The Sacrosanct, Sagacious, Salubrious and Satiating Solo/Ensemble Escapade

Arthur Pryor

That right above this text is a famous trombone player named Arthur Pryor. I personally don't know why I chose this picture, but if you look up trombone solos and go down exactly 73 rows you will find this picture.

To continue down this unnecessary tangent...

Random 19th Century South Carolinian Trombone Player/ Model

Alright, so if you look up revolutionary war trombone player and go down eight rows you will find this spunky carolinian civil war trombone model. From this picture you can tell that she has a great personality with a lot to bring to a conversation about pop culture.

If you haven't questioned the nature of this blog yet then, congratulations! You are used to the pointless, tangential and disfigured statements that truly embody what my blog is about.

Now onto the thing that was actually in this blogpost's title.

Alright, my perfect audience. I went to Layton for the Utah State Solo/Ensemble. I took the bus with the percussion ensemble at about 10:30 AM. I was the only non-percussion soloist on the bus that morning and my solo was scheduled for 3:05. So,  you can imagine that I had a lot of time on my hands. Now, this was Layton High School not Time Square or Las Vegas. There weren't places things to do or people to see for at least 3 hours. We weren't allowed to leave the campus, so all my exploration were kept to the confines of the Layton Knight's inner sanctum. Rationally, I walked around until I saw some orchestra kids like Benny O and Charlie L. Charlie Had to leave, so I was hanging out with Benny(if you know benny, you know this was going to be an "interesting" time. After an hour of Benny filled exploration and copious cheerio throws later, Benny realized that all the orchestra kids had left the building, so he grabbed all his stuff and ran out of the building at a dead sprint. So being "responsible" me, with an hour to go I found where my solo was, texted my piano accompanist to arrange where we should rehearse, suggested that the 15 minute time limit on the warm-up room was just a "rule", that no one enforces that and got my stuff. When I got to the practice that my accompanist setup in I found a overly nervous freshman with a white dress shirt and tie telling me that we had 8 minutes left. After I got my trombone out, warmed up, realized that the room made my sound overly bright  and was told we had 5 minutes left. Thereafter a rather, um, stout woman popped open the door and whispered a question to the preppy freshman (I surmised that she was asking about the time left). She looked at me with a supercilious look on her face along with a glint of intolerance and elitism in her eyes. What I got from that expression was, "Look at that tuxedoed up child trying to rehearse before his solo. If you had to rehearse right before you solo, you weren't ready to begin with. Idiot".  I'm sorry guys, but I can't quit capture it and put into words what this quite obese woman showed on her face. But, loathed her so much that it was as if Kim Jong Un came into that warm-up room and intimated that we were not good at planning out rehearsals. Enough of my ranting. We left the warm-up room, shared another warm-up room the cats pajamas and trombone guy Jake A. just to spite that woman and the rules. After that I went over to the seminary where lots of solos were taking place for my scheduled solo. From there I waited 37 minutes after my appointed solo time, because they were apparently running behind schedule and met wondrous Mr. Hughes outside the bus while feeling bad for keeping the bus off schedule. I got a 1- compared to the 1 I got at region which I guess I'm pretty proud of considering the lack of effort I put into my solo after region. Also I have to say that the judging is scaled up. For example the comments could be"work on getting these notes at measure 73-75 and make sure that you have dynamic range" or something where they are more conservative with what they tack off on your solo. At State They say "These notes weren't tuned and your tone quality was not not consistent".They really start tacking off things and that's why it's important to make your good solo even better or you could get a point or more lower at state compared to region.

Thanks to everyone who reads this so and now filled blogpost.

To leave you guys with a good feeling in the most centralized point in your vascular system is this metaphorical masterpiece. If you understand high school bands this is rodent gold.

l.o.l. rodent metaphors

Tremendous Transcriptions with Decadent Dolphins and Backhanded Bulldogs

Snoop Dogg with Dolphins

The Nationalist Dolphin

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen! It's that time of year at my schedule where all the Jazz band kids at my school have to do a transcription. Usually only 12 bars from a 12 bar blues song with the head and the actual solo. In my jazz band we have to learn to play the changes on piano for our song; I'm sure that in Varsity it's only harder and more time consuming.  

Maybe it is a hassle to do the transcription but it improves us all as players of our respective instruments. For example when you are listening to the soloist you have to be able to tell what note he's playing while keeping track of the rhythm. Not all of the notes are sustained for long at all. Maybe you are trying to transcribe one of Andy Martin's solos and he goes into a 5 bar nonstop 16-note run, and there, you are pretty much hopeless unless you are now all of the jazz specific scales by heart or you have a program that can slow the song. But, when you transcribe you develop your musical ear so you can decipher notes better and be able to listen to something and play it right off the bat. When you get to that point its really cool and you can show off to all your friends. 

Transcription improves your solo vocabulary. If you want to be a good soloist or even if you just want cool stuff to play over changes then transcription is what you want to do. There are hundreds of solos over an f blues by talented and famous musicians that you can listen to, transcribe, and play over some changes at your school or even at home with some changes you can play on your laptop. 

The last thing is that the best players have done tons of transcriptions. There's a trumpet player at my high school named Luca and he is an amazing soloist. He's transcribed every solo that clifford brown has on the internet and if you listen to Clifford or you know how he plays, Luca has an identical solo vocabulary and tone quality. If I wanted to sound like Andy Martin or JJ Johnson I would listen to them all the time, transcribe everything that they've put out. At the end of it my solo vocabulary would be dramatically different and expanded, my tone quality would have changed to a point and I would be able to show off all his works and name them. 

That's all I have to say about transcriptions for this post. I hope that you guys liked and potentially learned something from it. Also if you want an easy way to transcribe you can go to Noteflight, it makes the process of transcription phenomenally easier then just using a pen and musical score paper because you don't have to rely on your handwriting and what you believe a note sounds like in your head. It writes it out so it looks professional and it plays the note for you so you can check if its the correct one.It plays back what you wrote with your choice of instrument to play it along with a choice of swing or no swing. 

Sorry, but I had to say it. Have a nice day or night. Look forward to a post about marching band and this bulldog.

Bulldog in a Toddler Swing