KMEA Bass Trombone All-State 2021-2022
Welcome back everyone! I haven't don’t a blog post in quite awhile, it has been extremely busy semester! Let’s dive into the bass trombone all-state music for this year.
The above recordings were done very quickly this morning for TWO reasons.
To get a knee-jerk read on them to see how I would play them naturally without ANY practice.
To get an idea of what kind of problems a student could have when practicing.
For the Bordogni, I immediately felt myself trying to rush everything. Make sure you practice 90/10 percent of your time WITH a metronome! Secondly, start at a comfortable piano. All of the dynamics will be relative to your first dynamic interpretation. Ideally, just think the softest you can play but have a strong tone.
Don’t get too hung up on all of the accents, let the natural slur upwards be enough of a push for the notes to come out sounding stronger. MOST of the accents happen either on re-articulated passages or natural slurs. The A# in measure 4 being the exception which I give a little more stress across the whole note, giving it some forward momentum than an actual accent.
This is our make or break section. Careful not to get too loud and keep it smooth and connected. There aren’t any valve tricks here to keep it anymore smooth than just basic positions. In my recording, the downbeat A in measure 17 was too much, and not centered, because I wanted to make a difference in volume, its not needed as long as you come to a nice piano in the phrase before.
I did play the F# on the side valve this run as an experiment, it was smooth and an ok sound for this passage. I would consider other alternative with as smooth as possible in mind. The final forte is on the highest note of the piece, so no need to over do that dynamic, just end on a decrescendo and you will be golden!
Moving to the Blazhevich, the BIGGEST thing I hear in my recording is just some intonation problems. Next was wanting to go faster than the posted tempo, which I’ve experienced in the past to be both a good thing and a bad thing. Great, you can play it faster, shows good technique and preparation… but it can also show you don’t know how to follow directions. 50/50 on what kind of judge you will get.
This is a pretty straight forward excerpt that I would just try not to get too blatty on by keeping the dynamic in the the mezzo range focused purely on tone.
Musically speaking, any passage that sequenced I tried to just crescendo or decrescendo.
My biggest takeaway from this years selections are tone in the middle to low register and solid time.
PRACTICE YOUR SCALES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Again, these are VERY rough passes at both of these etudes and I would not try to copy/play along with them. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, comments for concerns!