[Trombone-l] Cleveland Orch Trombone Article in newspaper

[Paul Kemp]

I've never had a lesson from Charlie, but I use his book an awful lot
with my students and also with my self, and if you really concentrate on
what he's saying, you will become a much better player. Gabe, you have
every right to be steamed. As a matter of fact, I've been following
Charlie's career since January 1979. That's 26 1/2 years, and I've heard
him play live 3 times, and every time I've heard him, he sounds better
and better. At the ITA workshop in Nashville in 2001, I purposefully sat
in that back of the auditorium with Buddy Baker. Charlie was playing
Gary Greenhoe's double have tenor on the Jim Pugh Concerto and his
Thayerized Bach 50B when he played bass. What I heard was literally
extraordinary. This is my own opinion, but Charlie sounds better to me
on tenor than he does on bass, but he's still amazing on bass trombone
as well. The stuff that he practices is enough to really make anyone
really sweat. It truly takes guts to practice the stuff that he does day
in and day out. He works very hard at what he does to make it sound very
easy. To me he's not only a magnificent trombone player and musician,
but he also understands the pitfalls of the music business very well
also. He's not one to take any stuff that doesn't command the highest
level of professionalism. Incidentally, Charlie Vernon is one fellow
that scares Bill Watrous to death. I've actually heard him say that. And
Charlie has the highest admiration for Bill Watrous as well. I've really
been wondering why there isn't more of that kind of a mutual admiration
society between players. Are we really that petty that we have to be
jealous? It's very easy to be jealous of people that put in the time and
effort to be at the top of the profession. That's true of all
professions, not just music. 

Paul Kemp     

-----Original Message-----
From: trombone-l-bounces at maillists.samford.edu
[mailto:trombone-l-bounces at maillists.samford.edu] On Behalf Of Gabriel
Langfur
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 8:42 PM
To: Trb. List
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Cleveland Orch Trombone Article in newspaper

----- 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"). 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

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
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