 |  | I think we made history with the first ever on-line Trombone seminar.
Planning the next seminar now. Let me know if you are interested....
| 2/5/2012 7:36:23 PM - This is so cool! We had people from thousands of miles apart together listening to each other. This is the great thing about the masterclass situation because we can learn a lot from listening to other people, especially those on the same or similar level and listen to the feedback, which I always try to keep positive.
By grouping several people together, not only do we all meet new people but we can keep the price quite reasonable for each individual.
There were three Participants in the first on-line seminar. One from the west coast, one from the east coast and one from Slovenia in Europe. Actually two were participating and the third, Kevin, in Eugene Oregon was observing.
Once we all got on-line together we introduced ourselves, a short commentary by me followed by a short solo piece.
Then Matt from West Virginia University in Morgantown played "There Will Never be Another You" followed by some feedback. With Matt we mostly talked about constructing a good solo and focusing on the compositional aspects of the solo. We also talked about the importance of transcriptions and how to make the most of them as well as actually sitting down and composing the perfect solo.
I'm not about criticizing as much as helping the player look at what could be beneficial to focus on next. We all have aspects of our playing that are more advanced or more secure than the other aspects so what I try to do is pin-point the aspects that need some attention.
I talked about the importance of the Melody when playing a jazz tune. Sometimes we forget that the melody is the song in which we are improvising. It's easy to miss the melody through the chord changes.
Next up was Matija from Slovenia. In case you don't know Slovenia is south of Austria and East of the top of Italy. It's the furthest north country of what used to be Yugoslavia. Matija played Take the A Train. Both Matt and Matija are quite good trombone players, so we could focus on the music. Of course, if I would have observed any issues with trombone playing I would have went right to that, but since they both were playing with a good tone, intonation, time etc,. we didn't need to talk about the trombone much. Matija was interested in doodle tonguing, which we discussed a little but the 90 minutes flew by quickly. Here the discussion continued with the Melody and staying focused on the melody right through to the end of each phrase. We're taught to look ahead to see what's coming when we're reading music, which we need to do, but not at the expense of the phrase that we are currently in the middle of. I talked about shaping the phrases. Then we went on to talk more about the compositional aspects of improvisation with a look this time on using the upper structures more.
All along I was getting positive and interesting feedback by text message from Kevin who was observing.
As I said, the 90 minutes flew by and it went great!
Here are a few of comments:
"Thanks so much for motivating me to get onto skype for the trombone seminar.
That is a really good format. Students get to hear how other students are
thinking about their playing and how they are tackling a piece of music. I
hope the other guys enjoyed it as much as I did. I took a lot of notes to
pass along to my son. I wish he could have been here." Kevin Eugene, Oregon
"I don't know why this hasn't been done before! I had the opportunity
to have a world renown trombonist listen to, evaluate, critique, and offer ideas about how to improve my playing, in a master class setting-in my living room. Living in such a rural area as myself, it is normally a challenge to attend venues like this in person, especially with the level of instruction offered by Ed. Would absolutely do this again, and would suggest it to anyone else." Matt Morgantown, West Virginia
"I found out about the masterclass on Facebook, through one of your students. After watching some of your videos on youtube, attending the seminar seemed like a good idea. ;) The seminar was very cool for me. It was actually quite nice, that there was just a few of us, so you could make more individual suggestions.
I was also excited just by the idea, that this will be an online seminar, which was the first time for me. I think this is a great idea!" Matija, Slovenia
Another Quote:
"If I had to do it all over again, I'd take Ed Neumeister's advice on practicing and focusing and musicianship. Do yourself the greatest favor you'll ever do and check our 'Ed Neumeister trombone videos' on YouTube. It'll set you on the correct path...... million dollar life and trombone lessons he's given us...... practice the way he suggests, and you'll improve even quicker than you could have imagined...... guaranteed!
Ed's thing is that we have to make music. A lot of the technical stuff will work itself out through focusing on the music. I really believe in what he says, and it took me 20 odd years to realize that his way works for me, and I'm seeing some students work on his ideas, really getting to create music on the horn, and they're really turning a corner...... they're becoming musicians!....... that's what it's all about!....... that's gratifying...... thank Ed Neumeister for taking a risk and putting his ideas out there in our pretty conservative trombone world." Cam, Trombone Forum
Peace!
Ed
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