troy was here

Way back in the days of my scholastic endeavors in music, I had a trombone teacher who gave me a book to practice out of.  I thought that was funny; practice.  Especially out of a book.  So I didn’t.  I showed him -ha.  For some strange reason I kept it though, and have sporadically worked my way through it.  Most of it was boring.  Some somewhat exciting.  The book is V. Cornette’s Method For Trombone.  It’s green, and seems to have been revised by Jerome N. Procter in 1936 …so it’s pretty current as far as trombone technique goes.  In the back of it are these things called ‘duets’.  I’d tell you exactly what a duet is except the Internets are abound with disgruntled interneters (in particular Wikipedia) protesting the SOPA and PIPA bills that are bearing down on our presumed-guilty-before-charged thieving little paws.  In a nutshell, the word duet comes from the word ‘Do’ and the other word ‘it’ …meaning you’re supposed to ‘do it’.  Get it?  Do it!  Right.  (pfft, who needs Wiki anyway).  As i was saying, I came across these ‘duets’ and figured what the heck, I may as well do it.  The only problem was there were two parts to it, and I couldn’t play them at the same time.  Bummer.  So I just played one.

I did this for a while and during one rare bout of freak practice I thought my ears detected something amiss in the melody.  Could that Eb actually be an E natural?  Hard to say.  I did however, surmise that the ‘other’ part may provide some clues …and so I played it as well.  Still hard to tell.  One part had an Eb and the other an E natural …was it supposed to sound like this?  Was music evil sounding even back in the 30′s?  Eventually I came to the realization that hearing both parts at the same time would provide me with the answer, but how to do that.  Should I find another trombone player?  Good luck with that I thought, the trombone went out of style in 1938 (right after the revision by Mr. Procter) and the odds of finding a player is remote.  Then a bolt of lightning.  Flash!  “Why don’t you record yourself playing one part and then play along with the recording while playing the other?“  Brilliant, I thought!  So I grabbed my trusty little cassette recorder and went about laying down a track, then playing along to it.  And voila …The Eb should indeed be an E natural.  Crisis resolved!

As an exciting aside, I did find playing with myself to be rather ….er, entertaining (ahem) so I decided to record the shenanigans on my computer and see if things can sound any better.  The result?  Nope.  Lol, same crap.  It did feel nice though, to play with myself (ahem again) so I went about switching up one horn (bone to trumpet) just to make it interesting, and decided that it was fun enough to share with my peeps.  That’s you btw.  You’re the peeps.  Don’t be insulted ;)  Keep in mind though, I never play the trumpet that much so by the end of the piece my chops were always crapping out and the pitch moving all over.  Ditto for the notes.  And the phrasing.  And the dynamics. Etc, etc, etc…  Oh, and the trombone -lol.  Excuses and non-caring aside, you have the wonderful piece of music before you titled – Six Concert Duets for Two Trombones by V. Cornette. Duo #1.  And, more importantly, that dreaded Eb has been fixed …and thanks to my sloppy playing you won’t even realize it anyway :)

If you’re keeping score, this one’s in the key of F.  F is for Fun.  And Fail.  And some other F-type words I’m sure.