[Trombone-l] Causal Player

[dslide13 at aol.com]

I disagree that you're trapped at "your" level based on your practice 
regimen. When I moved to NYC, I improved without playing a gig simply 
by hearing so many other great players. I was practicing 10 hours a 
day, and when I did get gigs I didn't have any chops to play them. In a 
conversation with Slide, he told me that I was on the horn too much and 
that there were many ways to practice music. Sitting at the piano, or 
listening to music were just as important as time with the horn. 
Ideally, I find time on the horn to be physical. But, the art of music 
is much more.

  If there is a brain working, and a desire for improvement then it will 
come. Age doesn't necessarily provide wisdom, but if the proper mental 
energy is exerted then one's awareness can broaden and therefore affect 
one's musical proficiency. Time on the horn is the physical preparation 
necessary to communicate what we've learned.

 David Gibson
 trombonist/educator
 www.jazzbone.org




 -----Original Message-----
 From: Samuel Jay Keyser <keyser at MIT.EDU>
 To: trombone-l at server5.samford.edu
 Sent: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 16:21:55 -0500
 Subject: [Trombone-l] Causal Player

  I would not describe myself as a "causal" player. I take my playing 
very seriously. The problem is that I have other lives and I am 
unwilling to rob Peter (research, reading and writing) to pay Paul, the 
trombone, even though he deserves it. I know what I need to do to get 
to the next level; put in the time. I have made a conscious decision 
not to. So....I practice one half hour a day, sometimes an hour, but 
mostly the former. I do get better in my own level, but, alas, I'm 
trapped there forever. We each make our own prisons. 
  
 Anyway, that's my bargain with the practice devil. 
  
 Jay 
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