[Trombone-l] Cleveland Orch Trombone Article in newspaper

[Gabriel Langfur]

----- Original Message ----
From: Robert Holland publisher at briarmusic.com


Gabriel Langfur wrote:

> Charlie Vernon talks about concentrating 100% on the note you are 
> playing RIGHT NOW ... if you can do that, you can be successful in 
> music or any other endeavor. This is much more difficult than it 
> sounds.

This is much more stupid than it sounds. I'll go out on a limb and call 
it demagoguery (appropriate when coming from a pedagogue who teaches in 
terms of meaningless rhetoric, using phrases like "breathe from the 
bottom"). 

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I'l say up front I'm more than a little steamed at this response. I've been on this list posting intelligent things long enough to deserve more respect than this. 

First of all, you ellipse-ized my post in a way that WAY oversimplified what I was saying.

Secondly, the line between meaningless rhetoric and helpful visualization is not at all clear. One man's whatever is another man's...you know what I mean. 

Thirdly, until you can play as well as Charlie, you might think about what can be learned from what he says rather than dismissing it as demagoguery. Accurate or no, the way he thinks about playing the trombone has gotten him to an absolutely astounding level of ability, and dismissing what he says is your own loss. I would argue that NOBODY in the world matches his physical skills on the instrument. Not Christian Lindberg, not Joe Alesssi, not Bill Watrous or Wycliffe Gordon, fantastic as they all are. Whether or not you like what he does musically or how he goes about teaching and playing is an entirely separate question in my mind. 

I am a very different guy from Charlie, and I'm a very different bass trombone player. My body is different, the ways I think and use language are different. But I think I owe it to myself to keep my mind open to how he does it and what I can learn from him...because, as I said, NOBODY else that I know of has acheived his level of physical accomplishment on the instrument, and if I can figure out how to do half of it myself I'll be thrilled. A 2-hour lesson I took with Charlie a year and a half ago is still inspiring me and giving me material to work on, and I'm looking forward to his Northwestern masterclass this summer.

This is not hero worship - if I have a musical hero it's my teacher Ray Premru, who couldn't be more different a man or musician or bass trombone player than Charlie. I also studied with Norman Bolter, who also has an astounding level of physical ability on the trombone that he achieves in an entirely different way, and I've tried to learn as much as I can from him as well. 

I'm all for critical thinking, and not accepting popular value judgements at face value. But I think you also have to take a minute to go beyond the surface of something you might disagree with initially, if it comes from a source that's worth listening to.

Enough for today.

Gabe