mostly turns out to be me practicing piano.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually might light practicing days of the week. I spend most of the day playing in either trombone studio, lessons, jazz, and orchestra. On top of that I am taking a class in brass pedagogy where I get mind fragged once or twice a week by reading about the man, myth, and legend Arnold Jacobs and his incredible nuggets of pedagogical wisdom.
I would keep rambling about the lens that I look through. but I have plenty more opportunities to discuss the many adventures throughout the rest of the semester, so until next time… peace peace
