Learn from All

You can learn from anyone and, actually, everything. It does depend on what you are willing and wanting to learn. Some people seem to know a lot about a lot of different things. I am not one of them! But in the areas I am interested in, I learn primarily from experience, observation and continuos effort. And I can see that what I learn in one area applies to many other areas as well.

With musicians, there oftentimes is a closed-mindedness that can come into play around musical development, thinking you can only learn from someone who plays your instrument or who plays in the stlye you want to emulate. Sometimes a person thinks they can only learn from "the great ones." This, in my mind, is biased learning and, therefore, is a huge hinderance to the learning process.

I can truly say I have learned something from all my students. Either mentally, emotionally, musically, ethically, socially, energetically and more. I also have learned a tremendous amount form other instrumentalists, singers, painters, dancers, poets, plumbers and everyone I can think of--including my amazing parrot!

Someone who teaches has an opportunity to really interact and work with another human being and watch all sorts of different ways people develop. How can each person be taught the same way when they don't learn the same way? In my mind, it is my responsibility to try to keep the integrity of the individual intact while trying to help them in their artistic process and growth.

Learn from all and your days will be very full and rich!

P.S. In the photo, my parrot, Atlantis, is giving me a lesson. I wonder if this is the way I look at my students sometimes? :-)

The Final Bow at Tanglewood

Well, that's that. My "official" final Boston Symphony Orchestra bow at Tanglewood. Curious, because it was at Tanglewood, in fact, that I first saw and heard the BSO live, exactly 40 years ago, with my dear father. A lot has happened in between these two events.

Yesterday was quite a scene. Four brass players, from each section of the brass, retired--myself and Ronald Barron from the low brass, Peter Chapman from the trumpets, and Danny Katzen from the horn section. That must be a BSO record, that many brass players leaving at one time. (Doug Yeo caught the bow photo on his cell phone.)

After the bows, there was a party and it was very touching to hear and feel the different sentiments from the people who are staying on about the people who are leaving, and from the "retirees" about their time spent in the orchestra. Lots of value and sentiment, with some quite unique styles in the manner in which those feelings where expressed!

Doug Yeo offered me a heartfelt tribute and a collection of very special serious gifts (including amazing handwritten historical manuscripts), practical gifts (including a gas card for an upcoming adventure I'll write about soon) and some humorous gifts (including Wallace and Gromit action figures, characters we both enjoy!). It was great!

Ron offered some thoughtful gifts too, including a live demonstration of one of the gifts he gave me, which Carol now calls the "Throw Bone." Ron took an old trombone he got, online or somewhere, out of its case and threw it, quite a long distance, out of the tent where we were having the party! I couldn't believe it! Here is a picture Carol took of me trying to play it after that happened. The slide wouldn't even move!

Then it was Ron's turn to be honored. Inspired by Ron's passionate and extensive research into Camille Saint-Saens (his relationship with the trombone and the BSO connection within that) and including the fact that Ron is in the process of writing a book about it, I was moved to 'help' his research by 'discovering' the animal Saint-Saens forgot to include in his "Carnival of the Animals." So, I gave Ron an unusual stuffed animal and wrote a piece for solo trombone, dedicated to Ron, called " The Forgotten Animal (The One Saint-Saens Forgot)." It's quite a humorous piece and has some 'hidden' quotes in it. It calls for extensive Harmon mute techniques and I know Ron will do it up GREAT.

Before I knew it, it was done. Farewell, BSO! Good luck to all the musicians and new trombone players. I was glad to have been a part of the orchestra, especially in the early years when my mentors were in it: Sherman Walt, Harold Wright, Chester Schmitz, Armando Ghitalla, Vic Firth and Charles Schlueter. What an honor!

I hope the BSO musicians will not let the wrapping paper of perfection distort the actual message and communication possibilities that I was so inspired by when I heard my mentors and the section I got to play with.

I want to include a special thanks to my wife, Carol, who over the past 19 years has been an incredible support and inspiration in a most profound way. I also have been fortunate to have had other family members, friends and teachers be supportive over the years. I consider myself very fortunate and am filled with gratitude.

Minnesota Encore! Three Generations Reunion

During my trip to Minnesota in February, Doug Wright and I talked about taking a picture with Ron Ricketts, the former long time second trombonist of the Minnesota Orchestra and my former teacher. Well, during this trip, it became a reality! Here's the photo!

It was great to see Mr. Ricketts again and it was an honor to play in his old seat, alongside my former student, Doug Wright. It was extra fun because we played Rimsky-Korsakov's Scherazade, which has a dramatic, fanfare-type solo for the second trombone. I was thinking not only of all the times I had played and recorded this with the Boston Symphony, but also that I was playing my former teacher's solo, in his old chair, in the hall he had played it in for many years.

I wonder if the person who gets my old job in the Boston Symphony will reflect on the fact that, for many years, I played the very parts he or she will be playing?

Minnesota Encore! Airport Warm Up

Last week I went to Minnesota again and had a terrific time playing in the orchestra, especially with Doug Wright, David Herring and tubist, Steven Campbell. The section sounds fantastic and I was happy to be a part of it.

The week was filled with interesting co-incidences, along with the more anticipated visits with family and friends. (Of course, I had a marvelous time with my wonderful siblings--sister Marcey and brother Neal, along with their spouses and my niece and two nephews.)

The week started off with my plane to Minneapolis being over three hours late in its departure. I decided to find a place in the airport to warm- up. This was a bit tricky since I did not have any practice mute with me. The good thing was that the airport was unusually quite that day. So, I found a spot and started to play. No one could really see me, but when the 'musak' stopped I think they could hear me.

People started to notice me and stayed around and listened to my warm-up. Parents brought their children over and i spontaneously started giving a mini youth concert. It was really fun! The airport staff really seemed to enjoy listening to me and said they preferred this to the piped-in music they were 'forced' to hear all day long.

Above is a photo of the window I was practicing near. I thought I would try to capture some of the experience on my cell phone camera and it surprisingly came out.

In the end, I got a good hour and a half practice session in and a few mini youth concerts. And I met a lot of very nice people that I would never have met if I did not decide to warm-up. People generally enjoy watching someone play music, even if it is a warm-up. They seem to get something from it, a bridge perhaps to communicate with another life. There are many kinds of concerts, stages and audiences. Some times they just appear....

Thirty-four Years Ago Today...

Thirty four years ago today I made my 'debut' with the Boston Pops.

Two weeks before this date, in 1974, Bill Shisler, who was a contractor for the Pops as well as one of the librarians, called me at my Brighton apartment. He introduced himself and said he would like to hire me to play first trombone in the Boston Pops for a couple of concerts. I said, "Great!" He then said the first concert, which would be in two weeks, has Ravel's "Bolero" on it. I said, "Great!"

The next day, I went over to Symphony Hall and picked up the music. There was Brahms' "Academic Overture," an English March, finale to Tchiakovsky's Fourth Symphony, then "Bolero." Plus many other pieces followed that.

Everyday until the concert date, I played through the entire concert (including counting the rests) twice. Since there was not going to be a rehearsal before the concert, I thought this was the best preparation strategy I could think of.

I actually spoke about this experience on my WGBH radio interview in November, which you can hear by going to the Audio/Video page under Resources on our website.

In reflecting on that day so many human years ago, I am thankful to the people who recommended me and gave me that opportunity. I was very young and they were taking a risk themselves to a degree by recommending me to go in 'cold' like that.

That is what I miss, not being in the symphony or Pops being able to give others a chance. That is something I feel honorable about, having given MANY people a chance to play in the orchestra. I wanted them to be able to get an education on the job, through actual experience. I only did this if I thought they were ready but did not care if they were undergrads. If I thought they were ready, I tried to give them the opportunity.

I would like to think that I give others the chance to better discover themselves through the process of developing their ART, not just trombone playing. This is the big challenge, to play your ART on the stage of life and feel and sense the resonance that comes back to you no matter what 'stage' you are on. I believe this resonance has the feedback you need to keep on growing, if you have the ears and, more importantly, the passion to take it in.

I learned a lot that night on that stage, thanks to all who made it possible.

What is the Point?

If you are asking this question on a regular basis, maybe you're feeling a sense of loosing the reason you began whatever it is in the first place.

Sometimes, when the challenges get tough, that question can arise. It can be very worthwhile to try to answer the question because a person can loose track of why they are doing something if it goes into automatic without any seeable results of a beneficial nature.

This is the importance of love and deep desire, or a profound sense of duty to assist, provide for, change, prevent or perhaps serve a higher purpose beyond one's own likes and dislikes.

The point is the reason, purpose or goal. If I am eating something that weakens my health, what is the point of doing that? But if, for someone, life seems hopeless and the person is fed up with it all, they might say, "What is the point of staying on this diet, it's all hopeless anyway."

Sometimes a situation can occur when a person is sick of doing something that has lost its appeal or reason for having started it in the first place or simply that the action actually isn't needed anymore. To ask, "What is the point?" is useful in order to relook at our actions and perhaps reevaluate what we are doing so we will not waste any more time doing something that burns up a lot of energy and is either harmful or just not useful or needed. In any case, the point is to see if change is needed and, if so, to identify the need for that change. This moves things out of stuck and back into a directional momentum.

It Felt Like an Old Shoe

It felt like an old shoe
The people knew me
The walls knew me
I knew all of them

I walked down the hallway
from the back door past the mail boxes
My arm lurched out
Just like it always had
But no mail or mail box.

I walked up those stairs
Just like I had done thousands of times
This time as a fill in

The concert hall was there in all its glory
It knew me and I knew it
I played and it played back

I went to the tuning room
where my first locker was
the room where all my old friends and colleagues
stood, laughed and warmed up.
The same room where the personal manager
came off the stage and said 32-1/2 years ago:
"Today the job goes to...Norman."

It felt like an old shoe
And then I realized why I needed new ones.